The cry of the wretched.
"Then called Esther for Hatach,… and gave him a command to Mordecai, to know what it was, and why it was." Esther hears of Mordecai's grief from her maids and chamberlains. She sends raiment first. She then sends Hatach to ask Mordecai "what his grief is, and why it is." She is much troubled when she learns the real state of danger in which he and herself are placed. She does not seem to have thought so much about her people as about her uncle, who had been unto her as a father.
I. THOSE LIVING IN LUXURY AND EASE, AWAY FROM THE SIGHT OF THE TROUBLES OF THE POOR, OFTEN DO NOT FEEL ANXIOUS FOR THEIR WELFARE. This is the tendency of all luxurious life, that we measure the position of others by our own; or we think not of others as having such fine feelings. We believe it is one of the great evils of the present day that the struggle to attain and maintain what is called refined life and position, society, is crushing out the sympathy once felt for those on the lower levels. An indifferentism to their claims springs up in proportion to the anxiety to gratify personal selfishness.
II. THERE ARE MANY MORDECAIS IN EVERY CITY WEARING THE SACKCLOTH OF POVERTY, AND BEARING THE ASHES OF SORROW, WHO HAVE A STRONG CLAIM ON THE SYMPATHY OF CHRISTIANS. They want something more than mere doled-out crumbs of charity; they need a heartfelt sympathy, and real help. This is what Christ gave them on earth. He, the most intellectual, refined, and sinless Being that ever lived, bent to the lowliest, strengthened the weakest, bore with the frailest, came into closest contact with disease and sin, so that it seemed that he "himself took our infirmities," and became "sin for us." His whole life was a going out of self and living for others.—H.