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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Notable Women of Olden Time, by Anonymous
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Notable Women of Olden Time
+
+Author: Anonymous
+
+Release Date: May 5, 2006 [EBook #18316]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NOTABLE WOMEN OF OLDEN TIME ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Joshua Hutchinson, Sigal Alon and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+NOTABLE WOMEN
+
+OF
+
+OLDEN TIME.
+
+
+WRITTEN FOR THE AMERICAN SUNDAY-SCHOOL UNION.
+
+
+PHILADELPHIA:
+AMERICAN SUNDAY-SCHOOL UNION,
+1122 CHESTNUT STREET.
+
+
+
+
+_Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1852, by the
+AMERICAN SUNDAY-SCHOOL UNION,
+in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Eastern District
+of Pennsylvania._
+
+_No books are published by the AMERICAN SUNDAY-SCHOOL UNION without the
+sanction of the Committee of Publication, consisting of fourteen
+members, from the following denominations of Christians, viz. Baptist,
+Methodist, Congregationalist, Episcopal, Presbyterian, Lutheran, and
+Reformed Dutch. Not more than three of the members can be of the same
+denomination, and no book can be published to which any member of the
+Committee shall object._
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+                                               PAGES
+
+THE WIFE--(SARAH)                                  7
+
+THE WIFE UNLOVED--(HAGAR)                         35
+
+THE PARTIAL AND INTRIGUING MOTHER--(REBEKAH)      63
+
+THE RIVAL SISTERS--(LEAH AND RACHEL)              89
+
+THE AFFECTIONATE SISTER--(MIRIAM)                119
+
+THE PROPHETESS--(DEBORAH)                        171
+
+THE ARTFUL WOMAN--(JEZEBEL)                      187
+
+THE AMBITIOUS WOMAN--(ATHALIAH)                  205
+
+THE ORPHAN QUEEN--(ESTHER)                       231
+
+
+
+
+THE WIFE--SARAH.
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Within a few centuries after the flood, while some who had witnessed the
+sin and the destruction of the antediluvian world were still living,
+Jehovah saw fit, in accordance with his designs of eternal wisdom, to
+separate Abraham from his brethren, calling upon him to leave the land
+of his birth and go out into a strange land, to dwell in a far country.
+He was to pass the rest of his days as a sojourner in a land which
+should be thereafter given to a people yet unborn,--to a nation which
+was to descend from him.
+
+Abraham was a lineal descendant of Shem, who was doubtless still living
+while "the father of Abraham yet abode with his kindred in the land of
+the Chaldees;" and from the lips of his venerable progenitor, Abraham
+himself may have first received the knowledge of the true God, and have
+learned lessons of wisdom and obedience, as he sat at his feet. Shem may
+have conversed with Methuselah; and Methuselah must have known Adam; and
+from Adam, Methuselah may have heard that history of the creation and
+fall, which he narrated to Shem, and which Shem may have transmitted to
+Abraham; and the history of the world would be thus remembered as the
+traditional recollections of a family, and repeated as the familiar
+remembrances of a single household.
+
+Tales of the loveliness of Eden,--of the glories of the creation,--of
+the blessedness of the primeval state,--of the days before the fall;
+remembrances of the "mother of all living" in the days of her holiness,
+when she was as beautiful as the world created for her home, in all the
+dewy sweetness of the morning of its existence,--of the wisdom of man
+before he yielded to the voice of temptation, when authority was
+enthroned upon his brow, and all the tribes of the lower creation did
+him homage;--of the good spirits who watched over to minister unto and
+bless them;--of those dark, unholy and accursed ones, who came to tempt,
+betray and destroy them,--were recounted as events of which those who
+described them had been the witnesses. And from the remembrances thus
+preserved and transmitted by tradition, each generation obscuring or
+exaggerating them, have descended what we call fables of
+antiquity,--great facts, now dimly remembered and darkly presented, as
+shadowed over by the mists of long ages.
+
+How must the hearts of the descendants of Shem have thrilled as they
+heard from him the history of by-gone times--of a world which had passed
+away! How much had the great patriarch of his race, himself, beheld? He
+had seen the glory and the beauty of the world before the flood. It was
+cursed for the sin of man, in the day of his fall--but slowly, as we
+measure time, do the woes denounced by God often take effect, and,
+though excluded from Eden, the first pair may have seen little change
+pass over the face of the earth. The consummation of this curse may have
+been the deluge; and those who dwelt on the earth, before this calamity
+swept it with its destroying wing, may have seen it in much of its
+original beauty; while those who outlived that event witnessed a
+wonderful change.
+
+From that frail fabric, the ark, which proved the second cradle of the
+race, Shem had beheld a world submerged,--a race swept off by the floods
+of Almighty wrath. He had heard the shrieks of the drowning, the vain
+prayer of those who had scoffed the threatened vengeance, the fruitless
+appeal of those who had long rejected mercy. As the waves bore up his
+frail vessel, he had seen the black and sullen waters settle over
+temples, cities and palaces; and he had gazed until he could behold but
+one dark expanse of water, in whose turbid depths were buried all the
+families of the earth--save one.
+
+Those he had loved and honoured, and much which, perhaps, he had envied
+and coveted--the pride, the glory, the beauty of earth--all had passed
+away. And after the waters subsided, and the ark had found a
+resting-place, what a deep and sad solemnity must have mingled with the
+joy for their preservation.
+
+How strange the aspect the world presented! How must the survivors have
+recalled past scenes and faces, to be seen no more! How much they must
+have longed to recognise old familiar places,--the Eden of Adam and
+Eve,--the graves in which they had been laid! For doubtless Seth and his
+descendants still remained with their first parents, while Cain went out
+from their presence and built a city in some place remote. The earth
+which Noah and his descendants repeopled was one vast grave; and what
+wonder that those who built above a race entombed, should mingle fancy
+with tradition, and imagine that the buried cities and habitations were
+yet inhabited by the accursed and unholy. Such have been the fancies of
+those who darkly remembered the flood; and as the wind swept through the
+caverns of the earth, the superstitious might still imagine that they
+heard the voices or the shrieks of the spirits imprisoned within.
+
+Shem seems to have far exceeded his brothers in true piety, and the
+knowledge of Jehovah was for many generations preserved among his
+descendants, while few or none of them ever sank into those deep
+superstitions which debased the children of Ham. And it is beautiful to
+remark, that the filial piety which so pre-eminently marked him has ever
+been a prominent trait among all nations descended from him. Thus
+receiving his impressions of the power, the truth, the awful justice of
+Jehovah, from one well fitted to convey them,--and taught the certain
+fulfilment of promises and of threats,--Abraham was early inspired with
+that deep reverential and yet filial love, that entire confidence,
+which led to the trusting obedience which distinguished his character.
+
+Yet, from his very piety, sad must it have been when the command came to
+leave the plains of Mesopotamia, and go out a stranger and a pilgrim
+into distant lands, to become a dweller among those who were fast
+apostatizing from the true faith. "But by faith he obeyed," and by his
+obedience he has given us an example and illustration of faith, which
+has been held forth through all succeeding ages. To be the child of
+Abraham, to walk as he walked, is, after the lapse of thousands of
+years, the characteristic of the true worshipper of God.
+
+Guided by an Omniscient hand, trusting in an Almighty power, cheered by
+that mysterious promise, which, as a star of hope shining in the hour of
+deepest darkness, still rose to higher brightness as it guided the long
+line of patriarchs, kings, and prophets, until it settled over the
+manger of Bethlehem, and was lost in the full glory of the Sun of
+righteousness,--Abraham girded his loins and prepared for a departure to
+far distant lands.
+
+At first, attended by his father and brother, he sojourned with them in
+Haran; and the family pitched their tents in that spot which was to
+become in future ages the battle-ground of nations, when the proud eagle
+of imperial Rome was trailed in the dust, and her warriors and her
+nobles fell before their fiercer foes. Long ages have intervened since
+the tents of this Syrian family were pitched by the side of the waters
+of Charan; and midway between their days and ours, were these waters
+discoloured with the blood of those who fell in the battle of Charae, so
+disastrous to Rome, ever haughty, and then exulting in the height of her
+prosperity. A few wandering shepherds now lead their flocks in the plain
+in which Sarah and Abraham dwelt, and where Cassius and his legions
+fell. But a short sojourn was permitted Abraham here. "Arise and depart,
+for this is not your rest"--and again he listened to the command from
+above, and gathered his flocks and servants, and girded his loins, and
+set his face towards the land promised to him, and to his seed after
+him. And now he left his father and his brethren, and went with his own
+family, the head of his house, the future patriarch of his race.
+
+Yet he was not alone. The wife of his youth was by his side. In all his
+wanderings, in all his cares, there was one with him to participate in
+his joys and to alleviate his sorrows. With him and for him, his wife
+forsook home, kindred and country. We doubt not that she too shared the
+faith of Abraham; that she too trusted and loved and worshipped the God
+of Abraham, and of Shem, and of Noah. Like Abraham, a descendant of
+Shem,--like him too, she had been trained in the worship of Jehovah. Yet
+to the faith of the true believer, there was added the strong affection
+of the wife; and while Abraham went out obeying God, Sarah followed,
+trusting God indeed, but leaning still upon her husband. In all her
+future life, she is presented to us the wife; devoted, affectionate,
+submissive; loving her husband with a true affection, and honouring him
+by a due deference.
+
+With a beauty that fascinated kings, preserving the charms of youth to
+the advanced period of her life, she still lived but for her husband;
+and when even the faith of Abraham failed, and he withdrew from the wife
+the protection of the husband, and said, "She is my sister," Sarah
+appears to have acquiesced in a deceit so unworthy of her husband and of
+herself, merely to insure his safety among the lawless tribes around
+them.
+
+As we read the story of Abraham's wife, we catch glimpses of ages and
+nations that were hoar with antiquity, and had passed away when our
+ancient historians began the record of the past. Nation after nation had
+perished and been forgotten before the profane historian began his
+annals. Yet childless, still trusting in the promise of Jehovah, Abraham
+wandered for many years through the land which was to be given to him,
+and his seed after him. Now pitching his tent in Moreh; then building
+his altar at Bethel; then driven by famine into Egypt; then returning to
+his altar at Bethel,--and there separating from his nephew Lot, because
+"the land could not bear" both, he fixes his abode in Hebron.
+
+No pictures of pastoral life are more beautiful than those presented in
+Genesis; and while we contemplate the character of Abraham, we catch
+occasional glimpses of his household, and of the manners of his age. We
+see him exercising forbearance and relinquishing the rights of a
+superior, that there might be no strife between him and his too worldly
+relative. We see him leading out his own band as a prince, to rescue
+that same relative,--who, tempted by the promise of large wealth, had
+chosen a location full of dangers,--and, in the hour of victory,
+refusing all spoil and showing all honour to the priest of the most high
+God.
+
+Again he is before us, sitting in his tent in the heat of the day, and
+hastening to receive strangers,--"thus entertaining angels
+unawares,"--and then interceding for that city doomed to destruction for
+the wickedness of the dwellers therein.
+
+And again he appears as the prince, the patriarch, the head of his own
+family, and high in honour with those around him, ever observing all the
+decorum and proprieties of oriental life. We see him, too, as one who
+walked with God; as the priest of his household, presenting the morning
+and the evening sacrifice; as holding high communion with God in the
+hours of darkness; entering into that covenant which is still pleaded by
+those who claim the promise, "I will be a God to thee, and to thy seed
+after thee."
+
+This promise of a seed, from which was to spring a great nation, "like
+to the stars of heaven in number," was frequently repeated, yet still
+deferred. Youth, manhood, middle age, all had passed, and still no child
+blest the tents of Sarah; and while Abraham still believed, and it "was
+accounted to him for righteousness," Sarah seems to have felt that not
+upon her was to be conferred the distinction of becoming the mother of
+the promised seed. With the warm impulse of the woman, she sacrificed
+the feelings of the wife and the instincts of the heart, to promote
+what she doubtless believed to be the plan of God and the happiness of
+Abraham. There is a deficiency of faith as much to be manifested in the
+forestalling the plans of Providence as in the denial of the promises of
+God: and while Abraham still trusted and waited the fulfilment of the
+promise, Sarah sought, by her own device, to accomplish prophecy and
+insure the blessing.
+
+In accordance with the usages of those around her, she gave her handmaid
+to her husband to be his wife, "that their children might bless her
+age." She doubtless felt herself strong enough in love to Abraham and to
+Hagar to believe that her affection would embrace their children. But
+when the trial came, and all the instincts of the heart, all the
+feelings of the wife revolted, she proved that this violation of a
+heaven-appointed institution brings only sorrow and strife. Yet there
+was no alienation between Sarah and Abraham. The wife of his youth was
+ever dearer to him than the mother of his child.
+
+At length, however, the promise was fulfilled. Sarah became a mother.
+Many years had passed since she had left the home of her fathers. The
+days of man were now much abridged, and she was fast approaching the
+ordinary limit of human life; but we may suppose her cheek was still
+fair and her brow smooth, and that she still retained much of the beauty
+of youth.
+
+With a wondering joy, Sarah gazed upon the child so long desired--the
+child in whose seed "all the nations of the earth" were to be "blessed."
+And she said, "God hath made me to laugh, so that all who hear shall
+laugh;" and while those that heard that Sarah "had borne Abraham a son
+in his old age," wondered at an event so strange, Abraham must have
+pondered the prophecy which had revealed to him the destiny of his
+race,--perhaps foreseeing that Star which was to rise in a still distant
+age, and apprehending, however dimly and faintly, something of the
+mysterious connection between the birth of the child and the promise
+given in the hour of the curse--the blending of the fate of his race
+with the eternal plan of mercy and redemption.
+
+There is an instinct in our natures which leads us to rejoice at a
+birth; but, could Sarah have foreseen the destiny of her race, tears
+would have mingled with her smiles. Wonderful has been the past history
+of that people, strange their present condition, while the future may
+develop mysteries still more incomprehensible.
+
+In the hour of rejoicing over the new-born babe, past transgression
+brought forth its legitimate fruits. Sullenness and strife were
+brooding in the bosoms of the Egyptian bond-woman and her son; and the
+quiet eye of the mother saw all the danger arising from the jealous hate
+and rivalry of the first-born of Abraham.
+
+If the decision was stern, it was needful. "Cast out the bond-woman and
+her child, for her son shall not be heir with my son, even with Isaac."
+Harsh words,--but it is better to dwell peacefully asunder, than
+together in strife and bitterness. The malignant passions which led
+Ishmael to mock, might soon be stimulated by the mother to
+murder,--chafed and irritated as she was by the constant presence of the
+child who had supplanted her own. From the time of the departure of
+Hagar from the household of Abraham, peace seems to have rested upon it.
+Prosperity attended him. He no longer wandered from place to place. He
+remained in Hebron, sojourning with Sarah and her child.
+
+Many years passed,--years of peaceful quiet and happiness seldom
+allotted to such an age,--while they trained their child in the nurture
+of the true God, and were honoured by the princes around him, who sought
+to enter into league with him, for they saw that "God blessed him in all
+that he did."
+
+Once again God saw fit to test the faith of Abraham by calling upon him
+to offer his son--his only son Isaac, whom he loved--as a sacrifice; and
+Abraham obeyed the divine command, and thus doing, uttered that prophecy
+which has thrilled so many souls, "God will himself provide a
+sacrifice." In this trial, Sarah seems not to have been called to
+participate. The mother was spared the agony of feeling that her only
+child was to be offered as a sacrifice--that the hope of her life was to
+perish.
+
+"Sarah was an hundred and twenty years old, and she died." The dark
+shadow of death is, sooner or later, to fall upon each household.
+Abraham seems to have been at a distance--perhaps in the charge of some
+of his numerous flocks--when he was recalled to Hebron by news of
+Sarah's death. And he came to mourn over her. The remembrance of her
+maiden beauty and modesty, the grateful recollection of all her conjugal
+devotedness, filled his soul. If light and immortality were brought to
+light in the gospel, still the divine rays were faintly reflected in the
+former dispensation, and the eye of faith even then penetrated the thick
+darkness of the grave.
+
+And now, after these long years of promise and waiting, Abraham takes
+possession of the land which God had given to him and to his seed. He
+asks, however, but a small portion,--a tomb, a place for his dead,--and
+a more beautiful description of a scene of mutual deference, of regard
+for rights and respect for character and position, was never penned
+than that which records the negotiation between the bereaved patriarch
+and the children of Heth. With the touch of magic, the whole scene is
+before us. The bereaved patriarch, courteous in grief, bowing in the
+presence of the sons of Heth,--the deep respect, the kindly sympathy,
+manifested by those who, strangers to his religion, felt the claims of
+his character,--mingled with that deep awe which the visitation of death
+ever inspires.
+
+The last scene was now over, and Sarah has first taken possession of
+that home to which she was to be followed by her husband and their
+descendants. One by one they take their places by her side,--unwelcomed,
+unquestioned,--
+
+    "Where none have saluted and none have replied,"--
+
+and yet where all are gathered at last. We see her not as a sister or a
+daughter. She is not known to us in the house of her father. Sarah is
+only presented to us as the wife of Abraham. And as a wife the apostle
+has held her up to her own sex as a model and example. "Even as Sarah
+obeyed her husband, calling him lord,"--exclaims the apostle, exhorting
+the wife to due deference. The deep, fervent affection of the heart led
+to that outward manifestation of honour so beautiful and becoming; and
+as the only love which can be enduring is that which is founded on
+respect, so it is the highest happiness of the wife to be able truly to
+honour him whom she is bound to love and obey.
+
+When the heads of a household are thus united in warm affection and
+mutual respect, the influence will pervade the whole circle, and the
+family of Abraham presented a beautiful picture of such a household. The
+numerous members composing a large family were governed by one who
+provided for their sustenance, led them forth for the defence of
+rights, or the redress of injuries, or the rescue of the captive; and
+who officiated as the priest as well as ruler of his household. In such
+a community, the character of the head would be impressed upon the whole
+people; and it was with obvious meaning that Jehovah exclaimed, "I know
+him that he will command his household after him." It was by example
+that admonition was made availing. And the wife was ever ready, with her
+ardent and trusting love, to aid and co-operate. Hastening, when he
+welcomed the stranger, to prepare the feast, she was ever ready to
+receive his guests and add her efforts to his hospitality.
+
+Hatred, strife, and mutual alienation so often cloud over the unison of
+wedded life, and cause its sun to set in darkness, that few spectacles
+can be presented more beautiful or more delightful than the old age of
+wedded life, soothed by true affection and mutual kindness. It is more
+touching than the glow of youthful passion. It proclaims the presence of
+high moral worth. It is never found in the habitations of the unholy.
+The love which thus survives the glow of youth, which bears the storms
+and the trials of life, must be founded on truth, on unimpassioned
+esteem, on approved integrity; and those alone who love God supremely,
+love each other unselfishly.
