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and to take the spoil of them for a prey. The copy of the writing 

 was published in every province, unto ajl people, that they might 

 be ready against that day; the posts went out, being hastened 

 by the king's commandment; and the decree was given in Shu- 

 shan the palace, in the name of Ahasuerus was it written, and 

 sealed with the king's ring; and the king and Hainan sat down 

 to drink, but the city of Shushan was perplexed. And in every 

 province, whithersoever the king's commandment and his decree 

 came, there was great mourning among the Jews, and fasting, 

 and weeping, and wailing ; and many lay in sackcloth and ashes." 

 The prolongation of this story is foreign to my purpose. Un- 

 der the controlling power of Providence, Hainan passed the 

 favourable decree on Mordecai, which he thought could be only 

 intended for himself, as the man whom the kino; deliohted to 

 honour : "let the royal apparel be brought which the king useth 

 to wear, and the horse that the king rideth upon, and the crown 

 royal which is set upon his head; and let this apparel and horse 

 be delivered to the hand of one of the king's most noble princes, 

 that they may array the man withal whom the king delighleth to 

 honour, and bring him on horseback through the street of the 

 city, and proclaim before him, Thus shall it be done unto the man 

 whom the king delighteth to honour. Then the king said to Ha- 

 inan, make haste, and take the apparel, and the horse, as thou 

 hast said, and do even so to Mordecai the Jew, that sitteth at 

 the king's gate. Let nothing fail of all that thou hast spoken. 

 When Esther the queen informed Ahasuerus of Hainan's wicked- 

 ness, while he was sitting at the second royal banquet, the king 

 arose in wrath, and went into the palace-garden; and Hainan 



