“Gone to sleep that last long sleep,
    From which none ever wake to weep.”

Now we are an army on the march of life.  Then we shall be an army bivouacked in the tent of the grave.

IV.  Once more:  I want you to look at Vashti the silent.  You do not hear any outcry from this woman as she goes forth from the palace gate.  From the very dignity of her nature, you know there will be no vociferation.  Sometimes in life it is necessary to make a retort; sometimes in life it is necessary to resist; but there are crises when the most triumphant thing to do is to keep silence.  The philosopher, confident in his newly discovered principle, waited for the coming of more intelligent generations, willing that men should laugh at the lightning-rod and cotton-gin and steam-boat—­waiting for long years through the scoffing of philosophical schools, in grand and magnificent silence.

Galileo, condemned by mathematicians and monks and cardinals, caricatured everywhere, yet waiting and watching with his telescope to see the coming up of stellar reenforcements, when the stars in their courses would fight for the Copernican system; then sitting down in complete blindness and deafness to wait for the coming on of the generations who would build his monument and bow at his grave.  The reformer, execrated by his contemporaries, fastened in a pillory, the slow fires of public contempt burning under him, ground under the cylinders of the printing-press, yet calmly waiting for the day when purity of soul and heroism of character will get the sanction of earth and the plaudits of heaven.

Affliction enduring without any complaint the sharpness of the pang, and the violence of the storm, and the heft of the chain, and the darkness of the night—­waiting until a Divine hand shall be put forth to soothe the pang, and hush the storm, and release the captive.  A wife abused, persecuted, and a perpetual exile from every earthly comfort—­waiting, waiting, until the Lord shall gather up His dear children in a heavenly home, and no poor Vashti will ever be thrust out from the palace gate.

Jesus, in silence and answering not a word, drinking the gall, bearing the cross, in prospect of the rapturous consummation when

    “Angels thronged their chariot wheel,
      And bore Him to His throne,
    Then swept their golden harps and sung,
      ‘The glorious work is done!’”

Oh, woman! does not this story of Vashti the queen, Vashti the veiled, Vashti the sacrifice, Vashti the silent, move your soul?  My sermon converges into the one absorbing hope that none of you may be shut out of the palace gate of heaven.  You can endure the hardships, and the privations, and the cruelties, and the misfortunes of this life if you can only gain admission there.  Through the blood of the everlasting covenant you go through those gates, or never go at all.  God forbid that you should at last be banished from the society of angels, and banished from the companionship of your glorified kindred, and banished forever.  Through the rich grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, may you be enabled to imitate the example of Rachel, and Hannah, and Abigail, and Deborah, and Mary, and Esther, and Vashti.