+
+While Sarah honoured her husband, she too was treated with proper
+deference. Her counsels were ever heeded, her voice had its due
+influence, and he still deferred to her wishes. It is beautiful to note
+the increasing estimation in which she is held. Sarai, "the mistress,"
+betokened her station as the head of a household; and as years brought
+honours, and an enlarged sphere of duty, and a more elevated position
+among the people around them, Sarai was changed into Sarah--_my lady_.
+Her husband, in addressing the former Sarai as Sarah, "my lady,"
+gracefully returned the honour she bestowed when she called him "lord."
+By such manifestation of mutual respect and love, the chain of family
+affection is kept bright.
+
+As the household of Abraham was the household of faith, ordained as the
+model for all ages, it is well to analyze the elements which composed
+it, and to trace their combined influence. There was the conjugal union
+of the true worshippers of Jehovah, animated by the same hopes, governed
+by the same principles, whose hearts were united in the strong bonds of
+natural affection. There was the confiding, unfailing affection, the
+deep, reverential respect, and due obedience of the wife. There was the
+tender love, protecting care, the unwavering faith, the honourable
+deference of the husband. The religion of this household was the
+religion of faith and of obedience,--a religion which led them to
+forsake all at the command of God, which taught them to rely upon his
+promises, to fear his threatenings, to plead his grace, to trust his
+mercy, while it was a religion which led to a due observance of all the
+relative duties of life, which taught the exercise of that impartial
+justice, careful benevolence, disinterested kindness, and ready
+hospitality to those without the family; and of steady love, of
+affectionate kindness, of sympathetic forbearance to the members of the
+household within. The family of faith, where faith is pure, will ever be
+a family of love; and as true piety is the best security for family
+happiness, so family love is the best nurse for family piety.
+
+There are many families among us who aim at being families of faith, who
+profess to walk in the steps of Abraham, to imitate his example. Let
+such not confine themselves to the manifestation of his peculiar faith,
+to his trust and dependence alone. Let them walk as he walked before his
+household, in the fear of God and the love of man, in the careful
+fulfilment of every relative and social duty, in the daily
+exemplification of a tender and loving spirit, carefully avoiding or
+removing all sources of division. Let that piety which unites them to
+God, be a bond, encircling all and drawing them near to each other.
+
+By the cultivation of the simple domestic virtues, by the daily, quiet,
+self-denying trials, by the observance of the thousand decencies, the
+unaffected proprieties, the unostentatious efforts to bless and
+comfort,--by the elevating influence of personal example,--by the
+breathing atmosphere of a holy spirit,--the family is to be made the
+household of faith, the nursery of the church.
+
+Direct instruction and formal efforts and stated observances are
+neither to be forgotten nor to be remitted; but these can only be made
+effectual by the living exemplification of a spirit of love, a life of
+holiness. It will ever be found true that he who prays most loves
+most.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+HAGAR--THE WIFE UNLOVED.
+
+
+The Hebrew patriarch led his flocks and herds, surrounded by his large
+household, from Haran to the land of the Canaanites; from thence to that
+of the Philistines, down into Egypt; wherever so numerous a family and
+such large flocks could find sustenance--water and herbage. And as he
+thus sojourned, many of the poor of these lands flocked to him for
+employment and support; and while he bought the services of the parents,
+the children born in his house became members of his family, were
+trained as his servants, and were subject to his authority as the master
+of the household, the prince among his people, the patriarch of his
+tribe.
+
+And among these was Hagar, the Egyptian. We are not told whether she was
+born in the house of Abraham, or rescued from those who may have stolen
+her from her home, or given by her parents to the wealthy and childless
+Sarai. She was Sarah's handmaid--a relation, according to the customs of
+the East (almost immutable) nearly as dear as that of a child. She was
+the personal attendant, the constant companion of her mistress; and by
+her was doubtless instructed in the principles of the true religion,
+while she was thus accustomed to the accomplishments and occupations of
+the age. The tasks of the favourite handmaids of Eastern families are
+still light. To sit at the feet of her mistress with her embroidery; to
+cheer her with the simple music of the shepherd's tent; to aid her in
+those domestic duties to which Sarah gave her own superintendence; to
+assist in preparing the wool of the flocks for the garments of the
+family; to watch her tent as she reposed by day, and keep by her side as
+the camels slowly wandered through the valleys in search of pure streams
+or more abundant herbage, were probably the occupations and duties of
+Hagar.
+
+Years thus passed on--and the dark-browed and dark-eyed Egyptian maiden
+had grown into womanhood, and the freshness of youth, the joyousness of
+health and early life were her's, while her mistress was passing into
+age. Sarah no longer hoped to become a mother, and, believing that the
+promise was not intended for her, she urged Abraham to take another
+wife, offering for his acceptance her own handmaid, the Egyptian Hagar.
+
+The authority of the mistress of the East over her own establishment is
+so absolute, the husband so interdicted from all interference, that,
+although Hagar had passed her youth with Sarah, she may have been
+hardly noticed by Abraham until Sarah proffered her. According to the
+usage of the east, Sarah had a right (the right then claimed by the
+parent) thus to dispose of her handmaid; and a marriage with her master
+was the highest honour which could be bestowed on Hagar. She was given
+to Abraham to be his wife, and, the relation was--according to the usage
+then prevailing--as legal as that sustained by Sarah, although the
+station was inferior. No injury was intended to Hagar. No higher
+distinction could have been conferred upon her, and, strong in love to
+both Hagar and Abraham, Sarah doubtless supposed she might be able to
+welcome and love their children, though denied offspring of her own.
+
+But such departure from the law, precept, or institution of God,
+involves a long train of sin and sorrow, no matter what the
+intention--and the union of Abraham with Hagar was a direct violation
+of the institution of marriage in all its principles and intentions, and
+it could not but bring confusion and strife to the tent of the
+patriarch.
+
+It was merely a marriage of interest and convenience, unhallowed by
+love. The heart of Abraham never departed from the wife of his youth,
+nor could Sarah ever have intended to relinquish her hold upon his
+affection. It is the last claim a woman foregoes. And on the other hand,
+Hagar could have felt no love for her master, so much her superior in
+age and station. Unholy pride and rank ambition were all the feelings
+which such an alliance could awaken in the heart of Hagar. Yet Hagar was
+the least blameworthy, and, perhaps, not eventually the greatest
+sufferer. By the customs of society, she had no voice in the disposal of
+herself. Her heart was never consulted. She was only allowed to receive
+the husband allotted to her--to acquiesce in the decision of others.
+
+The natural results of such a union followed. The exaltation of Hagar
+excited her pride and led to arrogance; and when she knew that she
+should become a mother, her childless mistress was despised.
+
+It is hard to bear contempt from those upon whom we have lavished
+kindness; to feel that we have exalted those who despise us: and all the
+indignation of Sarah was roused by the assumption and ingratitude of
+Hagar; and, with the quick instinct of the woman, she retorted upon her
+husband, "My wrong be upon thee."
+
+A stranger indifference could not have been manifested than that showed
+by Abraham towards the youthful wife who should have now received his
+protection and kindness. "Behold thy handmaid is in thy hands." He
+recognised no tie--he felt no obligation. What was Hagar, that she
+should occasion strife between him and the wife of his youth, the
+partner of his life, the daughter of his own people!
+
+Hagar was from this hour abandoned by Abraham to her mistress. When
+Sarah resumed the authority belonging to her station, she assumed with
+it a power never before exercised. Forgetting all the love of past
+years, all the claims of the present hour upon her kindness and
+forbearance, she treated the unhappy Hagar with such intolerable
+harshness, that the wretched woman fled from the face of her mistress
+and from the tents of her master, and sought refuge in the wilderness.
+
+We can conceive what bitter, despairing thoughts, what a keen sense of
+injustice and injury may have pressed upon her, as she sat alone by the
+fountain in the desert. Probably a little spot of green herbage denoted
+the presence of water, while, all around, lay the sandy, rocky desert.
+The stars, in the brightness of an oriental night, were looking down on
+her as she sat alone, her face buried in her hands, unheeded, there to
+die. Then came the visions of her youth, the remembrances of her
+childhood, the sound of her mother's voice, the dream of her smile--then
+the tent of Sarah--then the alliance with her master, the excitement of
+her pride, the flush of hope, the exultation of a fancied triumph over
+the childless, but still honoured wife; succeeded by the cold withdrawal
+of all the kindness of the patriarch, and the entire abandonment of her
+whom he had taken to his bosom, to the implacable resentment of her
+former mistress!
+
+The temper of Hagar, the feelings thus excited--dark, sullen, bitter,
+revengeful--when she fled from all, may have been impressed upon her
+offspring, and thus marked the future character of her race.
+
+Still, Hagar was not alone. The wanderer was not forgotten. In the hour
+of darkness and of desolation, there is One nigh even to those who
+forget him. "And the angel of the Lord found her by the fountain in the
+wilderness, and he said: Hagar, Sarah's maid, whence camest thou? And
+whither wouldst thou go?"
+
+She was not addressed as the wife of Abraham. The conventional usage, so
+opposed to the positive institution, was not recognised and thus
+hallowed by Him who had established marriage; and while Hagar was
+pitied, she was reminded of her real condition. "And she said, I flee
+from the face of my mistress, Sarah. And the angel of the Lord said unto
+her, Return unto thy mistress and submit thyself under her hands. And
+the angel of the Lord said, Thou shalt have a son, and shalt call his
+name Ishmael, because the Lord has heard thy affliction. He shall be a
+wild man. His hand will be against every man, and every man's hand
+against him--and he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren. And
+she called the name of the Lord that spake unto her, Thou God seest me,
+for she said, Have I also here looked after him that seeth me?" implying
+a recognition of the unexpected interference, protection and blessing of
+God.
+
+The promises of God are always preceded by his commands, and the faith
+which clings to the promises is to be tested by the obedience which
+alone can make them availing. And when the words of the angel came to
+the desolate soul of the woman in the desert, there were admonition,
+reproof, and command mingled with promise and blessing. "Return to thy
+mistress." Return to thy duty, is the first requirement made of those
+God seeks out.
+
+And Hagar humbled herself and obeyed the voice of the Lord. She
+returned to her mistress. Trying as it must have been to one so
+aggrieved, she submitted to her authority, and again became a member of
+the household of Abraham. Had she disobeyed the angel, she and her child
+had doubtless perished in the wilderness; but in yielding her proud and
+arrogant temper, she secured the future blessing to her race, and
+insured the safety of her child, while her submission and gentleness
+must have won back Sarah to a kinder temper, to a more forbearing
+treatment.
+
+After the birth of Ishmael, there intervened years--long years--in which
+Hagar tasted the bitterest cup ever presented to the lips of woman. A
+wife unloved, neglected--a mother disregarded--a woman held in bondage
+by one who had made her a rival--dwelling in the presence of him who had
+put her from him! Her very presence brought reproach and sorrow to
+Sarah and Abraham--the violation of the divine institution ever
+entailing its penalty.
+
+The wife deserted, neglected, whose hopes have been crushed, ever turns
+to her offspring for comfort and sympathy; and ardent was the love,
+strong were the ties, which bound the Egyptian mother to the son of the
+patriarch; and in Ishmael must all the hopes and affections of Hagar
+have centred. Could she, indeed, have penetrated the future, could she
+have seen her race, the seed of her son, filling the desert and dwelling
+as princes; while the seed of Sarah and of Abraham were held, as if in
+retribution of her own sufferings, in bondage in her own native
+land,--could she have passed through the intervening ages and seen the
+children of Ishmael issuing from their desert and setting their feet
+upon the necks of the proudest and mightiest, imposing their faith upon
+a world, while they marched forth conquering and to conquer--could she
+have contrasted the triumphant warriors of Arabia, the caliphs of the
+east and the west, with the wandering, desolate, persecuted,
+trodden-down tribes of Israel--the proudest expectations of the woman
+and the mother would have been all answered. Could she have penetrated
+the meaning of the words she must have so often pondered, she would have
+found that the loftiest dreams of the rankest ambition were to be more
+than realized.
+
+But dimly and faintly must she have apprehended the meaning of the
+mysterious prophecy, even while she trusted the accompanying promise. As
+she saw Ishmael, the only child in the tent of the patriarch, and loved
+by the father, she perhaps allowed herself to hope that he was yet to be
+the heir, and that in his future honours she was to find a full
+recompense for all the trials of her blighted youth.
+
+After long years of waiting, Sarah embraced a son, and the event, so
+joyous to the parents, awoke afresh the bitter remembrances of Hagar,
+while it roused her to the consciousness of her present lot and of all
+the injuries inflicted upon her.
+
+In all the trials and sorrows through which she had passed, she had had
+none to sustain or sympathize with her. Her child remained her only
+earthly hope; and now she felt that another was to supplant him, and
+thus disappoint all her expectations.
+
+Her spirit rose in pride and wrath, and she infused her own bitter
+feelings into the heart of her child. When Isaac was hailed as the heir,
+while all rejoiced, Hagar and Ishmael mocked both the infant and the
+aged parents.
+
+Forbearance was no longer safe, and the decision of Sarah was wise,
+though harsh--yet it was sad to Abraham. Ishmael was still his son--his
+first-born. He had been ever dear to him; and when the angel of the Lord
+had again confirmed the promise of a seed in whom all the nations of the
+earth were to be blessed, he had almost seemed to overlook it as he
+pleaded for the son of the bond-woman, "Oh that Ishmael might live
+before thee!" while to Abraham was then confirmed the promise given
+before the birth of her child to Hagar. There was sorrow and perplexity
+in the heart of Abraham, but a message from heaven confirmed the decree
+of Sarah.
+
+The patriarch arose, after a night of conflict and prayer, while the
+stars were still shining in the heavens, while the flocks lay in
+stillness around the tents, and before those who had revelled and
+rejoiced were awake, and called Hagar and her child. Can we not see
+them in the gray of the morning? The father, the mother, the
+child,--the patriarch, aged, but not bowed by age, still retaining the
+vigour of manhood--the boy shy, yet half-defying--the mother! In such an
+hour, all distinctions of rank and station would be forgotten, and all
+the feelings of the woman be roused. Then and there Hagar might well
+forget that she was Sarah's bondmaid, and only remember that she had
+been Abraham's wife--that she was still Ishmael's mother.
+
+In that hour must have risen the memory of her wrongs, of her saddened
+youth, her darkened womanhood--of the selfishness with which he had
+wedded her; of the heartlessness with which he had deserted her; of her
+long years of trial and contempt. And her eye might speak reproach,
+although the lips were closed and there was no voice. Should we not
+rejoice to believe that the patriarch whispered some regret for the
+past, and spoke of sorrow and repentance to her whose happiness he had
+so selfishly sacrificed, even as he consummated his work by casting her
+out, a homeless exile. Such is the enslaving power of custom, so easily
+do we blind ourselves to our own delinquencies, that Abraham probably
+aggravated Hagar's faults while he overlooked her injuries. He saw in
+her but the despiteful, revengeful handmaid; he forgot that she was an
+injured wife--a neglected mother.
+
+Yet no words of reproach, of entreaty, or explanation of the past, or
+promise for the future, are recorded as having passed between them. He
+pronounced the decree, and laid upon the bondmaid, and not upon his
+noble boy, the provision for the journey. She turned from the tents, and
+thus they parted!
+
+But the connection of Abraham and Hagar had woven a thread into the
+destiny of nations, still to be traced. She left the patriarch in
+sorrow, in bitterness of soul; but she went out to found nations, to
+punish rulers, to establish a long line who should transmit the name of
+her son and the influence of her character to remotest ages--even to the
+end of time.
+
+Accustomed to the wandering life of the desert, and provided for the
+journey, Abraham probably deemed Hagar competent to guide her steps to a
+place of safety. But sorrow may have blinded her eyes, or despair made
+her reckless, and she was lost in the desert. The water was spent in the
+bottle--tons of gold could not open a fountain in the desert--and she
+saw her child parched with thirst, "faint and ready to die; and she cast
+him under one of the shrubs, and went and sat a good way off, as it were
+a bow-shot, for she said, Let me not see the death of the child; and as
+she sat over against him, she lifted up her voice and wept. And God
+heard the voice of the lad, and the angel of God called to her out of
+heaven and said unto her, What aileth thee Hagar? Fear not! For God hath
+heard the voice of the child where he is. Arise, lift up the lad, and
+hold him in thy hand, for I will make of him a great nation. And God
+opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water, and she went and filled
+the bottle with water, and gave the lad to drink." What an inimitable
+description of a mother's love! What a display of the watchful
+benevolence of Jehovah!
+
+In this hour of desolation, when no human aid was near, there was again
+the Divine interposition, while there was no reproach, no allusion even
+to that sinful temper which had led to the banishment of both mother and
+child, and caused them to come here to perish in the wilderness. Blessed
+be God that he does not suffer the unworthiness of his children to
+separate them from his love; that in the hour of extremity he is still
+nigh; that his ear is ever open to hear and his arm ready to save.
+
+"And God was with the lad: and he grew and dwelt in the wilderness, and
+became an archer; and he dwelt in the wilderness of Paran." And his
+mother still dwelt with him; and in all his wanderings, wherever his
+footsteps were turned, there was her home. There is a touching
+remembrance of her early life, in the fact that Hagar chose a wife for
+her son from among the daughters of her own people: "She took him a wife
+out of the land of Egypt." And from this union have sprung the tribes
+who still fill the deserts where Hagar sought a refuge. A wild race,
+dwelling in the presence of all their brethren, whose hand is against
+every man, while every man's hand is against them.
+
+Ishmael rose rapidly to rank, and Hagar lived to rejoice in his
+prosperity. The life which commenced in want, privation and wandering in
+the wilderness, conducted her to wealth and honour. So dark and
+inscrutable are the ways of Providence, that at each step we are taught
+but to seek the path of duty and obey the direction of Heaven.
+
+The children of Ishmael seem to have long preserved the knowledge of
+Jehovah. Hagar, who had received so many proofs of the being, power, and
+providence of the God of Abraham, might well instruct her descendants in
+the principles of the true faith. The race of Ishmael have still
+preserved the rite which Abraham received as the seal of faith. Often
+may Hagar have recounted the providences of God--the account she had
+heard, in the tent of Abraham, of the creation, the fall, the deluge,
+the re-peopling of the world; and often, in the course of their
+wandering lives, she may have led her descendants to those deep waters
+which covered the guilty cities of the plain, and then described them as
+she knew them before the wrath of God fell upon them.
+
+The tribes of Ishmael have ever recognised their descent from Abraham;
+and the instructions of Hagar are preserved as national traditions to
+this very day, though exaggerated by Eastern fancy, and mingled with
+wilder romance, as they have been transmitted from one generation to
+another by the children of Ishmael, who still lead their flocks in the
+same valleys, and pitch their tents by the same fountains to which Hagar
+resorted with Ishmael.
