Everybody Touches Somebody Series

Harriet Beecher Stowe was a preacher's daughter who was born

in 1811. She certainly didn't look like she would ever amount to

much. She was shy and had a large nose and a hunched back. She

considered herself to be quite homely. Calvin Stowe, professor of

Biblical Lit. in Lane Theological Seminary in Cincinnati, saw beauty

in her, however, and asked her to marry him. He was not exactly

prince charming himself with his balding head and problem of

overweight and nearsightedness.

It was never a very smooth marriage, for they both had such bad

self-images. Calvin had such fits of self-contempt that he got sick in

order to escape duties. The result was he never made enough money

to support his wife and seven children. Harriet had to work to

support the family. She wrote articles and short stories. She so

dispised slavery and all it did to degrade people, and she longed to

use her gift of writing to fight it, but it seemed so hopeless. She was

a nobody living in a day of great male writers, all of whom also

hated slavery, but avoided writing about it. Longfellow, Hawthorn,

Emerson, Melville, Thorew and Whittier were just some of the great

names of her day.

Harriets sister kept insisting she should write to show the whole

nation what an accursed thing slavery was. One Sunday as she sat

in church during a communion service the plot of her book formed

in her mind. It is hard to doubt that it was a God-given plot, for her

book called Uncle Tom's Cabin took the world by storm. It sold

300,000 copies in America, and 1,000,000 in England the very first

year. It was translated into 36 languages. The impact of her book

was so great it is considered one of the most influential books in the

history of America. Abraham Lincoln's response when he met her

was, "So this is the little lady who made this big war."

Here was a woman who changed the course of history. She was

not a beautiful woman like Esther. Her power was still the power of

beauty, however, for it was the literary beauty of her book that

moved people to action. Beauty has many different forms. It may

be artistic, literary, intellectual, or physical, but the point is, God's

providence in history always works through one form of beauty or

another. That is why the apostle Paul writes to Christians in Gal.

6:9, "Let us not grow weary in well-doing, for in due season we shall

reap, if we do not lose heart." The Greek word for well is the word

for beautiful. Paul is saying do not grow weary in beautiful doing or

beautiful action. Acting beautifully is the key to your reward and

the reaping of a harvest. It is not just being beautiful, but beautiful

actions that become a part of God's providence in history.

The book of Esther is full of the beauty of doing as well as the

beauty of being. Esther's beauty of being depended upon the beauty

of doing to accomplish God's purpose. We see from this that all of

us can be part of God's providence. The beauty of being may be

limited to the few, but the beauty of doing is open to all.

Everyone of us can do beautiful things that aid the fulfillment of

God's plan. The book of Esther reveals that God's providence is

always working with a balance of male and female input. Men are

constantly being influenced by women, and women by men. In our

text we are looking at the key men in the life of Esther. We want to

focus on the least of these three men in order to see how the

influence of even the least can be great.

Hegai is certainly one of the least known characters of the Bible.

I have never even heard of him being used in a Bible quiz. Rare

would be the person who knew of Hegai, the keeper of Xerxes

harem. He was eunuch, which means he was incapable of sexual

function. His purpose in life was to see that the women in the harem

were always in the best condition for the pleasure of Xerxes. It

would be easy to past by Hegai without mention, and leave him in

the limbo of neglect, but a careful reading of chapter 2 reveals that

he was key link in the chain of events that led to the salvation of the

Jews.

Verse 9 reveals how he took a special liking to Esther, and

quickly got her started on the beauty aids and proper diet. He

became her coach, as it were, to win and event over emorous

competition. We see here the beauty of friendship. This was not a