+
+Hagar and Ishmael were no more members of Abraham's household, yet the
+relationship of father and son was ever recognised. Doubtless Abraham
+imparted of his wealth to his first-born; and as Abraham often sojourned
+afterwards in Beer-sheba, probably not far from the spot where Hagar and
+Ishmael so nearly perished, the father and son may have often met; and
+Isaac and Ishmael may have held kindly intercourse, when the bitter
+feelings of rivalry and of conscious wrong had subsided. The ties of
+kindred were still allowed, and Esau sought a wife from the family of
+his own kindred, as a means of conciliating his father and mother; thus
+showing that a purer morality and a higher religious feeling were
+cherished than those among surrounding tribes. And when Abraham died,
+having attained a full age, his sons, Isaac and Ishmael, both far
+advanced in years, buried him. The strifes, the bitterness, the hate of
+early life seem to have been forgotten, and they united in the last
+offices of filial love and duty.
+
+The son of the bondmaid had attained, during the life of Abraham, a
+distinction beyond that of the son of the wife; and his immediate
+descendant rose to wealth and honour, while, if one branch of Isaac's
+family tasted prosperity, those recognised as the heirs of that
+mysterious blessing were long known as wanderers, and then despised as
+slaves. Their long line of descent has run parallel, side by side,
+distinct, unmingled; recognising a common origin, but never
+acknowledging a common brotherhood. The oldest nations of the
+earth,--the one exiled from the land given them, dwelling as outcasts
+and strangers among all the nations of the earth, yet still separate,
+apart, a peculiar people; the other living at this day in the deserts
+where Hagar wandered, and where she fainted--a never-conquered people.
+And while Assyrian, Greek, and Roman have swept the world and exacted
+tribute of the nations around them, and other tribes have been swept
+with the besom of destruction, the sons of Ishmael have still dwelt in
+the presence of their brethren, ever enforcing, but still refusing to
+pay tribute--free and wild as the lad who first became an archer in the
+wilderness. Unconsciously confirming prophecy, and still attesting the
+truth of a revelation which they contemn and deny,--thus strangely
+dwelling so different from all other nations,--preserving the initiatory
+rites and the mystic symbols of the faith of Abraham, the customs and
+traditions of the age of the patriarch,--these nations dwell distinct,
+separate from each other and from all other nations, awaiting the day
+when blindness shall be removed from the eyes of the children of
+promise, and the descendants of Sarah and of Hagar shall be both
+gathered with the fold of Christ.
+
+There are Hagars of modern, as well as of ancient days,--of western as
+of eastern lands. She who is wedded from interest and convenience; she
+who forms a heartless union from pride and ambition; she who awakes from
+her dreams of bliss to find herself an unloved, and perhaps to become a
+deserted wife--all these prove the bitterness of the lot of the Egyptian
+Hagar. He who has ordained marriage has graciously implanted the
+affections which are to make it a source of happiness; and those who
+form this union under other motives and influences run fearful risks.
+There are many Hagars in the highest ranks of life, and even where the
+artificial distinctions of society are most highly regarded and
+carefully recognised.
+
+When youth is wedded to age or sacrificed to decrepitude to promote some
+State policy, though the victims are not clothed in the garb of the
+Egyptian slave, but arrayed in the pomp of regal vestments, yet the
+diamond often rests upon an aching brow, and the pearls press a
+saddened bosom; and when the holiest of earthly institutions is thus
+violated, each relation of life is profaned; and polluted streams
+descend from the highest sources and diffuse their poison through all
+the ranks of life--through all the gradations of society.
+
+There will still be Hagars--women who marry for a home, or a support;
+and especially while woman is educated to be helpless--unable to provide
+for her own wants; or while that prejudice is cherished which leads her
+to deem useful employment a degradation.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+HAGAR'S EXILE.
+
+    She fled, with one reproachful look
+      On him who bade her go,
+    And scarcely could the patriarch brook
+      That glance of voiceless wo:
+    In vain her quivering lips essay'd
+      His mercy to implore;
+    Silent the mandate she obey'd,
+      And then was seen no more.
+
+    The burning waste and lonely wild
+      Received her as she went;
+    Hopeless, she clasp'd her fainting child,
+      With thirst and sorrow spent.
+    And in the wilderness so drear,
+      She raised her voice on high,
+    And sent forth that heart-stricken prayer
+      "Let me not see him die!"
+
+    Her beautiful, her only boy,
+      Her all of hope below;
+    So long his father's pride and joy,
+      And yet--from _him_ the blow!
+    Alone she must his head sustain,
+      And watch his sinking breath,
+    And on his bright brow mark the stain
+      Of the destroyer, Death.
+
+    "Let me not see him die," and lo!
+      The messenger of peace!
+    Once more her tears forget to flow,
+      Once more her sorrows cease.
+    Life, strength, and freedom now are given
+      With mighty power to one
+    Who from his father's roof was driven,
+      And he--the outcast's son.
+
+    How often we, like Hagar, mourn,
+      When some unlook'd for blight
+    Drives us away, no more to turn
+      To joys we fancied bright!
+    Forced from our idols to retreat,
+      And seek the Almighty's care,
+    Perchance we are sent forth to meet
+      A desert-angel there.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+THE PARTIAL AND INTRIGUING MOTHER--REBEKAH.
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+After the departure of Hagar and her son from the tents of Abraham,
+peace seems to have returned, and it became the abode of filial and
+parental as well as of conjugal affection. Sarah's days were still
+prolonged, that she might exercise the duties and enjoy the pleasures of
+a mother.
+
+The heir of wealth, and the child of love and indulgence, the character
+of Isaac seems to have been the reverse of his brother, the restless,
+wandering Ishmael. The one, cast off from the care of the father and
+taught to rely upon his own energies, early distinguished himself, and
+became the leader of a band, and a prince among the nations around;
+while the other, cherished and cared for, was content to dwell in the
+peaceful enjoyment of wealth and prosperity. Thus do we find that trials
+are necessary to develope the higher qualities and to call them into
+action. The truly great and noble, the eminent in talent or usefulness,
+are never nursed in the bosom of ease.
+
+Sarah died; and while the bereaved husband felt his loss, the son could
+not have been insensible. There was a dreary void in the home of the
+patriarch when the wife and the mother had been laid in the sepulchre.
+There was no one to fill the place of Sarah--no one to bless their
+simple meals. She no longer appears to welcome them as they returned
+from the field or the flock. The tribe is without a mother, the
+household without a mistress. Many considerations led Abraham to desire
+the marriage of his son, and he cast around his thoughts for a wife
+worthy of being the mother of the promised seed, and one who could well
+fulfil the duties which must devolve upon her as the head of his large
+household. The people around him would have courted his alliance, and as
+yet no command from God forbade his forming family ties with the
+inhabitants of the land. But Abraham too well knew the influence of the
+wife and the mother, to choose a wife for the child of promise from a
+race apostate from the religion of Jehovah. He knew the ensnaring
+influence which would there be brought to bear upon his family, and he
+resolved to seek a wife for Isaac among his far-distant kindred--those
+who yet retained the knowledge and clung to the worship of the God of
+Shem, of Noah, and of Adam. Though far separated from his brethren, yet
+communications seem to have passed, and Abraham had been told of the
+enlargement of the family of his brother; and he resolved, not only to
+seek a wife for his son from among his own kindred, but, while making
+arrangements for such a marriage, he solemnly guarded against the return
+of his descendants to the land from whence he had been called.
+
+Trying as might be the long journey, and uncertain as seemed the issue,
+no inferior motives were allowed to be put in competition with the
+perpetuity of the worship and knowledge of God. A connection with any of
+the families of the Canaanites would have been at once ensnaring to the
+household of Abraham and injurious in its influence upon the heart of
+Isaac. Had Isaac married the daughter of an idolater, irreligion and
+immorality would soon have pervaded the family of the patriarch, and
+the knowledge of the true God have departed from the earth. Thus the
+beacon light of nations had been extinguished, and the last altar
+erected to Jehovah had been broken down: for the other descendants of
+Shem were fast departing from the God of their fathers,--and if the
+children of Keturah and Ishmael for a period retained the faith of
+Abraham, the torch which kindled the fire on their altars was lighted at
+that which was kept burning on those of Isaac and Jacob, and the example
+of their families preserved alive the remembrance and the acts of the
+living God in the nations around them.
+
+With a train which became the suitor of a prince, with costly presents
+of gold and ornaments according to the custom of both ancient and modern
+days, but more particularly conforming to Eastern usage, the
+confidential servant of Abraham was sent on his embassy to the kindred
+of his master, there to receive a bride for the son of the patriarch. We
+gain a delightful impression both of the piety and intelligence of the
+household of Abraham from the account of the messenger to whom this
+important transaction was intrusted. The faith of the patriarch animated
+the other members of his household, and a strong chain of love encircled
+all. After a long journey, the train reached the plains of Mesopotamia,
+and then the tents of Nahor appeared in view; and then, in the prospect
+of the immediate discharge of his commission, the messenger of the
+patriarch sought explicit direction from the God of Abraham.
+
+While the description of the interview at the fountain, "without the
+gate of the city," gives a most beautiful view of the manners of the age
+and the people, and an unsurpassed picture of the freshness and
+simplicity of pastoral life, it proves at once the piety and the clear
+discrimination of the agent employed. The beauty of the youthful Rebekah
+caught his eye, while the test he devised afforded a safe criterion of
+the character of the woman. Weary with the labours of the sultry day,
+after tending her own flocks, had she been indolent or inactive, selfish
+or sullen, she had turned from his request, and suffered his attendants
+to administer to his wants. But as she looked upon them--dusty, weary,
+parched by thirst, worn down by long travel--the sympathies of a kind
+nature were awakened, as the servant ran to meet her, saying, "Let me, I
+pray thee, drink a little water from thy pitcher." She said, "Drink, my
+lord," and she let down the pitcher upon her hand and gave him to drink;
+and when he had done drinking, she said, "I will draw water for thy
+camels also, until they have done drinking." Thus did the maiden clearly
+prove that she possessed some of the qualities most necessary for a
+wife--that ready self-forgetfulness, that kindness, cheerfulness, and
+desire to promote the happiness of others, that sunshine of the heart
+which sheds its brightening beams over all the clouds that darken
+domestic life. Through all the ages of the world, in all the
+circumstances in which mankind are placed, the wife has ever need of
+them, and wisely may the suitor look for them. But the servant of the
+patriarch, "still wondering, held his peace." Not until assured that she
+was of the race of the true worshippers of the God of Abraham, that she
+had been trained in the fear of the Lord, did he feel assured that the
+fair and kind Syrian damsel was to be chosen for the wife of his
+master's son. He had felt that the prayer was answered. He had taken out
+the rich gifts intended for her, but he seems to hesitate as he says,
+"Whose daughter art thou! Tell me, I pray thee, is there room in thy
+father's house for us to lodge in?" And she answered, "I am the daughter
+of Bethuel, the son of Milcah, whom she bore unto Nahor."
+
+"And the man bowed down and worshipped the Lord, and he said, Blessed be
+the Lord God of my master Abraham, who hath not left destitute my master
+of his mercy and his truth. I being in the way, the Lord hath led me to
+the house of my master's brethren."
+
+The negotiation between the servant of Abraham and the father and
+brothers of Rebekah was soon concluded. They deferred not the answer to
+be given, when the messenger had laid before them his errand, and told
+them of the wealth and honour of his master; and the whole transaction
+impresses us with an idea of the piety and kindness of the family of
+Bethuel.
+
+The thing is from the Lord--while the rich gifts, made to all the
+members of the family, proved the truth of the statements of the
+messenger, and perhaps enforced his plea. Yet, when he urged the
+immediate departure of the bride for the tent of her husband, the hearts
+of the mother and of the brothers yet clung to the youthful maiden. They
+shrank from a separation so sudden, so complete--and they said, Let the
+damsel stay with us a few days--at least ten. Oh, do not snatch her away
+from us so suddenly. But after that, she shall go.
+
+And he said, "Hinder me not. Seeing that the Lord hath prospered me,
+send me away that I may go to my master." And they said, "We will call
+the maiden, and inquire at her mouth." And they called Rebekah, and said
+unto her, "Wilt thou go with this man?" And she said, "I will go."
+
+Are we not, even at this period, taught lessons of parental wisdom, in
+the care displayed by the ancient patriarch respecting the choice of a
+wife for his son? In the care taken to secure an unstained parentage in
+one who had been early trained in the habits of piety and godly
+principles of action? The character of the family is often stamped upon
+each member, and the marked features are transmitted from generation to
+generation, even where the character of the woman may be modified by her
+new relations. As she advances in years she often returns to the habits
+of her youth, while she almost invariably adopts the practice of her own
+mother in the early nurture and training of her children.
+
+He who would have reformed France was taught that he must begin his work
+by training mothers. And thus the ancient patriarch foresaw that the
+great nation that was to descend from him, like to the stars of heaven
+for multitude, would long bear the impress of the character of the
+mother who rocked it in the first cradle of its existence, and his
+wisdom was manifested in the pains which he took to secure a good
+lineage and right habits and principles. The foresight of the father
+could go no farther. Time must test the individual character.
+
+After they left the tents of Bethuel, the train, now augmented by the
+presence of the bride and her immediate attendants, her nurse and
+handmaids, slowly wended its way back to the tents of the patriarch,
+pursuing the natural highways of the country,--now by the stream, then
+across the plain, then through the desert, sandy, barren, trackless;
+then winding through the mountain pass, encamping during the heat of the
+day by the fountain and under the shade, and pursuing their journey in
+the cool of the evening and of the morning.
+
+Love or devotion, or the mingling of both, led Isaac out into the fields
+at eventide to meditate, and his feet turned towards the route by which
+his messengers might be expected, and the eye of his servant descried
+him afar off, and he pointed him out to the stranger. And while the
+messenger seems to have hasted to meet his master and give an account of
+his mission, Rebekah descended from her lofty seat and covered herself
+with a veil.
+
+Henry the Fourth, of France, met his bride soon after she entered his
+kingdom, and mingled with her attendants, that he might watch her
+unobserved; and when his presence was announced she kneeled, and he
+gracefully raised her up. Napoleon entered the carriage of his Austrian
+bride, and announced himself, while she gazed with wondering eyes upon
+one, long only known as the enemy of her father's house and the terror
+of his kingdom. The meeting of the heir of the patriarch and his
+youthful bride is quite as interesting a scene as any of those recorded
+of more modern days.
+
+And Isaac went out to meditate in the fields at eventide, and he lifted
+up his eyes, and, behold! the camels were coming. And Rebekah lifted up
+her eyes, and when she saw Isaac she lighted off the camel. For she had
+said unto the servant, "What man is this that walketh in the field to
+meet us?" And the servant said, "It is my master;" therefore she took a
+veil and covered herself. And the servant told Isaac all things that he
+had done. And Isaac brought her into his mother Sarah's tent, and took
+Rebekah, and she became his wife, and he loved her.
+
+Rebekah seems to have made an affectionate, happy wife. Many years
+passed before children were born to Isaac; and when the twin boys, Esau
+and Jacob, were in childhood, there was evidently a marked difference in
+their characters. Esau was active, restless, and enterprising, He grew
+up a hunter,--daring and bold,--loving a life of change and adventure;
+while Jacob was a "plain man, dwelling in tents." Blindness was
+stealing over Isaac and unfitting him for the cares which rested upon
+him, for the supervision of his numerous servants and his many flocks
+and herds. During the frequent absences of Esau upon his hunting
+expeditions, these cares must have devolved upon Rebekah and Jacob. Her
+heart clung to the child who was ever with her in sympathy; while the
+tales of peril and adventure with which Esau enlivened the wearisome
+days of his father, were as acceptable to blindness and loneliness, as
+were the presents of the game he so frequently brought. "And Isaac loved
+Esau." Thus the injudicious fondness of the parents sowed the seeds of
+bitterness and alienation between the two brothers, and led to their
+mutual estrangement. The birth-right, which implied the inheriting of
+the blessing promised to the seed of Abraham, was despised by Esau,
+who, doubtless, in his prolonged wanderings from home, and his frequent
+associations with the inhabitants of the land, had been led to feel
+contempt for the worship and the promises of God, and in his reckless
+levity he transferred it to Jacob for "_a mess of pottage_," while he
+further alienated himself from his parents and brother by marrying the
+daughter of a Hittite. "This was a grief and sorrow of mind to Isaac and
+Rebekah." Forgetting the respect due to them as his parents; forgetting
+his own position as the eldest son of the heir of the promise; heedless
+of the example of filial deference shown by Isaac, and of all the care
+that preserved the family free from the corruption around them, he
+formed an union with those who were strangers to the faith of Abraham
+and of a race apostate from the worship of Jehovah. Yet, while mourning
+the perverseness of his favourite child, the father, aged and blind,
+did not propose to withdraw his favour from him; and, feeling that his
+infirmities increased, Isaac bade Esau with his own hands prepare him a
+favourite dish, that he might eat and bless him before his death. Did we
+better understand the customs of that age, we might find that Isaac was
+not merely influenced by bodily appetite, but that there might be a
+peculiar significance in the act.
+
+We do not love to dwell upon Rebekah's deceit and the lessons of
+falsehood she taught her son--and the prophecy uttered before the birth
+of the children, neither justifies nor extenuates her guilt; for God has
+never taught his people, that to promote his plans they are to violate
+his laws.
+
+Alienated from her elder son, we see Rebekah, by intrigue and treachery,
+seeking to advance the interests of the younger at the expense of the
+rights of his brother. As we read the sacred narrative, every sympathy
+is awakened in favour of the injured Esau, and we hear, with burning
+indignation against the author of his wrong, his pathetic cry, "Hast
+thou no blessing for me! Bless me, even me, my father!" But the artifice
+of the mother and wife was successful. She secured all she sought--and
+her success brought its own punishment. Dark clouds of hate settled over
+the household, and Esau waited only for the death of his father that he
+might destroy the life of his brother; and to save the life of her son,
+the mother was forced to send him into banishment. Again the intriguing,
+managing character of the mother appears. She assigned what might be a
+reason, but not the true reason, to Isaac. "I am weary of my life,
+because of the daughters of Heth. If Jacob takes a wife of the
+daughters of Heth, such as these which are of the daughters of the land,
+what good shall my life do me?" The plea of the mother prevailed, and
+Isaac blessed Jacob, and he left the land of his father, ostensibly to
+seek a wife, but in truth to flee from the vengeance of his brother.
+
+The son of the wealthy patriarch went not out like an Eastern
+suitor--not with a train such as Abraham sent when he wooed Rebekah for
+his son. To avoid the hate of Esau, he stole like a fugitive from the
+tents of Isaac; and, a foot-worn pilgrim, unattended, he sought the
+kindred of his mother. And here the mother and her favourite child
+parted. She had alienated his brother to promote his interests. She had
+sacrificed her integrity to secure his fortune, and her plan had
+succeeded. She had secured the object at which she had aimed, and yet in
+the result she had been forced to send forth her darling child--a
+homeless wanderer.
+
+There is no reason to believe that the mother and the son ever met
+again. From this time she disappears. Surrounded by the alienated Esau's
+hated wives and ill-loved children, separated from the child of her
+affection, she may have sunk into a premature grave, or she may have
+lived many sorrowful years to feel the miseries she had drawn upon
+herself by her violations of the rules of rectitude, and an eager desire
+to promote the happiness of one child at the sacrifice of that of
+another.
+
+There are still too many families involved in all the bitterness of
+domestic strife from the unjust partiality of one or both of the parents
+for favoured children. If, as children advance in life and their
+characters are formed, a calmer feeling succeeds the trembling
+tenderness which guarded their infant days, and our love to them (as to
+all other mortal beings) results from an appreciation of their
+characters, so that one may awaken a purer regard than another, this
+feeling is very different from that partial fondness which adopts one
+and gives him a place in our affection to the exclusion of another. That
+instinctive justice which compels a higher regard for the purer moral
+worth, will, of itself, prevent that parental partiality which leads to
+injustice or to an infringement of established rights and recognised
+principles. An unjust parent presents one of the most revolting pictures
+of human nature. The character involves a disregard of the most sacred
+ties and the tenderest relations. And whoever exhibits parental
+injustice, or that partial fondness which leads to injustice, at once
+destroys the affections and violates the moral sense. Families trained
+under such influences, still exhibit revolting scenes of human
+depravity--of bitterness, strife, alienation and revenge. Who can tell
+how much of the estrangement of Esau, and this early introduction of the
+worship of strange gods among his descendants, may have been induced by
+the conscious alienation of his mother, and the unjust preference of the
+interests of his brother? Had Rebekah, with a mother's love, striven to
+win her eldest son back to his father's tent and the altar of his
+God--had she still respected his rights and preserved his regard by
+undeviating truth and faithfulness, she would have retained a strong
+hold upon him, and her influence might have been long felt by her
+descendants, in restraining them from the sins of those around them.
+
+We cannot yet part with the two principal actors in these sad scenes of
+treachery and deceit. We think of Rebekah, the companion of her blind
+husband--deprived of the son who had shared and alleviated her cares,
+and conscious of having awakened that bitter hate which would seek the
+blood of a brother--still following in her thoughts the footsteps of the
+wandering Jacob, feeling that by her own intrigues she had banished him
+from his home and her presence.
+
+And we may follow Jacob, as he stole from the tents of Isaac, a wanderer
+like the first fugitive, with his brother's curse upon him. Until this
+hour all Jacob's views and feelings seem earthly and grovelling. Until
+now, there has been no indication of that trust and piety which
+afterwards marked his life. He had seemed worldly, cunning, ready to
+snatch any personal advantage. From this period he seems to awaken to a
+higher--a spiritual life. He seems to have comprehended the deeper
+meaning of promise and prophecy. We cannot tell what remorseful and
+despairing thoughts filled his soul as he left his home--how strange
+and inexplicable may have seemed all the ways of God toward him. Yet he
+must have felt that, in punishment of his deceit and falsehood, he was
+thus sent forth with but his scrip and staff, while he left Esau to
+inherit the possessions of his father.
+
+He had wandered until he was faint and weary, and then he had lain
+himself down on the earth, with stones for his pillow and the heavens
+for the curtains of his tent. In the silence of the night his soul was
+opened to spiritual revealings--to those influences from heaven which
+marked the change in his future life. He _saw_ the angels of God
+ascending and descending upon him. Often before this may they have
+visited him--constantly may they have hovered over him--but now he was
+made conscious of the presence, watch and interposition of the heavenly
+intelligences of the higher presence of the God of Abraham. From this
+hour we trace a different influence pervading the heart and life of
+Jacob. He was awakened to higher motives--and from this hour he entered
+into covenant with God, and took Him to be his God.
+
+And Jacob awaked out of his sleep, and said, "Surely the Lord is in this
+place, and I knew it not;" and he was afraid, and said, "How dreadful is
+this place! This is none other than the house of God--and this is the
+gate of heaven." And Jacob rose up early in the morning, and took the
+stone that he had put for his pillow, and set it for a pillar, and
+poured oil upon the top of it. "And he called the name of that place
+Bethel." And Jacob vowed a vow, saying "If God will be with me, and will
+keep me in the way that I go, and will give me bread to eat, and raiment
+to put on, so that I come again to my father's house in peace, then
+shall the Lord be my God, and this stone, which I have set for a
+pillar, shall be God's house, and of all that thou shalt give me I will
+surely give the tenth unto thee."
+
+The future life of Jacob was not free from the infirmity of human
+purpose--the imperfection of human nature. Yet from this time he walked
+with God, and all his deportment was marked by deep and humble piety. We
+doubt not that at this period he passed through that transforming change
+by which, in every age, and under every dispensation, the human soul has
+been enabled to enter into the mysteries of the spiritual life and enjoy
+communion with the Author of its existence, through that Spirit which
+breathed the first breath of life by which man became a living soul.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+THE RIVAL SISTERS--LEAH AND RACHEL.
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+There are two characters, which by some associations of memory, or
+caprice of fancy, are ever blended in our recollections--the one of
+ancient, the other of modern days--the one of sacred, the other of
+profane history. Catharine of Arragon, the unloved consort of the King
+of England, and Leah, the daughter of the Syrian shepherd, the hated
+wife of the Hebrew patriarch. There may seem to be as little
+assimilation of character and destiny, as there is of condition, between
+the daughter and the wife of a Syrian shepherd, and the daughter of one
+of the proudest monarchs of Spain and the wife of the haughtiest king of
+England; but they were both women, and both wives of those who loved
+them not; and this fact, whatever the condition of woman, stamps her lot
+as one of wretchedness. The wife neglected and despised is a woman
+sorrowful, whether she be the inmate of a tent or the dweller in a
+palace--whether she tend the flock or grace the throne.
+
+Catharine of Arragon, the daughter of Isabella and Ferdinand, seems a
+truth-loving, devout woman, well prepared to welcome the great
+principles advanced by the Reformers, had she not been placed in
+circumstances most adverse to their influence. Had Henry embraced the
+doctrines and the principles of the Reformation from a conviction of
+their truth and importance--had he sought to regulate his own life by
+the pure precepts of the Bible, and thus striven to disseminate a pure
+faith among his people--had the conscientious Catharine been the
+patroness and the friend of the Reformers, instead of the trifling, if
+not guilty, Anne Boleyn--the English church and the state of religion in
+the English nation would doubtless have presented a different history
+for the past, and a different aspect for the future.
+
+But these are vain speculations. Catharine lived and died in the Papal
+faith. From the circumstances in which she was placed, she clung to it
+as to her womanly honour, her queenly dignity--as she would preserve her
+name from blight, her child from shame. And when she saw herself
+supplanted, when she was disgraced, divorced, her child declared
+illegitimate, and she knew her death was desired by one to whom she had
+been a devoted, faithful wife, what words could be more touching than
+those the dramatist gives as her last message to the king! "Tell him,
+his long sorrow has passed away." Oh, none but a wife dying thus, with
+the bitter consciousness that her life was undesired and that her death
+would be unregretted, can feel their full import.
+
+The bells which had tolled for Catharine of Arragon had hardly ceased to
+vibrate when the roar of the cannon announced the execution of Anne. The
+one died in January, the other was beheaded in May; and she who, by
+exciting and encouraging the unholy love of the king, had unchained his
+fierce passions and taught him to break through all restraints, was
+herself, full early, their victim.
+
+Shall we pass from the palaces of England to the tents of
+Mesopotamia--from the last days of chivalry to those of the ancient
+patriarchs and shepherds of the earliest of recorded ages?
+
+When the wandering Jacob reached the abode of his mother's kindred, the
+land of Haran, he met, at the same fountain at which Rebekah had watered
+the flocks of the messenger of Abraham, the daughter of her brother
+Laban. He had seated himself by the well, and when the maiden came, he
+aided her to water her flocks; and he was thus introduced to his kinsmen
+by Rachel; and he told them that he was the son of Rebekah, of whom,
+perhaps, they had long lost the recollection; and with all the
+hospitality of the East--that hospitality which ever prevails among a
+simple and pastoral people--he was welcomed by the kindred of the
+mother.
+
+The brother of Rebekah had two daughters. Leah, the elder, was
+tender-eyed, but Rachel was beautiful; and both sisters loved their
+cousin, while the heart of Jacob clung to the younger, the fair damsel
+who first welcomed him; so that he overlooked the claims of the
+elder,--the plain, if not disfigured, Leah. He brought no offerings with
+him to conciliate the favour of the father, and, according to the custom
+of the East, to facilitate his marriage. But he offered his personal
+service as an equivalent. And the son of Isaac served seven years for
+the daughter of Laban. But this long period was passed; and dwelling, as
+Jacob did, in the presence of Rachel, a member of the household of her
+father, they seemed but as a few days, for the love he bore her.
+
+But the time had now arrived when the marriage should be celebrated, and
+Jacob claimed his bride. But he who had wronged his brother, who had by
+disguise deceived his father, was now imposed upon by guile and
+treachery; and all the hopes and expectations of these long years were
+defeated. The customs of Eastern marriages favoured the deceit, and
+Jacob found that he was wedded to Leah, and not to the object of his
+affection. The deceit was most unjustifiable. The disappointment and the
+resentment must have been proportionally great; and miserable was the
+excuse of Laban, and wretched the device which was offered as an
+atonement. Yet Jacob must have bowed before the retributions of an
+avenging God, and the remembrance of his own treachery may have stayed
+his anger.
+
+Thus commenced the family of Jacob, with all the elements of dissension,
+strife and bitterness incorporated into its very earliest existence. The
+daughters of Laban both became the wives of Jacob, and they were rivals
+as women, as sisters, as wives and as mothers--forced to dwell
+together, yet ever in sullen hatred or bitter strife. When the ties of
+natural affection are severed, the heart never ceases to bleed; and
+there is no hatred so deep, so implacable as that which springs up where
+hearts once knit are thus alienated and forced asunder: and the sorrows
+and evils which sprang up in the family of Jacob may have led to that
+command so explicitly given by Moses--"Neither shalt thou take a wife to
+her sister to vex her, in her lifetime."
+
+The heart of Jacob never departed from Rachel. She was the chosen bride.
+He loved her with a deep and true affection, while the forced claims of
+Leah awoke only the remembrance of the deceit. In the emphatic language
+of the Bible, "he loved Rachel, but he hated Leah," and it was in
+accordance with the constant exhibitions of human nature that it should
+be thus. He had never sought her love. No love, no devotedness, could
+efface the remembrance of her connivance at that deep-laid plot which
+had imposed her upon him as a wife. Yet the lot of Leah was peculiarly a
+lot of reproach and trial--and as we behold her wretchedness, we are
+led, not to extenuate her fault, nor to palliate her sin, but to forgive
+and pity her sorrows.
+
+In early youth the sympathies are all awakened for the beautiful and the
+beloved Rachel, the only chosen, the betrothed bride. As we advance in
+years, in deeper acquaintance with human hearts, in truer fellowship in
+human suffering, we learn to feel for the plain and hated Leah. There is
+something deeply touching in the quiet sorrow which marks her lot; in
+her deep consciousness of her husband's alienation and her sister's
+hate. We feel how difficult it might have seemed to resist the
+authority of the father, when it was aided by the pleadings of her own
+affection and the customs of her people. We glance into the tents of
+Jacob, and contrast Leah with the beautiful, the loved, the indulged,
+the self-willed Rachel. There we see her, plain and unattractive in
+person, broken in spirit, bowed down by the consciousness of her own sin
+and her husband's hate--her sister's bitter contempt--striving, though
+scarce hoping, to win the love of her husband; and welcoming the anguish
+of a mother, with the fond assurance, "Now will my husband love me, for
+I have borne him a son."
+
+We follow the sisters, as, still side by side, but with alienated hearts
+and estranged affections, they depart from the tents of their father to
+follow the footsteps of their husband,--Rachel and her offspring are the
+first objects of the care, as of the affection, of the patriarch. Yet
+we find Rachel, the loved and indulged wife, more murmuring, more
+repining, more fault-finding than Leah. By sorrow and trial, Leah may
+have learned submission; and the dearest earthly hopes disappointed--all
+her affections as a wife crushed and despised--in her hour of grief, and
+in the desolation of a widowhood of hate, she may have sought and found
+that love which never faileth, which giveth liberally and upbraideth
+not.
+
+And He whose ear is ever open to the cry of his creatures, who forgives
+even while he punishes their iniquities, pitied Leah, and, without
+upbraiding her for that deceit by which she became a wife, gave her the
+joys of a mother; and in all the names bestowed upon her children, Leah
+at once recognises the mercy of God, while she still remembers that she
+is hated of her husband--attesting at once her conscious sorrow and her
+trusting faith.
+
+Rachel was childless--and when she saw Leah rejoicing as a mother, it
+awoke all the bitterness of envy. With the unreasonable pettishness of a
+wife ever indulged, she reproached her husband. For once, the anger of
+Jacob was kindled against the idolized Rachel. "Am I in God's stead?"
+said he. The consciousness of being the loved and the cherished one--the
+overflowing tenderness and the ready indulgence which Rachel received,
+made her only more exacting and imperious; and while Leah seemed
+softened by trials and sorrows, her sister grew more unreasonable by
+indulgence, and was at once haughty and insolent. So corrupt is human
+nature, that the gratification of our desires too often merely excites
+the pride and haughtiness of the human heart, and the prosperous claim
+the blessings of Heaven as a matter of right; while it is mercifully
+ordained that the very sorrow which ever follows transgression, the
+evils which await all departures from duty and right, should, by their
+very tendency, awaken repentance and lead to a penitent and humble
+spirit.
+
+When the daughters of Laban left the house of their father, either from
+a latent superstition, or from a family cupidity, Rachel stole the
+household gods of Laban and secreted them; and with an art worthy of the
+daughter of Laban, she prevented her father from reclaiming them; thus
+paving the way for the introduction of idolatry into the household of
+Jacob. He had already introduced polygamy by his marriage with her, and,
+to secure her, and thereby gratify her rivalry of her sister, he had
+multiplied his wives, and brought upon himself still heavier sorrows and
+trials. It was the beauty of Rachel which first captivated the eye, and
+then enthralled the heart of Jacob; and the wisest of men, thus
+ensnared, are still led into sin and folly. All the influences of Rachel
+upon his heart and life seem to have been unhappy; and the narrative
+shows that the strongest passion, gratified in defiance of prudence and
+previously imposed obligation, can only lead to disappointment and
+vexation. The two sisters both proved the love of the wife, in leaving
+all at the command of the husband; and the God in whom Jacob still
+trusted, guarded him against all the designs of Laban, averted the wrath
+of his brother, and guided him to the land of Isaac. He had passed
+Jordan with his staff and his scrip--he went out an outcast, and a
+fugitive; he returned with the train of a chief, the retinue of an
+Eastern prince; and his heart swelled with thanksgiving as he recounted
+the mercy and remembered the faithfulness of Jehovah. His father was
+still living--the nurse of Rebekah, who so long since had left the
+family of Bethuel, came to close her eyes in the tents of the
+grand-daughter of her former master; but the mother who had led her son
+into sin, who had taught him to practise that deceit which had recoiled
+upon himself, is not mentioned. She, doubtless, was laid by the side of
+Abraham and of Sarah, in the cave of Machpelah. She had anticipated a
+short absence, a transient separation from her son. She purposed to send
+for him to return to his father, that he might yet be heir of the
+estate; but when Jacob did return in wealth and honour--yet bearing that
+bitter burden of care and sorrow, from which no honour, no wealth are
+exempt,--she who would have assuredly exulted in the one, and
+sympathized with the other, was not in the tent of Isaac. She came not
+forth to welcome her son, to embrace her relatives and daughters or
+caress their children. Her place in the tent and at the board was
+vacant--her voice was hushed--her heart cold. The places that had known
+her, knew her no more. And thus it often is. Before man attains wealth
+or honour, those who had most rejoiced to witness it have passed away;
+while still, fair as is the outward lot, there are internal sorrows,
+imbittering every pleasant draught, and casting a shadow over all the
+brightness of human existence. Thus it is that the most prosperous are
+often followed by a cloud, reflecting glory and radiance upon such as
+are without, but covering with gloom and darkness those who fall within
+its shadow.
+
+And soon followed the bitterest trial of Leah's life,--the shame,
+sorrow, and widowhood of her only daughter; avenged by those who
+neglected to guard her--while the husband, though indifferent to the
+sorrow and love of the wife, must have felt the anguish of the father.
+
+And the rivalry and strife of the sisters was over. "Give me children or
+else I die," was the cry of the wife whose wishes had been laws--and the
+prayer prompted by hate and envy was answered. Yet Rachel died. And in
+that hour of mortal agony, of bitter suffering, Leah probably stood by
+her sister. With affections estranged, love turned into bitterness, with
+hearts alienated, but fates inseparably united, they had passed their
+days. Their tents had been pitched side by side,--the voices of their
+children had been mingled together as they fell upon their mothers'
+ears,--they had been called to worship at the same altar,--they had been
+members of the same household.
+
+Forced thus to dwell together, constantly to meet, to be familiar with
+the same objects, to have the same interests, they were alienated, but
+not separated; and if their feelings were crushed, they were not all
+uprooted. As Leah saw her younger, her beautiful sister in the hour of
+extremity, in the agonies of a mother's sufferings, the sympathies of a
+woman must have risen with the love of a sister, and bitter tears of
+repentant sorrow must she have shed upon the pallid brow and quivering
+lips, as the hopes and the memories of youth and childhood gathered
+around, to reproach her for that deceit by which she had sown their path
+through mutual life with thorns, and made their joys to be but ashes.
+There are no tears so bitter as those which are shed by affection, too
+late revived, over those whom we have loved and yet injured,--over those
+from whom we have suffered ourselves to be estranged.
+
+Rachel was buried in the way to Ephrath, which is Bethlehem. She was
+not laid in the sepulchre of Abraham. The children were left to the
+fostering care of her hated sister. Her sons passed through trials from
+which she could not guard them, and they came to honours while she knew
+it not. At this distance, her life seems to us a dream--a few years of
+pleasant childhood, a short vision of youthful love,--then comes the
+strife of life, its stern discipline, its bitter trials, its
+disappointed hopes, and its termination in the grave.
+
+As we dwell upon the characters so truthfully delineated in the word of
+God, and follow the record of human pride, passion and infirmity, we are
+taught at once to magnify and adore the patience, the forbearance and
+the mercy of Jehovah. And let us remember that it is because these
+characters are reflected in the pure mirror of truth that the dark
+shades so plainly appear. In every age the heart of man is the same;
+but the temptations which especially evince this depravity may be
+peculiar to some particular age or condition.
+
+We know not how long Leah survived her sister. Her advancing years were
+not exempt from affliction, and age brings its own trials; yet
+prosperity rested upon Jacob--and in the decline of life she may have
+known happiness desired, but not realized, in youth.
+
+After the death of his beloved Rachel, the heart of Jacob may have
+turned to Leah, and a peaceful friendship have succeeded the storm and
+the conflicts of youthful passion. Sorrow may have knit hearts softened
+by the mutual consciousness of error and by the tears of repentance, and
+strengthened by the hopes of pardon, and drawn to each other by the
+strong ties of parental love for their mutual offspring. When the
+patriarch was called into Egypt, Leah went not with him. He had laid
+her in the gathering-place of his sons, in the tent of his fathers. From
+the touching expression of the dying patriarch--himself far from the
+land of his fathers' sepulchres--"And there I buried Leah," we feel
+that, in age and bereavement, the heart of Jacob turned to Leah. The
+repudiated wife of his youth became the solace of his age, and her
+memory awoke the last tender recollections in the dying patriarch. As we
+have read the book of God, we have been taught that good, inordinately
+coveted, or obtained by injustice and deceit, ever brings a curse. The
+principal actors in the events recorded in these chapters of Genesis,
+may have secured the object which they sought, yet the attainment did
+not avert or mitigate the punishment of the treachery by which it was
+secured.
+
+Rebekah obtained the birth-right and the coveted blessing for her
+favourite child, and by that act separated him from herself and doomed
+him to a banishment from his father's house, and from that hour she saw
+his face no more. Laban secured by his deceit the marriage of his
+unattractive daughter and the establishment of the beautiful Rachel, but
+he thus alienated the children he still seems to have loved, and that
+wealth which he so coveted.
+
+Leah, by her connivance at her father's deceit, married the man she
+loved, but it was to lead a life of bitter, of heart-consuming sorrow.
+Jacob, departing from the institution of marriage that he might yet
+possess Rachel, entailed upon himself a career of strife, bitterness and
+disappointment; and introduced into his family an example that became a
+fruitful source of individual depravity and national corruption; while
+he first witnessed the evil effects of his complicated domestic
+relations in the conduct of his eldest son, and felt at once his shame
+as a husband and his reproach as a father. And are not these things
+written for our edification? Are we not, in every page of God's word,
+taught explicitly that for man there is neither safety nor happiness
+save in the path of duty and of literal obedience? That each departure
+from the rule of right, whatever be the motive, and crowned as it may
+seem to be with success, draws a long succession of sin and sorrow in
+its train? Many have studied the word of God to justify sin, or palliate
+guilt, by the examples of the former dispensation. Let it be carefully
+studied, and it will show that the transgression which secured a
+positive object, still brought its punishment,--if delayed, never
+remitted--although successful, never justified. The word of God never
+justifies crimes, though in infinite wisdom He over-rules them to
+promote the designs of his eternal providence.
+
+Modern days and Christian institutions allow no examples of the exact
+type of the strife and rivalry exhibited in the household of the
+patriarch of Israel. Yet, while human nature remains as it is, there
+will ever be the jealousies, the strifes, the bitterness arising from
+misplaced affection, or alienated hearts, or jarring interests. There is
+still to be found the coquetry which would win love from a sister or a
+friend, and the treachery that would supplant the rival--as there are
+still fathers who, for motives of interest, would sacrifice their
+daughters, regardless of their hearts or their happiness. Youthful
+beauty still attracts the eye and wins the heart, and the best and
+wisest of men are too often enthralled by mere personal attraction.
+
+Human nature is ever the same, and the motives and feelings which swayed
+the generations who have mouldered back to dust are still felt and
+acknowledged.
+
+While we thus attempt to trace the outlines of the domestic history of
+these individuals, we cannot but feel that there is a surpassing beauty
+and excellence in the character of Abraham. He bore the fresh impress of
+a renovated world, and was truly worthy of the pre-eminence which is
+always allotted to him. Isaac seems to have dwelt in quiet, peaceful
+prosperity. Inheriting great wealth, dwelling until mature age with his
+parents, there seem to have been few occasions in which the prominent
+traits of the character are displayed. His life offers less of interest,
+less to excite, less to praise and less to blame than either Abraham's
+or Jacob's. The father's energy, patience, faith and obedience had
+prepared the way for the prosperity of the son; and Isaac, nursed in
+affluence and cherished by maternal affection, seems to have exhibited
+less energy, enterprise and decision than either his father or his
+descendants. His premature blindness doubtless conduced to this inactive
+life. Yet he trusted and obeyed the God of his father, though he enjoyed
+neither the exalted faith of Abraham, nor was he favoured with the
+enlarged prophetic views of Jacob.
+
+In all the trials and infirmities of Jacob--from the day in which he
+left his father's house until the hour in which "he gathered his feet in
+his bed and died" in Egypt--we see the evidence and the growth of true
+piety, of enlarged faith. He was encompassed with infirmities, and these
+infirmities betrayed him into sins, which brought in their train the
+sorrows which, through Divine grace, purified and sanctified him. Thus
+his character excites our increasing love and sympathy, and his
+advancing piety our veneration.
+
+From the glimpses we obtain of the families of Nahor, Bethuel, and
+Laban, we trace a gradual departure from Jehovah among the descendants
+of Shem. Nahor and Abraham were possessors of like faith. They both
+worshipped the God of their fathers--of Shem, of Noah, of Methuselah, of
+Enoch, of Seth, of Adam. Bethuel's household still remained a household
+of faith, but in Laban we see the beginning of a departure from the true
+God. The first steps towards idolatry were taken. There was the resort
+to a sensible representation,--some image probably used as a symbol of
+the true God at first, but certainly ensnaring the heart, and ending in
+idolatry. Thus the gods of Laban, which Rachel stole, were leading him
+and his family rapidly to idol-worship, and to forgetfulness of the true
+God. Still he had not sunk into gross idolatry. Laban still pledged
+himself, and invoked the name of the God of Abraham and of Nahor, and
+of their fathers, when he entered into covenant with Jacob. He had not
+yet altogether abjured the worship of Jehovah: he had begun to mingle a
+false worship with it, and thus prepared the way for the full apostasy
+of his descendants.
+
+That the chosen people might be kept from the taint of idolatry, Jacob
+left Laban; yet Rachel had stolen her father's images--and there is then
+great significance in that act by which Jacob renewed his covenant with
+God, when called upon to build the altar at Bethel.
+
+"And Jacob said unto his household, and to all that were with him, Put
+away the strange gods that are among you and be clean, and change your
+garments: and let us arise and go up to Bethel; and I will make there an
+altar unto God, who answered me in the day of my distress, and was with
+me in the way which I went. And they gave unto Jacob all the strange
+gods which were in their hand, and all their ear-rings which were in
+their ears; and Jacob hid them under the oak which was by Shechem."
+
+Probably the ear-rings were used as heathen charms or amulets. While
+idolatry, as a leprosy, was thus beginning to infect the household, he
+saw the need of their purification; and there seems no accidental
+connection between this searching out and putting away of idolatry in
+the household of Jacob and the following death of Rachel: "With
+whomsoever thou findest thy gods, let him not live."
+
+The cherished wife of Jacob, deeply tainted with the superstitions by
+which her family were corrupting the religion of Jehovah, may have been
+thus removed to prevent further contagion. While the apostle may refer
+to this example in his promise: "Nevertheless she shall be saved in
+child-bearing, if she continue in the faith." And this sin may have
+excluded Rachel from the sepulchre of Abraham. The plague-spot
+disappears from this time, and the purification of the household was
+availing. For many generations, whatever their other sins, the children
+of Jacob were kept from idolatry.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+MIRIAM.
+
+THE INFLUENCE OF WOMEN UPON THE DESTINY AND CHARACTER OF MAN, AS
+EXEMPLIFIED IN THE LIFE OF MOSES.
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+There were designs of infinite wisdom to be accomplished by the long
+sojourn of the children of Jacob in Egypt. The people of Israel were
+appointed to guard the name and worship of Jehovah, until He who was to
+bring life and immortality to light should rise from among them. Until
+the "Star" that was to come from Jacob should shed its glorious radiance
+over this darkened earth. When all the children of men were departing
+from God, He chose this family to perpetuate the memory of his works and
+his mighty acts in preserving the first history of the race, and to
+prepare the way for the fulfilment of the designs of infinite mercy
+toward a sinful and apostate world. By miracles and judgments, by type
+and prophecy, by altars and sacrifices, he kept before this people the
+mysterious promise given in the hour of transgression.
+
+From this family was to descend him who was to be the light of the
+Gentiles, and the glory of Israel, him who was at once the Almighty
+Saviour, the everlasting Father, the wonderful Counsellor, the man of
+sorrows and acquainted with grief, who bore our sickness, and took upon
+himself our iniquities. And while from the family of Israel that high
+spiritual influence was to emanate, which was to renovate men's moral
+nature and change the aspect and condition of the race, restoring the
+knowledge of the true God; and again, through the great atoning
+sacrifice, opening the gates of eternal life and bringing spiritual
+blessings to all mankind,--the character of the children of Israel,
+their civil institutions, their legislation, their history, their laws,
+their literature, were to leave their impress upon all the nations of
+the earth.
+
+The apostle accounts it the chief honour of the Jews that unto them were
+committed the oracles of God. They were employed to transcribe and
+preserve the inspired books. From them went forth those who first
+announced the great truths of a Saviour crucified and a Comforter
+promised. For successive ages the nation of Israel stood surrounded by
+the heathen world,--stood the witnesses of the faithfulness of Jehovah,
+the monuments of his truth and power, the only nation upon the face of
+this earth who worshipped the true God.
+
+Thick moral darkness shrouded all other lands--the nation of Israel
+alone had light in their dwellings, and the beams of the rising Sun of
+righteousness fell upon them and revealed the gross darkness around
+them.
+
+And he who had chosen the people of Israel for such a high purpose, in
+infinite wisdom devised the means to fit them for their destination, and
+he guided and guarded them in each stage of their national existence.
+Egypt was one of the first kingdoms founded after the deluge, and it is
+probable that those who repeopled it after this event, had retained many
+impressions of the former world. Her monuments, yet remaining, attest
+the high antiquity of her arts and sciences, and her early advancement
+in refinement and civilization.
+
+Her priests and wise men were the instructors of the ancient world, and
+the philosophers of Greece resorted to Egypt to study legislation and
+philosophy, and Egypt imparted to Greece, and Greece to Rome, the arts
+and sciences by which they refined and elevated Europe.
+
+God designed Egypt to be the nursery of the nation of Israel. The
+granary of the ancient world offering abundant sustenance, he brought
+Jacob and his sons into it as one family, and here they remained until
+they multiplied and increased, and became like the stars of heaven for
+number; and He who led them into Egypt ordained all the events of their
+national history so as to promote his own eternal plans.
+
+The patriarch led his children, with their flocks and herds,--the wealth
+of a pastoral people,--into this land as the invited guests of Pharaoh,
+the monarch of Egypt. And as he bowed before the king, the aged
+patriarch taught him at once the brevity of man's life and the
+unsatisfying nature of all earthly enjoyments, as recalled at the close
+of a long pilgrimage: "Few and evil have been the days of the years of
+my pilgrimage." Pharaoh received the aged man with respect, and showed
+him all honour; while in consideration of the pastoral habits of his
+sons, a portion of land, separate from the Egyptians, was allotted them
+for a place of abode. Thus they were kept a distinct, unmingled people,
+and enabled to maintain their own peculiar institutions, practise the
+rites of their own religion, and preserve the worship of the God of
+Abraham. And in all the oppression which they here sustained, we do not
+find that their religion was ever persecuted or their rites forbidden.
+And as Egypt was the cradle of the nation of Israel, so it was to be the
+school in which the children of Jacob were to form a national character.
+The wandering, pastoral tribes, transformed into an agricultural people
+and settled residents, and instructed in the arts of civilized life,
+were fitted to take possession of the allotted heritage. After fostering
+their infancy and feebleness, the monarchs of Egypt gradually changed
+their course as the increasing numbers of the Israelites excited jealous
+apprehension. Yet all this varying policy and every cruel edict advanced
+the designs of Jehovah and promoted the welfare of his chosen people.
+The cruelty of the Egyptians alienated the hearts of the Israelites from
+the nation and from the land of Egypt, and kept freshly before them the
+remembrance of the inheritance promised. While considered as strangers,
+treated as aliens, and surrounded by enemies, the bonds of brotherhood
+were more closely drawn, and they clung together, a distinct and
+separate people.
+
+The tribes were one nation. While the people of Israel were oppressed,
+they were not enslaved. They were tributary, but not reduced to
+personal bondage. They dwelt together in that portion of Egypt assigned
+to them. They spoke their own language. They seem to have regulated
+their internal affairs by their own elders. They maintained their own
+worship. Their family relations were unbroken. They must have amassed
+riches, for they brought great wealth out of Egypt, as the offerings at
+the tabernacle show--and although in part this may have been received
+from the restitution which the conscience-smitten Egyptians offered upon
+their departure, all could not have been thus derived. The whole
+narrative of the Israelites shows that they were rich in silver and
+gold, and possessed much cattle. Yet all their property was
+personal--they owned no land. And much of the tribute was, doubtless,
+exacted as rent, paid by many in personal labour; and while they thus
+erected, perhaps, the proudest monuments of Egyptian art by this
+enforced labour, they were acquiring the various knowledge needful to a
+nation; while their very task-masters, by compelling them to acquire the
+habits of industry, to which a pastoral people are always averse, were
+school-masters, needful though harsh, teaching them to develop their
+energies and forcing them to exercise patience and to acquire skill.
+
+Learning and wisdom have departed from Egypt. She has long been the
+basest of kingdoms. The race of the Pharaohs has passed away. She has
+been for ages governed by slaves. Temple and palace are in ruins. Her
+tombs, sacred and precious, have been pillaged; And the bones of her
+great and noble ones, her priests and kings, feed the fire by which the
+wandering Arab prepares his food. Yet many monuments of her ancient arts
+remain, interesting as attesting her power, grandeur, and high
+advancement in civilization, and still more valuable as corroborating
+the sacred history and throwing light on many passages of the inspired
+word,--at once showing the former residence of the Israelites in Egypt,
+the close connection of these ancient people, and affording proofs of
+that wisdom which selected Egypt for the cradle and school of the chosen
+race.
+
+The Egyptians, gradually after the flood, lost the knowledge of Jehovah
+and departed from his worship.
+
+At the time Joseph married the daughter of the priest of On, the
+Egyptians could not have sunk into that gross idolatry which contrasted
+so strangely with their wise legislation and scientific attainments; and
+their priests are supposed to have concealed, under mystic symbols,
+mysterious truths, which they imparted to the initiated, while they
+taught a grosser system to the common mind. While in Egypt the
+Israelites seem never to have been exposed to the debasing immoralities
+which prevailed among the nations around the promised land.
+
+The children of Jacob sojourned in the land of Ham four hundred years.
+When Jehovah called his people out of Egypt they were fitted to receive
+the laws and institutions which he designed to give them, and to take
+the high position he assigned them among the nations of the earth. And
+lest, during their long sojourn in the wilderness, they should lose the
+arts of civilized life, they were employed in the construction of the
+tabernacle. By the minute enumeration of all that was required for the
+completion of this work, we see that the erection involved an extensive
+acquaintance with the mechanical arts, and of those, too, which indicate
+a high degree of advancement in the luxuries of polished life. Thus the
+generation born in the wilderness were instructed, and preserved from
+degenerating into mere shepherds, hunters, or warriors. The restless
+were occupied, and the work proved a bond of union for the whole people,
+exciting the interest and employing the energies of all the different
+classes of the great multitude.
+
+The long ages of the sojourn of the children of Jacob were drawing to a
+close. The iniquity of the Canaanites was now full; the children of
+Israel were prepared to be numbered among the nations of the earth; and
+the events dictated by the craft and policy of men were ordained to
+promote the infinite designs of Jehovah. For four hundred years the
+descendants of Jacob had dwelt in Goshen. From a pastoral they were
+already become an agricultural people; they had learned to prize the
+comforts of an established life, of quiet, peaceful homes, of pleasant
+places of abode. Dwelling in the richest portion of Egypt, protected
+from all foreign aggression, they there enjoyed abundance, peace, and
+prosperity, to which their wanderings in the desert furnished a sad
+contrast.
+
+The policy of Egypt had excluded the Israelites from her crimes. The
+energy, the love of change and adventure, which a martial life imparts,
+were unfelt; and had not oppression driven the Israelites from Egypt,
+the promise of that goodly land destined for their race had hardly
+induced the nation to leave their present abundance and protection.
+Thus, by the various dispensations of his providence, Jehovah was at
+once preparing a guide, leader, ruler, and future lawgiver for his
+people, while by the continued vexation, oppression, and cruelty of the
+Egyptian rulers, he was suffering them to alienate the affections of the
+children of Jacob from a country which had become the native land of the
+Israelites, which was the birth-place of generation after generation.
+
+At the time Miriam, the sister of Moses, appears before us, the children
+of Israel had reached the fourth generation. A family had become a
+nation, a people in the bosom of another, dwelling together, distinct,
+separate, too numerous to be easily or safely held in subjection, too
+valuable as tributaries to be relinquished. Thus to hold them safely in
+bondage and to prevent their further increase, it became the settled
+policy of Egypt to oppress and degrade them. As their jealous
+apprehensions were at length awakened, by a policy as profound as it was
+cruel, the Egyptian monarchs endeavoured, in destroying the sons of this
+people, to force the daughters of Israel to intermarry with their
+oppressors, that they might obtain the wealth of the sons of Jacob,
+while the name and memory of his family would be swept from the earth.
+Yet dwelling, as the Israelites did, in a separate province, it was not
+easy for Pharaoh to find those who would execute his purposes; and the
+first efforts to cut off the race of the chosen, failed. He was however
+so intent upon their extermination, that he did not hesitate to direct
+that all the male children of the Israelites should be cast into the
+river as soon as they were born.
+
+While there were so many to court the favour of the monarch and ever
+ready for the darkest deeds, how could the sons of the Hebrews now
+escape? When Moses was born, his mother hid him three months; and when
+concealment was no longer possible, she sought for the babe a strange
+place of safety--in the very element which was indicated for its
+destruction. The slender ark is framed by the mother's hands, and
+deposited among the flags on the bank of the Nile. The morning was
+perhaps dawning, and the sky yet gray, when the anxious mother
+withdrew.
+
+In a few hours after, the chant of the boatmen is suddenly hushed, and
+the passing labourers shroud their heads in token of reverence, as,
+surrounded by her attendants, the daughter of Pharaoh approaches the
+river. The slight ark, with its precious burden, floating among the
+reeds, attracts her eye, and, as her maidens draw it from the water, the
+wail of the desolate infant strikes her ear.
+
+"The babe wept"--and full fountains of womanly tenderness were broken up
+in the heart of the princess of Egypt. "This is one of the Hebrew
+children," said she; and as she drew him from the waves, she resolved to
+save and adopt the child.
+
+Miriam, the sister, had lingered near to watch, if not to save the
+child. We may fancy the Hebrew maiden at a little distance, eagerly
+bending forward, and gazing with intense and breathless interest. And
+when the princess announces her intention to protect the infant, in all
+the gladness of childhood she bounds forward, and, mingling with the
+royal train, asks, "Shall I go and call to thee a nurse of the Hebrew
+women, that she may nurse the child for thee?" And Pharaoh's daughter
+said unto her, "Go;" and the maid went and brought the child's mother!
+
+Thus had the God of Israel overruled all the designs of evil to his
+people, by providing in the very family of Pharaoh a shelter and a home
+for the child--doomed by the impious monarch to destruction--but
+designed by Jehovah to be the saviour of his people. He who was thus
+drawn from the water was the ordained deliverer, guide, legislator, and
+prophet of Israel.
+
+As Jehovah had appointed him to this high vocation, he not only guarded
+his life, thus threatened, but made the instruments intended for the
+extermination of the race the means of the full accomplishment of all
+its mysterious destiny.
+
+The child thus adopted into the royal family was not only saved from
+death, but was thus placed under influences most propitious for the
+attainment of all the various knowledge which could fit him for the high
+station to which he was destined. That helpless infant was not only to
+be the deliverer of Israel, but by his political institutions, his
+legislative enactments, his moral precepts, his inspired teachings, he
+was to mould the character of his own people, and to influence other
+nations down through all coming ages. High was the honour allotted him
+as the deliverer and the lawgiver of Israel--still higher that as the
+prophet of the Lord. He was the promulgator of the great moral laws of
+the universe, originally engraven on the hearts of men, but now so
+effaced by sin as to be scarcely legible;--he was to establish those
+institutions which were to perpetuate the name and the worship of
+Jehovah among the children of men; and that memorial which, by a long
+line of types and sacrifices, was at once to prefigure and prepare for
+the great atoning sacrifice, offered for a lost world.
+
+Of all the fallen sons of Adam, none were ever destined to a station of
+more arduous responsibility, of more extensive and long-continued
+influence than that appointed to this Hebrew infant; and He who had
+marked out his destiny ordained the means which were to prepare him for
+it. Transplanted into the family of Pharaoh, he was there instructed in
+all the "wisdom of the Egyptians," and Egypt (as we know) was the
+fountain of ancient learning, science, and philosophy. While Jehovah
+communicated by direct inspiration to Moses, yet the mind of the ruler
+and leader of Israel had been prepared by that instruction which
+develops the capacity, expands the mind, and enlarges the apprehension
+to receive and understand the institutions Jehovah gave his people, and
+he was thus enabled to co-operate with an enlightened mind in all the
+designs of God. But if the schools of Egypt imparted that intellectual
+attainment, mental discipline and knowledge of legislation in its
+various forms, so necessary for the lawgiver, there were other
+influences which were needful for the perfection of the character. There
+was a knowledge higher and holier than that ever taught by priests or
+Grecian philosophers,--a wisdom beyond that of the Egyptians, "the
+knowledge of the Lord," the God of his fathers, and the first great
+truths of religion should be breathed into the soul in the whispers of
+parental love. The earthly parent should lead the child to the feet of
+the great Creator.
+
+And then in the formation of a character which was to leave its impress
+upon all future ages to the close of time, the affections were to be
+cultivated, the sympathies awakened, and all that is pure and kind and
+elevated in the nature of man drawn forth. And where is the influence
+which so gently moulds the character, refining, softening, and elevating
+it, as the affectionate, intelligent sister? As a man advances in life,
+the continual influence and association of virtuous and accomplished
+women is felt in all the relations he is called to sustain.
+
+We see in the various circumstances of the life of Moses a Divine
+recognition of the value of the family relation and of the importance of
+the influence of women in the formation of character.
+
+Before Moses was admitted to the schools of Egyptian learning, before he
+was exposed to the snares and the splendours of a court, before he was
+called to a throne, he had learned lessons of the deepest wisdom from
+the lips of his parents. One higher than the royal of earth spoke
+through the princess, when she said, "Take this child and nurse it for
+me, and I will give thee wages." And faithfully did the mother fulfil
+her charge. She strove to imbue the soul of her child with living faith,
+while upon that infant heart she impressed the maxims of eternal
+truth--she imparted those lessons of trust and confidence, and
+inculcated that deep conviction of the power of truth, which led the
+man, by the grace of God, in the prime and flush of life, to refuse to
+be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to suffer
+affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for
+a season.
+
+Had that mother been unfaithful to her high trust, had she infused into
+that infant heart lessons of ambition and worldliness, he had perhaps
+failed in the hour of trial, and another had led the tribes of Israel to
+the chosen land. A little band guarded Moses; the princess of Egypt,
+the mother of Moses, and his sister Miriam. Each one exerted her
+peculiar influence upon his character, while his future destiny attested
+the varied power of these influences and their relative value.
+
+As the saviour of the young Hebrew, as his protectress and adopted
+mother, the daughter of Pharaoh had a large claim upon him, and to her
+he was indebted for many of those high attainments which fitted him for
+his office. The slight incidental notices of the daughter of Pharaoh
+give us a delightful impression of her character.
+
+There is something higher and nobler than a princess. She was a true
+woman, filled with all the quiet sympathies and kind affections of her
+sex, and possessing an energy and a persevering constancy which led her
+to fulfil her generous purposes, and made her impulses bear the fruits
+of benevolent action.
+
+Such women show what women should be, and such women in all ages make
+the influence of their characters to be felt. To her fostering care
+Moses owed life and advancement, education, honour, the standing of a
+prince, the polish and the refinement of the court. She proved her
+appreciation of knowledge, and we may well infer her own cultivated
+intelligence from the care with which she provided for the instruction
+of her charge. She showed that she could feel and that she cherished all
+the sympathies of domestic love, by providing for their indulgence, by
+allowing their continuance, and yielding to their claims, even though
+she was a princess of Egypt, the daughter of the haughty Pharaoh, and
+her adopted child belonged to a race studiously oppressed, degraded, and
+exposed to all contumely, and while, doubtless, she was no stranger to
+the prejudices which led her countrymen to look upon the sons of Israel
+as an outcast and despicable race. Still the bonds of national
+affection, of kindred and brotherhood, were all respected. The whole
+narrative shows that Moses was never alienated from his family, never
+taught to forget that he was a Hebrew. His patroness felt that there
+were holy ties never to be disregarded nor trampled upon.
+
+And while the princess of Egypt surrounded her infant charge with right
+influences, while she provided wisely for his intellectual culture, she
+likewise brought the influence of her own personal character to bear
+upon him. The influence of a pure woman, who unites refinement to
+intelligence, and adds to them the polish of the court without its
+corruption, would be as powerful as it would be salutary, and when to
+the higher qualities, mental and moral, the polished refinement and
+graceful attention to all the proprieties of life are imparted, a high
+finish is given to the character. Nor was that acquired grace and
+courtly manner a thing of frivolous import. It exerted an important
+influence upon the future destiny of the individual. The successful
+leaders of great multitudes have often owed almost as much to that high
+bearing and dignified demeanour which should be the distinct badge of
+those who are numbered with the great, as to their skill and
+discernment; and while treated in the court of Pharaoh as a scion of
+royalty, the young Hebrew acquired that air of conscious authority to
+which inferior minds always defer. He gained there that knowledge of
+courtly splendour and gayety which forced in him the conviction of their
+perfect insufficiency for the high demands of the spiritual nature, and
+that knowledge of the heart of man and its depraved qualities most
+needful to one who was at once to lead and control a multitude, and who
+was to stand before kings as the envoy of Jehovah.
+
+The Israelites never seem to have entered the Egyptian armies. It would
+have been contrary to the policy of the kings either to have encouraged
+a martial spirit or to have placed arms in the hands of this multitude;
+yet as one of the family of Pharaoh, Moses led the armies of Egypt. And
+needful it was that the future leader of Israel should be well
+instructed in all the tactics of war--should understand all the
+providing for, the ordering, and the encamping of vast hosts. It was
+perhaps only by arduous military service that he could have developed
+that capacity indicated by the vast skill with which an army of six
+hundred thousand men, encumbered with their wives and little ones, could
+be encamped in regular order, whether marching or resting. Ever
+desiring peace and acting on the defensive, yet ready to repel
+aggression, for forty years the nation of Israel were encamped as the
+hosts of an army. Each tribe with its own banner, marching and
+countermarching, taking down and putting up their tents, with all the
+skill and regularity of a disciplined army, and often engaged in actual
+warfare. He who could thus order and regulate such a host must have
+possessed the skill and science of the general. While the habits of long
+command, added to the consciousness of authority and Divine reliance,
+enabled him to prevent or control turbulent outbreaks.
+
+While the legislator of Israel owed so much to the fostering care of the
+daughter of Pharaoh in preparing him for his high destination, we cannot
+but feel a deep interest in her who so unconsciously contributed toward
+an influence and prepared an instrumentality quite adverse to the
+apparent interests of her people. We cannot but hope that, while she
+thus hastened the accomplishment of promise and prediction, she was
+herself led to the knowledge and worship of Israel's God.
+
+Might not one who thus adopted the brother, encircle in her affection
+the sister whose affectionate entreaty gave the babe a mother for its
+nurse? The fraternal affection which marks the family seems to indicate
+more than occasional intercourse. Between Miriam and her brother there
+was that sympathy which always results from an intimate association. The
+princess of Egypt may have imparted to Miriam many of the
+accomplishments of the courtly circle, for we find that she was skilled
+in music, that she led the dance; while, in return, Miriam may have
+imparted that higher knowledge and those deep truths of which her people
+were the appointed conservators, and the daughter of Pharaoh may have
+tasted the blessings which were held in trust for future ages.
+
+Miriam was the only sister of Moses, and she first appears as watching
+the fate of that child in whose destiny all the ages and all the nations
+of earth were to have an interest. The tender care which watched the
+cradle on the Nile continued through life, and from the day Moses was
+saved, down to the day when Miriam died in the wilderness, she seems
+ever associated with her brothers in all their efforts and designs. The
+influence of the sister is peculiarly her own. It is felt in early life
+in its softening, refining, and purifying tendency--in diverting opening
+manhood from rude sports or gross pursuits to the enjoyments of a more
+elevated and pure nature, and shedding a charm around the pleasures of
+home; while, if no other ties intervene, the bonds of affection grow
+stronger with each successive year.
+
+We cannot trace the course of Miriam's life. She appears before us for a
+season and then we lose sight of her for many years. She may have passed
+them in the retirement and obscurity of her rural home in the land of
+Goshen. She may have been counted in the train of the princess of Egypt
+and shone in the court of Pharaoh. Princes may have flattered her and
+nobles sued for her love. She seems never to have married,--yet her
+heart may have had its own history of love, perhaps unrequited,
+disappointed, or sacrificed at the altar of prudence, of conscience, or,
+it may be, ambition. Oh what a tale of suffering and of enjoyment would
+the history of one human heart present, if faithfully recorded!
+
+Years had passed: childhood was gone--youth was fleeing. The brother had
+attained a high distinction in the court of Egypt. He had tasted the
+pleasures of wisdom and the enjoyments of science and knowledge, while,
+as the adopted child of Pharaoh's daughter, he stood before the people,
+the prospective heir to the crown.
+
+Thus, in the prime of life, endowed with the richest gifts of mind and
+the attractions of manly beauty, adding the polish of the courtier to
+the wisdom of the philosopher--and all the adventitious advantages of
+royal birth received by his adoption--there lay before the young Hebrew
+a bright vista of prospective glory and honour and earthly happiness.
+
+But not to sit on the throne of Egypt had Jehovah raised this child of
+the chosen people from the death designed by their oppressor. Not to fit
+him for the throne of Egypt had he surrounded him with all that was
+propitious to intellectual and moral attainments and guided and watched
+each step of his course from his infancy.
+
+Deep and inscrutable must have seemed the designs of Jehovah, as, when
+all was brightest, the dark clouds gathered around this favoured son of
+the Hebrews, and all the promise and purpose of his saved life seemed
+defeated. The hour of trial came--probably, as it generally comes,
+suddenly and unexpectedly. It was the hour which was to test his
+principles and prove his faith. The hour in which all the allurements of
+sense, the gratification of ambition, and (it may have seemed) the
+claims of grateful affection, were brought into conflict with the stern
+claims of duty and principle, and in this hour he did not fail. He chose
+rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the
+pleasures of sin for a season. He refused to be called the son of
+Pharaoh's daughter. His choice was made. He abjured the throne and left
+the court. What disappointment must have fallen upon hearts who had
+looked to his exaltation as a pledge of good for his race, and who saw
+in his downfall the prolonged dominion of tyranny and persecution!
+
+Yet Moses was not permitted to remain in peace, although he had sunk
+into obscurity. He who was to lead the hosts of Israel through the great
+and terrible wilderness--who was to endure toil, labours, and privation,
+needed the nerve, the hardihood, the physical training, which could not
+be gained in the luxurious courts of the Pharaohs, or in the quiet, and,
+doubtless, comfortable and abundant homes of the husbandmen of Goshen.
+Amid the enjoyments of home, the pleasures of study, he need not have
+regretted the loss of a throne.
+
+For many years he, who had been trained in luxury and elegance, led the
+flocks of Jethro, and knew all the privations and the endurances of the
+shepherd in the desert. And while his frame was thus hardened and
+invigorated, while he learned to forego pleasure and endure bodily
+toil, his soul was nourished by solitary meditation and high communion
+with God. The philosopher can find instruction and interest in the works
+of creation, but only he who adds the adoration of the worshipper to the
+wisdom of the philosopher is prepared to study the works of Jehovah
+aright.
+
+What deep thought, what high imaginings, what profound reverence must
+have filled the soul of the Hebrew shepherd as he watched the stars in
+the silence and loneliness of the desert. As he sat, a solitary and
+banished man, under the shadow of the rocks of the wilderness, how
+strange, how incomprehensible must have seemed the events of his past
+life. The visions of his youth, the splendour and warlike pomp of the
+army or the pageant of courts, must have come over his soul like a
+dream. Even to us how strange seems this long sojourn in the
+wilderness, this enforced inactivity and apparent uselessness. Yet the
+God of Israel was promoting his own designs both among his people and in
+the heart of him who was to be their leader--weaning them from their
+place of abode, and preparing them for their departure, and fitting
+Moses to be their leader, guide, ruler, and lawgiver. Each dispensation
+of his providence, each passing occurrence, all the thoughts, the
+emotions, the solitary meditations, the reverential communion, the
+occasional intercourse with the few dwellers of the desert,--like the
+strokes, slight and almost imperceptible in their effect, which the
+block receives from the hand of the sculptor,--all were fitting the
+apparently exiled Hebrew for his high vocation as a prophet and
+legislator.
+
+And it is often thus. For many years may Jehovah be preparing his
+instruments for that event to which he destines them, and which they
+may then speedily accomplish. Yet this work in the soul, by which man is
+prepared to co-operate with his Maker, is silent, unseen, unmarked, so
+that often we may account this time as lost. And man, ignorant of his
+future destiny, and of the state to which he is to be called, will ever
+find it his true wisdom carefully to fulfil the present duty and to aim
+at deriving instruction and benefit from each dispensation of Divine
+providence, and from the ordering of each event of his life.
+
+In the careful provision made for the training of Moses, in the various
+instrumentalities used to prepare him for his appointed trust, we are
+taught that by no miraculous intervention does God supersede the
+necessity of the improvement of the faculties he has bestowed. The more
+enlightened the understanding, the more the powers of reason are
+cultivated, the more intelligently can man serve his Creator, and the
+more entirely does he co-operate in the designs of Infinite Wisdom. God
+does not bestow, by direct inspiration, that wisdom or knowledge which
+is to be gained by the diligent cultivation of the natural faculties, to
+save man the fatigue and labour of the acquirement. Those upon whom he
+has most richly bestowed the gifts of spiritual wisdom have been most
+careful to cultivate their natural endowments.
+
+Both Paul and Moses were learned before they were inspired, but God did
+not supersede the use of the powers of the mind by the higher gift of
+the Spirit. The providential dealings of God are adapted to the laws of
+the human mind, and in the government of his creatures he never violates
+the principles which he has established.
+
+The occupation of the shepherd was at length to be abandoned. By
+oppression and suffering and ignominious exactions, the children of
+Israel were prepared to leave their homes--the land in which they had
+dwelt for centuries--and venture across the sea and into the desert.
+When we remember that husbandry had been the national occupation, when
+we consider how strong is the instinct which binds man to the land of
+his birth and the graves of his fathers, and how strong is that bond
+which attaches one to the spot he has cultivated, to the land he has
+ploughed and sowed and reaped, we cannot wonder at the coercion needful
+to rouse a people whose energies were all depressed, and who had been
+held in check and kept stationary for ages.
+
+But the people were ready to depart. The oppression of Pharaoh had
+prepared the way for the display of the Divine faithfulness and power.
+Jehovah sent his ambassador from the desert to the court of the King of
+Egypt, to demand their freedom. During his long exile, most who had
+known Moses in his early days, had passed away; and the few that were
+left would hardly recognise in the shepherd of the desert, with his
+staff for his badge of office--bearing the marks of toil and exposure,
+of deep thought and solitary meditation--the young and gallant prince,
+the courtier and the warrior of former days. She who had cherished him
+had probably been laid in the tomb of her royal race, and the name and
+the memory of Moses may have been forgotten in the palace and the court.
+Yet there he stood, before the throne which might have been his seat,
+the ambassador of the King of kings, bearing the stern message of
+Jehovah--"Let my people go, that they may hold a feast unto me in the
+wilderness." Yet wo after wo was denounced and executed--pledge after
+pledge given and violated--and not until one long wail over the dead and
+dying resounded through the land were the children of Israel permitted
+to leave the land of Egypt. The loss of three millions of subjects, of
+their labour, their tribute, and the removal of all their personal
+property, would weaken and impoverish the kingdom. Every motive of
+policy and pride urged the monarch to resist the demand, and thus he
+suffered the penalty due to his contumelious defiance of the God of
+Israel, while the judgments inflicted upon him strengthened the faith of
+the Israelites. The expulsion of the Moors and of the Jews from Spain,
+the banishment of the Huguenots from France, furnish similar though not
+parallel cases, in modern ages; and these show that the loss of
+peaceful, industrious subjects to a kingdom is like taking the
+life-blood from the system. Centuries have passed, yet these nations
+have not recovered--and thus Egypt must long have felt her loss.
+
+After the tribes of Israel had passed through the Red Sea, the sister of
+Moses again appears before us. When he poured forth that chant of
+triumphant thanksgiving--the oldest song of nations--Miriam gave a
+response worthy of the sister of the leader of the hosts encamped before
+the Lord. With timbrel she led the daughters of Israel in the dance. And
+well might the prophetess of Israel teach the dance of ancient Egypt to
+the daughters of her people on this occasion. The representations
+preserved in painting and sculpture show that this was not the gay and
+voluptuous movement of modern days, but rather a succession of graceful
+gestures, regulated by music, expressive of joy and emotion. Thus the
+maidens of Israel offered praise and adoration; nor was it unseemly in
+the warlike monarch of after ages thus to worship before the ark of the
+Lord, although his pious act provoked the ridicule of the daughter of
+Baal.
+
+From this time until the day of her death, Miriam is found co-operating
+with her brothers in their designs and efforts. However the earlier
+years of her life had passed, she had attained to a high distinction
+among her people. While she seems to have neither claimed nor exerted
+authority, her rank and position, in her sphere, were as well defined
+and as elevated as that of her brothers. Throughout the whole narrative
+we find proofs of the high consideration with which she was regarded.
+
+While in early life her influence as a sister had refined and softened
+the rudeness and roughness of their boyhood and youth, and similar
+associations with the brothers in mature years had enlarged her mind and
+imparted intelligence and strength to her understanding.
+
+During the long sojourn in the wilderness, Miriam, "the prophetess of
+Israel," was probably the counsellor of the mothers and the instructress
+of the daughters of her people; while between the sister and the
+brothers there ever seems to have subsisted the most tender,
+confidential friendship.
+
+But, alas for imperfect woman! There was a time in which the dark
+passions and malignant tempers of our evil nature so triumphed in the
+hearts of Miriam and Aaron, that they arrayed themselves against Moses.
+The dissension which troubled the camps of their leaders threatened to
+spread and involve the multitude of Israel in all the evils of rebellion
+and civil war.
+
+During his exile, Moses had married the daughter of the priest of
+Midian. The descendant of Abraham, Jethro was a worshipper of the God of
+his fathers, and we have recorded proofs of his piety and wisdom. Yet
+the marriage of Moses was not apparently in accordance with the views
+either of his brother or sister. There is a selfish tenderness sometimes
+exhibited, which leads the dependent mother or single sister to regard
+with jealousy one who claims a closer tie, and Miriam may not have been
+free from the infirmities of weaker natures. Yet the notices, slight as
+they are, of the "Ethiopian" woman, perhaps impress few minds
+favourably; and we cannot but feel that in herself she may not have been
+all that the friends of the lawgiver of Israel could have wished in a
+wife. Bred in the seclusion of the wilderness, she was probably
+deficient both in the intelligence and the accomplishments which
+distinguished Miriam. And Miriam and Aaron seem at last to have
+cherished feelings of bitterness toward their sister-in-law, which were
+fast extending to the brother himself.
+
+They evidently disliked the foreigner. They may have compared the
+toil-worn daughter of Midian with the high-bred maidens of Egypt, who in
+former days would have welcomed the addresses of one numbered with the
+princes of Egypt, or with the daughters of his own people, as offering
+an alliance more worthy the ruler of Israel; and Miriam, elevated by the
+distinction conferred upon her as the prophetess of Israel, conscious of
+superiority in all feminine accomplishments, seems to have forgotten the
+love of a sister and to have lost the humility befitting a woman.
+Domestic bitterness was fast preparing the way for political
+disaffection, and the dark clouds which had gathered around the tents of
+the leaders threatened to burst upon the whole camp of Israel.
+
+Then Jehovah himself interposed. As the principal offender, the
+prophetess of Israel was publicly rebuked before all the congregation of
+the Lord; and then, as a leper, expelled from the camp, shut out from
+all human associations, in shame and solitude, Miriam, diseased and
+suffering, lay for seven days. In this time she doubtless humbled
+herself and repented of her sin. Yet, during this interval, the vast
+multitude showed their respect by remaining stationary; and while Aaron
+confessed their sin, Moses interceded for his faulty, erring, but still
+be loved sister.
+
+If the conduct and fault of Miriam are to be censured and deplored, it
+is to be confessed that it was not peculiar to the sister of the leaders
+of the hosts of the Lord. Women of later ages, conscious of intellectual
+superiority, elevated by position, or merely distinguished by
+usefulness, have sometimes been proud enough to despise the inferior of
+their own sex, and to arrogate to themselves the power allotted to man;
+and their awakened pride and vanity have introduced strife and confusion
+into the counsels of those who were appointed to guide the people of
+God.
+
+There is meaning in this record of the faults of those whose hearts had
+been, from infancy to age, knit together. While God has implanted the
+natural and domestic affections, they are still to be guarded,
+cherished, and cultivated. The jealousies, the petty strifes of domestic
+life, the little dislikes, the unguarded tempers of those who dwell
+together, have sometimes alienated hearts that have been united from
+childhood. The love that has grown strong by the mutual endurance of
+oppression, toil, privation, and danger, has been turned to gall by the
+infusion of the constant droppings of domestic strife. Pure, unselfish
+love is the spontaneous growth of a holy heart. It must be nurtured and
+tended, or it will wither and die in our corrupt nature.
+
+The afflictions and punishments which harden the hearts of those who
+reject God, bring such as love his laws and character to submission and
+penitence. Miriam was restored to her former usefulness, probably better
+fitted for her high position, while the hearts of the brothers seem
+united anew to each other and to her; and the authority of Moses,
+vindicated by God, was strengthened by his own forbearing love and
+disinterested gentleness. And from thenceforth, while a due subjection
+was observed, there seems to have been an entire co-operation between
+them.
+
+Miriam died in the wilderness of Zin, and the brothers buried her. There
+is a peculiar sadness in this separation, occurring, as it evidently
+did, not long before the close of their various pilgrimages.
+
+As we follow the inspired narrative, we are naturally impressed by the
+care with which Jehovah selects and prepares those whom He intends as
+the instruments of advancing the welfare of his people and his own
+glory; and while this may be more clearly traced in the case of the
+highly distinguished legislator and prophet of Israel, we may be
+assured that it extends not less certainly to the lowest and the
+humblest.
+
+The influences by which the lawgiver of Israel was so early surrounded,
+we are willing to accept as a divine attestation to the power and value
+of female culture in the formation of the character.
+
+Three women are brought distinctly before us, as connected with the
+early history of Moses. The mother's high duty and privilege it was (as
+it ever is) to instil into his opening mind those great truths and first
+principles which are at the foundation of all excellence. Had the nurse
+of Moses been an Egyptian idolatress, the character of the man had
+doubtless been very different. While Moses owed all his worldly
+advancement to the princess of Egypt, he derived other advantages from
+being brought under the familiar influence of one who preserved, amid
+the corruptions of a court, the best sympathies of our nature. A
+knowledge of human character and a power of adaptation to all the
+circumstances of his eventful life were thus imparted, and which could
+be hardly elsewhere acquired, yet they were very needful to one who was
+to fill the office allotted to him.
+
+God has graciously ordered that while the parents and guardians are to
+pass away, there are early ties which are enduring. Where families are
+properly regulated, added years strengthen the bonds of natural
+affection. Through all the vicissitudes of his life, the brother and
+sister of Moses clung to him. We first see Miriam watching the
+cradle-ark in which the infant was concealed, and she never appears
+except some event in his career brings her into view. Yet, through their
+long lives she was his companion and helper, participating in his
+labours, soothing his sorrows, and aiding and encouraging him in his
+work. She is a type of a large class--we mean the daughters and the
+sisters who are not wives. Her life shows that a woman may be
+honourable, useful, distinguished, and happy, and yet remain
+single--that the holy duties of the wife and the mother are not the only
+duties. How many homes would be comparatively unblessed but for the
+presence of a dutiful daughter or a loving sister! How largely our own
+age is indebted to women as teachers; women, who, like the prophetess of
+Israel, while assisting their brothers to proclaim the oracles of God,
+devote themselves to the instruction of their own sex, and bless men by
+instructing women!
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+DEBORAH--THE INFLUENCE OF WOMAN.
+
+
+The book of Judges gives a concise view of the people of Israel for a
+period of four hundred years, extending from the death of Joshua to the
+birth of Samuel.
+
+It is peculiarly interesting as showing how God deals with the nations
+of the earth in visiting national sins with national punishments. It has
+ever been the painful office of the historian to record the crimes and
+misfortunes of mankind, and to present the outbreaks of society rather
+than to note its gradual advance and improvement, or to dwell upon the
+periods of peaceful prosperity. Like the records of a court of justice,
+it presents the criminals and the offences and those implicated, while
+the thousands of peaceful citizens are never brought to view. The flow
+of human life is, like that of a mighty river, unmarked during its mild
+course; but when it bursts its bounds and overflows its channel and
+spreads a wide destruction, it is watched with interest and its
+desolating ravages are all recorded.
+
+Of the many women who have attained honour and celebrity amidst the
+intrigues of courts and cabinets and the revolutions of empires, few
+have retained the purity and the peculiar virtues of their sex. Deborah
+seems to have united the sagacity and courage of man to the modest
+virtues of woman. She appears before us affecting no pomp, assuming no
+state. The wife of Lapidoth--one known only as the husband of Deborah,
+but thus known never to be forgotten--she abode with her husband in
+their own dwelling, under that palm-tree distinguished, when Samuel
+wrote this book, as "the palm of Deborah," between Ramah, where Rachel
+died, and Bethel, where Jacob worshipped. "And all the children of
+Israel came up to her there for judgment."
+
+The people of Israel had departed from God and from the laws of Moses,
+and for twenty years they had been mightily oppressed by Jabin. During
+this long period no priest called the people to repentance, no prophet
+was commissioned to promise them relief.
+
+We may imagine Deborah dwelling among her people, a devout,
+strong-minded, enlightened woman. She saw their sins, she participated
+in their trials, and she warned those around her of the evil of
+departing from Jehovah. She recalled His past acts of judgment and of
+mercy. She was well acquainted with the laws of Moses, and she
+recognised in the punishment of the people the fulfilment of prophecy.
+
+The influence of such a woman--a woman instructed in the religion of
+Jehovah--a woman of faith and of prayer--would be felt, first, in her
+own family, or in her immediate circle of friends; and then would
+commence the reformation and the repentance and putting away of past
+sins and the return to the God of Israel. And as the influence spread,
+the circle extending, the whole nation would seem to have been affected,
+and they naturally resorted to one whose wisdom and piety were so well
+established, when any questions of their law, either civil or religious,
+were to be settled. Thus the children of Israel came up to her for
+judgment. They came to her--for her feet abode within her own dwelling.
+Her influence extended throughout all the borders of her land, but her
+presence still blest her own house. The prophetess of Israel was still
+the wife of Lapidoth, and her only authority was that of piety, wisdom
+and love. A more beautiful instance of a woman's true, legitimate
+influence cannot be given. Quietly, unostentatiously exercised, it
+penetrated through the nation and brought them back to Jehovah, and
+prepared the way for the removal of their yoke.
+
+For many years she was doubtless employed in reclaiming and instructing
+her people. Through this influence the children of Israel were prepared
+to assert their liberty; and then Deborah was inspired to call upon
+"Barak the son of Abinoam," to gather an army, and take his station on
+Mount Tabor, where the Lord would deliver the enemies of Israel into his
+hands. She did not propose to attend--certainly not to lead--the army;
+but, giving her message, her counsel and her prayers, would still abide
+under the palm-tree and remain with her husband. But the appointed
+general knew so well the value of her presence in inspiring the people
+with confidence, and felt so much the need of her prayers, that he
+refused to go unless she sanctioned the expedition with her attendance.
+"And Barak said unto her, If thou wilt go with me, I will go; but if
+thou wilt not go with me, then I will not go."
+
+Thus appealed to, the answer was immediate: "I will surely go with thee;
+notwithstanding the journey that thou takest shall not be for thine
+honour, for the Lord shall sell Sisera into the hands of a woman."
+
+Mount Tabor, chosen for the encamping-place of the army of Barak, still
+rises like a tall cone in the vast plain of Esdraelon, which, stretching
+across the land to the sea, has since been the battle-ground of nations.
+From the wide plain on its lofty summit, Deborah and Barak could look
+over almost all the land. The view of the hills of Judea, of the sea of
+Tiberias, and of a country of wide extent, still repays the toil of
+those who climb to its summit.
+
+But since the days of Deborah and of Barak, Tabor is generally supposed
+to have witnessed another scene. The Man of grief, who bore our sins and
+took upon himself our sorrows, climbed its steep ascent with his
+favoured disciples--And Moses and Elias appeared unto him there, and
+there "they talked with him." Of what? Not of the battle of Deborah and
+Barak with Sisera--although they stood where the leaders of Israel had
+watched the hosts of their enemies encompassing them. It was a converse
+of high things, not meet for us to know. And there he was transfigured
+before his wondering disciples, and his "raiment became exceeding white
+as snow, so as no fuller on earth can white them." And there was a cloud
+that overshadowed them, and a voice out of the cloud, This is my beloved
+Son--hear him. Alas! the Divine command has been ill obeyed. Tabor yet
+retains the remains of a fortress and preserves the marks of warfare;
+but no trace of the meeting there of the great lawgiver and reformer of
+Israel with Him who came both to fulfil and to abolish. No temples have
+yet been there erected to Him whose mission was far above all who were
+sent either to announce or prepare for his forthcoming.
+
+From Mount Tabor the leaders and hosts of Israel watched their enemies
+gathering from afar and encompassing them. With the chariots of iron, so
+much dreaded by the Israelites, came the archers, and the spearmen, and
+the multitude that were with them--all assembled to surround and to
+destroy the allies of Barak.
+
+But when Deborah gave the signal, "Up! for this is the day in the which
+the Lord hath delivered Sisera into thine hands: is not the Lord gone
+out before thee?" Barak went from Mount Tabor with ten thousand men. The
+victory was complete--"Jehovah triumphed, His people were free." The
+hosts of the enemy were vanquished. The river Kishon, that ancient
+river, swept them away. And the victory was celebrated by a song of most
+triumphant, yet grateful exultation, in a strain of the loftiest, purest
+poetry, such as the prophets and psalmists of Israel alone could pour
+forth:--
+
+      Praise ye the LORD for the avenging of Israel,
+    When the people willingly offered themselves.
+    Hear, O ye kings!
+    Give ear, O ye princes!
+    I, even I, will sing unto the LORD;
+    I will sing praise to the LORD God of Israel.
+    LORD, when thou wentest out of Seir,
+    When thou marchedst out of the field of Edom,
+    The earth trembled, and the heavens dropped,
+    The clouds also dropped water.
+    The mountains melted from before the LORD,
+    Even that Sinai from before the LORD God of Israel.
+      In the days of Shamgar the son of Anath,
+    In the days of Jael, the highways were unoccupied,
+    And the travellers walked through byways.
+    The inhabitants of the villages ceased,
+    They ceased in Israel,
+    Until that I Deborah arose,
+    That I arose a mother in Israel.
+    They chose new gods;
+    Then was war in the gates:
+    Was there a shield or spear seen
+    Among forty thousand in Israel?
+      My heart is toward the governors of Israel,
+    That offered themselves willingly among the people.
+    Bless ye the LORD!
+    Speak,
+    Ye that ride on white asses,
+    Ye that sit in judgment,
+    And walk by the way!
+      They that are delivered from the noise of archers in the place of
+        drawing water,
+    There shall they rehearse the righteous acts of the LORD,
+    Even the righteous acts toward the inhabitants of his villages in
+      Israel:
+    Then shall the people of the LORD go down to the gates.
+    Awake, awake, Deborah!
+    Awake, awake, utter a song!
+    Arise, Barak!
+    And lead thy captivity captive, thou son of Abinoam.
+    Then he made him that remaineth have dominion over the nobles among the
+      people:
+    The LORD made me have dominion over the mighty.
+    Out of Ephraim was there a root of them against Amalek;
+    After thee, Benjamin, among thy people;
+    Out of Machir came down governors,
+    And out of Zebulun they that handle the pen of the writer.
+    And the princes of Issachar were with Deborah;
+    Even Issachar, and also Barak:
+    He was sent on foot into the valley.
+    For the divisions of Reuben
+    There were great thoughts of heart.
+    Why abodest thou among the sheepfolds,
+    To hear the bleatings of the flocks?
+    For the divisions of Reuben
+    There were great searchings of heart.
+    Gilead abode beyond Jordan:
+    And why did Dan remain in ships?
+    Asher continued on the sea shore,
+    And abode in his breaches.
+    Zebulun and Naphtali were a people that jeoparded their lives
+    Unto the death in the high places of the field.
+      The kings came and fought,
+    Then fought the kings of Canaan
+    In Taanach by the waters of Megiddo;
+    They took no gain of money.
+    They fought from heaven;
+    The stars in their courses fought against Sisera.
+    The river Kishon swept them away,
+    That ancient river, the river Kishon.
+    O my soul, thou hast trodden down strength.
+    Then were the horsehoofs broken
+    By the means of the prancings, the prancings of their mighty ones.
+      Curse ye Meroz! said the angel of the LORD,
+    Curse ye bitterly the inhabitants thereof;
+    Because they came not to the help of the LORD,
+    To the help of the LORD against the mighty.
+      Blessed above women
+    Shall Jael the wife of Heber the Kenite be,
+    Blessed shall she be above women in the tent!
+    He asked water, and she gave him milk;
+    She brought forth butter in a lordly dish.
+    She put her hand to the nail,
+    And her right hand to the workmen's hammer;
+    And with the hammer she smote Sisera, she smote off his head,
+    When she had pierced and stricken through his temples.
+    At her feet he bowed, he fell, he lay down:
+    At her feet he bowed, he fell:
+    Where he bowed, there he fell down dead.
+      The mother of Sisera looked out at a window,
+    And cried through the lattice,
+    Why is his chariot so long in coming?
+    Why tarry the wheels of his chariots?
+    Her wise ladies answered her,
+    Yea, she returned answer to herself,
+    Have they not sped? have they not divided the prey;
+    To every man a damsel or two;
+    To Sisera a prey of divers colors,
+    A prey of divers colors of needlework on both sides,
+    Meet for the necks of them that take the spoil?
+    So let all thine enemies perish, O LORD!
+    But let them that love him be as the sun when he goeth forth in his
+      might.
+
+One such strain preserved from any other ancient nation would establish
+their claims to the highest order of poetic genius, and lead to the most
+industrious and painful research for all that could throw light upon
+their literature. It comes over the soul now like the full burst of
+martial music. It stirs the blood and quickens the pulses with its
+strain of triumph, while it melts us to pity, as it brings before us so
+graphically, with such exquisite power--yet such slight allusion--the
+distress and desolation of Israel. It is a finished picture of the age.
+We see the judges, those that ride on white asses (still reserved for
+royal stables) that walk by the way; while it gives us a full character
+of Sisera and the mother who trained him. We see the mother--haughty,
+proud, avaricious, surrounded by "her wise ladies," who are flatterers
+rather than counsellors--ready to exult in the rapine and plunder of the
+army of her son; her natural fears awakened by his delayed return, yet
+hushed and soothed by the enumeration of the spoil. No feeling of pity
+softening the love of vengeance,--the desire for the plunder of a
+conquered people engrossing all.
+
+And in Sisera we see the proud, cruel, licentious spoiler--all the
+powers of his evil nature called into exercise by success and the long
+indulgence of every evil passion and gross appetite--arrogant,
+oppressive and cruel in success; abject, cowardly and overreaching in
+adversity. We can well imagine the state of an oppressed people ruled by
+such a man at the head of a licentious soldiery. And harsh as may seem
+some of the expressions of Deborah, in her joyous outbursts of praise
+and thanksgiving, they arise from the ineffable miseries, the deep
+degradation, the oppressive cruelties, to which all the daughters of
+Israel would have been exposed had he been triumphant; and a mother in
+Israel might well exult in a deliverance from one whose desolating track
+was marked by lust and carnage.
+
+We do not love to dwell on the treachery of Jael--we do not feel called
+upon to justify the act, although Deborah might well rejoice in the
+deliverance of her people from so stern a foe, so foul an oppression.
+Sisera appears as abject in the hour of defeat as he had been insolent
+and arrogant and cruel in the hour of triumph.
+
+After Israel was restored to liberty we hear no more of Deborah; but
+"the land had rest forty years." She again returns to her own sphere, to
+the unostentatious, yet all-pervading usefulness of domestic life. No
+honours, no triumphs, no statues were awarded to her. No monuments seem
+to have been erected to her memory. The palm-tree was her fitting
+memorial; delighting the eye, affording shade, shelter and nourishment;
+asking and securing nought from man, watered by the dew and rain of
+heaven, and rejoicing in the beams of the sun--still pointing to heaven
+while sheltering those beneath it.
+
+Jehovah seems to permit such examples to stimulate woman to usefulness
+and to vindicate their capacity; and thus there ever have been and are
+still Deborahs--mothers in Israel--those who, dwelling under their own
+roof, in the seclusion of domestic life, yet send forth an influence
+which extends far and wide.
+
+The sound, rational piety of such women, and their lives of humble
+faith, of prayer, and of consistent usefulness, have often awakened a
+high tone of religious feeling and led to extensive revivals of pure
+religion.
+
+Without departing from their allotted sphere, without forgetting the
+delicacy and proprieties demanded from their sex, they have been greatly
+instrumental in elevating the moral and religious standard of a
+community by their faithfulness in reproving the erring and reclaiming
+the backsliding, while by their kindly sympathy and effectual
+co-operation, they have aided, encouraged, and, by their prudent,
+judicious counsel, guided--the appointed leaders of Israel.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+JEZEBEL.
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Although the family of Jeroboam were soon swept from the throne of
+Israel, yet those who succeeded still pursued the policy by which he had
+been governed; and through all the contention and bloodshed which marked
+the reigns of different dynasties, they all persisted in the idolatry
+established by him. "They all did evil in the sight of the Lord, and
+walked in the way of Jeroboam and in his sin, wherewith he made Israel
+to sin." But of Ahab, the son of Omri, it is written that "he did more
+to provoke the God of Israel than all that were before him." He pursued
+the path which had been marked out by his predecessors when he married,
+and he found in his wife an efficient aid. By the strength of her mind,
+by the energy of her character, by the introduction of an idolatry at
+once more corrupt and more ensnaring, she did more to complete and seal
+the apostasy of Israel than all who had gone before her.
+
+The name of Jezebel has descended to us as one of the most opprobrious
+epithets which can be applied to a woman. Little did the haughty queen
+who bore it imagine what a reproach and offence it was to become for
+future ages, in unknown lands, and among unborn nations.
+
+We think of her always as old, withered, thirsting for blood, and
+incapable of the finer sentiments and all the softer emotions of human
+kind. There was a time in which she shone as the centre of a splendid
+and luxurious court, where minstrels sang to her and poets praised her
+and princes flattered her, while statesmen confessed her influence and
+cabinets adopted her plans. Fascinating, artful, able, ambitious, and
+unprincipled, she may be regarded as chief among many of the most
+celebrated of this class of her sex of ancient or modern days.
+
+There have been queens, not of heathen lands and barbarous Asia, but of
+refined and christianized Europe, upon whose memories rest quite as dark
+shadows as those which cover the character of the Queen of Israel. It is
+sad to remember how many of the most atrocious acts which disgrace the
+annals of our race are to be traced to the influence of female ambition,
+jealousy, hate, or revenge. Larger possessions than that of the vineyard
+of Naboth have been obtained by perjury and blood; and few modern courts
+could consistently condemn the principles or the policy by which the
+monarchs of Israel attempted to consolidate and perpetuate their
+dominion. In the estimation of many statesmen and many historians,
+greatness has sanctified all the means by which power is either to be
+attained or preserved, and the splendour of the court has fully atoned
+for all the oppression of the people.
+
+While she was fitted to co-operate with her husband, and ready to
+promote his designs and to embrace the policy which had guided the court
+of Israel, she soon assumed and ever maintained that influence which the
+stronger mind, the more powerful will, ever exerts over the inferior and
+weaker. Through all his reign, Ahab ever deferred to her; and while she
+goaded him onward in his career of crime, she stimulated and upheld him
+by her daring defiance of the commands and threatenings of the prophets
+of the Lord. She possessed all the energy, power, and constancy which
+ever belongs to minds of a high order, and which fit them for greatness
+in virtue or crime--insuring widespread usefulness or leading to
+desperate wickedness. She never was turned from her course. She never
+faltered, trembled, or hesitated in the pursuit of her object. She
+witnessed, unawed and unmoved, miracles of judgment and of mercy. She
+saw unpitying a land consumed by drought and a people perishing by
+famine; and when the parched earth drank the showers of heaven, while
+she rejoiced, she was neither softened nor made penitent by the
+blessing.
+
+Ahab could not entirely divest himself of every national characteristic,
+or the remembrances and associations of his faith and his people. There
+still clung to him some remains of the fear of the "Lord God of his
+fathers," some feelings of reverence and awe for the name and worship
+of Jehovah. No such compunctions troubled Jezebel. When Elijah visited
+Ahab, the impious monarch quailed before him and trembled at the
+denunciation of Divine wrath. Jezebel answered his reproofs by scorn and
+threats, and her menaces drove the prophet from the altar where he had
+triumphed.
+
+Yet her history is replete with sad interest. While it declares the
+certain ruin which follows national sins and national corruption, it
+displays also much of the wonderful forbearance of Jehovah. As we
+retrace his dealings even with the guilty house of Ahab and the apostate
+people of Israel, we are reminded of _One_ who, ages after, wept over
+Jerusalem. "Oh, if thou hadst known, in this thy day, the things which
+belong to thy peace--but now they are hidden from thine eyes."
+
+During the earlier years of the reign of Ahab, while Jezebel was engaged
+with all zeal and activity in proselyting the people of Israel to the
+worship of Ashtaroth and Baal, she was constantly resisted by the
+prophets sent as messengers from Jehovah. And many miracles of mercy and
+of judgment, wrought before her by the power of the Lord God of Israel,
+should have convinced her of the truth of His messengers--His
+indisputable claim to be the God--the Lord God. She resisted all--not
+from the want of evidence or the power of believing, but from the
+perverseness of a determined will and a hardened heart. Yet he who
+styles himself a God merciful and gracious, long strove with her, though
+at last she provoked him to depart and leave her to her chosen way.
+
+The seizure of the vineyard of Naboth seems to have consummated the
+iniquity of Jezebel, while it brought all the distinguishing traits of
+her character into full light.
+
+Judah was a land of rocky hills and narrow though fertile valleys. The
+possessions of Israel were broader and more luxuriant; and in the
+beautiful plain of Jezreel the kings of Israel had built their favourite
+city of Samaria. In that city, Ahab erected the temple consecrated to
+Baal, and there he maintained four hundred and fifty priests for his
+service, while the Queen of Israel kept four hundred in the groves
+consecrated to Ashtaroth. "But the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite was
+hard by the palace of Ahab, King of Samaria."
+
+The King of Israel desired the vineyard of Naboth, either to enlarge his
+grounds or to add to their beauty and variety. Yet, despotic and
+unprincipled as he was, the laws of possession were so fixed, the rights
+of property so established, that, on the refusal of Naboth to sell his
+inheritance, he dared not use violence; and he sank into sullen
+despondency.
+
+It has ever been characteristic of wives like Jezebel to maintain their
+ascendency by arts and blandishments, and by ministering to every
+corrupt propensity of their husbands. With the watchfulness of a devoted
+wife, she saw the vexation of her husband.
+
+"Why is thy countenance so sad?"
+
+"And he said unto her, Because I spake unto Naboth the Jezreelite, and
+said unto him, Give me thy vineyard for money; or else, if it please
+thee, I will give thee another vineyard for that."
+
+Naboth had said, God forbid that I should give the inheritance of my
+fathers unto thee.
+
+The faithful Israelite may have recoiled from the thought of its passing
+into the hands of the unholy worshippers of Baal and Ashtaroth and being
+polluted by their orgies. But Ahab did not give the denial in its full
+force. He represents Naboth as simply refusing. "I will not give thee my
+vineyard."
+
+We seem to see the actors before us, in the spirited, yet simple
+narration, as it proceeds. Ahab, heavy, sullen, morose--with clouded
+brow and furrowed cheek. Jezebel, with her flashing eye, her queenly
+gait, her haughty aspect, and all the workings of pride and craft and
+ambition expressed in her faded but still striking features. With what
+utter contempt would she look upon the husband who sank into despondency
+because he had not the skill to devise, or the will to perpetrate, the
+iniquity which would insure the attainment of his desires!
+
+"Dost thou govern Israel? Arise, and eat bread, and let thine heart be
+merry. _I_ will give thee the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite."
+
+And a darker plot, or one more artfully devised, has seldom been
+unravelled among all the iniquitous intrigues of courts and statesmen.
+Naboth was doubtless a true worshipper; and for once Jezebel professed
+all honour to the laws of Jehovah. He was arraigned and tried by the
+laws of Moses--long trampled upon and disused. And all the solemnities
+of religion were resorted to, to aid her plans and advance her purpose.
+
+Falsely arraigned, accused, and condemned, Naboth was executed, and his
+sons perished with him. The hands of his brethren were imbrued in their
+blood. She who managed the plot found other agents to execute her
+designs. With impious hypocrisy, she insulted heaven by ordaining a
+solemn fast, for God and the king had been blasphemed. These
+transactions display the deep depravity of the Queen of Israel, while
+they show the influence of her character and example upon her people.
+The very ministers of justice were made the abettors of her guilt; and
+law, with all its formalities and solemnities, was made to sanction
+crime. How many sins were committed to gratify one idle, covetous
+desire! God was insulted and defied and blasphemed; justice was
+corrupted; and falsehood, perjury, and murder were all used to
+accomplish the wicked will of Jezebel. And how many victims have been
+thus arraigned, and perished thus, in later days! This deed awoke the
+vengeance of Jehovah. Even as Ahab took possession of his blood-stained
+field, the prophet of the Lord met him and denounced the doom of the
+perpetrators of the dark crime. All were to perish, and all were to die
+deaths of blood and shame. Husband, wife, parents, and children--all, to
+the latest generation, were to be cut off--to be rooted out of the earth
+as an abominable stock, and to rot in the sight of the heavens. Ahab
+humbled himself, as he received the message of the prophet, and showed
+an outward reverence: and his doom was so far softened that the
+destruction of the family was not immediate: but Jezebel seems still as
+bold and unmoved as ever. Jehoshaphat, the King of Judah, entered into
+alliance with Ahab, and visited his court to witness the splendour and
+share the hospitalities of Jezebel; and while both were warring against
+Syria, Ahab was slain in battle.
+
+Jezebel doubtless would have scouted the folly of those who saw the
+fulfilment of both prophecy and sentence in the dogs licking the blood
+from the chariot and the armour, as they were washed in the pool, which
+probably was on the lands of Naboth; yet she might have foreseen thus
+her certain fate--and as Ahab had died, so she should die. Her doom was
+yet deferred. She long survived her husband, and prosperity and such
+honours as attend the prosperous were her's. She was the daughter, wife,
+and the mother of kings. Her sons ruled Israel. Her daughter sat on the
+throne of Judah. She dwelt in royal state at Jezreel, and enjoyed
+possessions which had been obtained by revolting crimes. Ahab had died a
+bloody death. Jehoshaphat was gathered to his fathers; the King of Syria
+perished by the hands of his servant; and Elijah was taken up to
+heaven--but Jezebel still lived.
+
+What were the occupations of her old age? Was she still busy, restless,
+and intriguing? Or did the past haunt her with dark remembrances of
+shame and crime, and the avenging future cast its shadow over her soul?
+Did the stern decree of the prophet ring in her ears, and late remorse
+drive her to the dark cruelties of her bloody idolatry, in the idle hope
+of expiation? Such an old age could not have been happy. She was left to
+fill up the measure of her iniquity, while memory told of past sins, and
+conscience whispered of the coming retribution, and the avenging justice
+of heaven hung like a dark cloud over her guilty house. Past the season
+of pleasure, deprived of the power she had so abused, without the honour
+and sacred reverence due to virtuous age, she may have had a foretaste
+of her future retribution, though surrounded by all the splendour of
+royalty, with trembling and abject slaves ministering to all her wants.
+
+One son after another quietly took possession of the throne of Israel,
+and Jezebel may have derided the prophecy of Elijah; yet the sentence,
+long delayed, was fully executed. The hour of foretold vengeance
+arrived. In one day, the King of Israel was dethroned and murdered, and
+the race of Ahab was swept from the face of the earth. The last act of
+her life was worthy of Jezebel herself,--of the Queen of Israel in the
+days of her prime. She heard of the death of Jehoram and of the
+insurrection of Jehu. Neither the timidity of a woman nor the yearnings
+of a mother had a place in her soul. In the hour of carnage, surrounded
+by all the horrors of death, the pride of her nature prevailed, and all
+the daring of her character was displayed. She forgot neither the
+proprieties due to her rank nor the embellishments needful for her
+person. With the vanity of the woman and the pride of a queen, "she
+painted her face and tired her head," and then haughtily presenting
+herself before the murderer of her children, she uttered a maddening
+taunt and defiance. By the hands of her servants she was cast from the
+windows of the palace of Israel into the very grounds which had been the
+vineyard of Naboth; and as she was dashed to the earth, the wheels of
+the chariot of the destroyer of her race passed over her, and the feet
+of the horses trampled upon her. "And the dogs ate Jezebel by the walls
+of Jezreel." Thus her doom was accomplished!
+
+[Illustration]
+
+There have been many like her. Her crimes have been sometimes equalled
+in atrocity. Her ruling passions were pride and ambition; and she
+doubtless clung to the idols of her land from the unbounded license
+their worship gave to sensuality, and the opportunities it afforded, in
+its feasts and festivals, for display and gayety.
+
+But she clung more tenaciously to her idolatry from motives of
+self-interest and national aggrandizement. It was the test of loyalty
+for Israel. It was in perfect consistency with such a character to turn
+away from all evidence and to reject what she did not wish to believe.
+In the expressive language of the Bible, she "hardened her heart;" and
+doubtless, like skeptics of later days, she could ascribe what she could
+not disprove to the working of natural causes, or to the arts of
+priestcraft.
+
+We can all stifle the convictions of conscience and contemn the
+principles which conflict with our interest or our inclination; and
+there are in every station unconscious imitators of the Queen of Israel.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+ATHALIAH.
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The pious king of Judah not only formed a political alliance with
+Israel, but he even permitted, and probably encouraged, his son, and the
+heir to his throne, to marry the daughter of the impious Ahab and the
+idolatrous Jezebel. Jehoshaphat saw not the Queen of Israel as we see
+her--as unlovely as she was unholy. Dazzled by the splendour of her
+court, won by her grace and queenly bearing, he may have overlooked her
+crimes. The most unprincipled have sometimes carefully and successfully
+cultivated much that gives grace and attraction to social life. Some,
+whose hearts have been utterly selfish and callous, and whose lives have
+been one dark record of crime and cruelty, have yet shone as the centres
+of splendid circles, diffusing all around them pleasure and gayety. And
+men, themselves unstained, have been won by these fascinations to a
+close association with those whose principles were worthy only of
+reprobation, and whose association should have been shunned as in the
+last degree contaminating.
+
+The intimacies between those who love and worship God and those who
+reject him are ever full of danger. And while the courtiers of Ahab and
+the flatterers of Jehoshaphat may have applauded the liberal policy of
+the King of Judah, and his freedom from the bigotry of the prophets who
+would reform Israel, he was pursuing a course which was to involve his
+family in calamity and bring corruption into his kingdom. Jerusalem and
+Samaria were not very remote from each other, and the kings of Israel
+and Judah seem at this period to have maintained frequent personal
+intercourse: an intercourse which appears not to have elevated the moral
+character of Israel, while it surely led to the deterioration of the
+piety of Judah; for when godly persons mingle freely with the
+impious,--especially if this intercourse originates from mere motives of
+ambition or worldly expediency,--the former will be much more ready to
+sink to the level of the worldling than to raise the worldling to their
+own.
+
+The influence of this association with the depraved court of Israel
+doubtless had its effect upon the heart of Jehoshaphat. He was not drawn
+into idolatry, but he probably was less zealous in the service of
+Jehovah and in the vindication of his ways. He may have rather
+sympathized with the monarchs of Israel in their attempts to establish
+their own faith and maintain their own authority, than with the
+persecuted people of Israel in their efforts to preserve the worship of
+their fathers. While he regretted the idolatry of Jezebel, he may have
+censured what would be called the uncourtly intolerance or the bigoted
+zeal of the prophets, who uttered such denunciations and threatenings
+against the reigning family. Perhaps he pointed out to the few faithful
+Israelites whom he might meet in the train of Ahab or at the court of
+Israel the propriety of a more gentle mode or a more conciliating
+policy. As the friend of Ahab, he betrayed the cause of God, and upheld
+his iniquities. In all the persecutions they sustained, we do not find
+that the prophets of the Lord ever sought a refuge among their brethren
+of Judah. Hardly could they have expected shelter and protection from
+the king who was allying his own family with the house of Ahab. They
+found shelter among the heathen; they were nourished by miracles; they
+were hid in the coverts of the rocks, and were fed by ravens, while
+Jehoshaphat and his court were rejoicing in the alliance of Jehoram with
+Athaliah--the royal son of Judah with the royal daughter of Israel; and
+the worshippers of Jehovah and the devotees of Ashtaroth and Baal were
+mingled in their train.
+
+There might have been heavy forebodings and low, suppressed murmurs
+among those who remembered the statutes of the Lord, and who recalled
+his dealings with his people; but the multitude could rejoice in the
+splendour and the festivities of the occasion; the court could exult in
+the pomp and display; and wise politicians could talk of the benefits to
+the two countries of speaking one language, springing from a common
+origin, and preserving their own national integrity, and yet presenting
+one united front to the common enemy. And Jehoshaphat may have hailed
+this marriage as the master-stroke of his policy, while
+religiously-disposed courtiers whispered that a scion of Israel,
+transplanted to Judah and nurtured by Jehoshaphat, under the influences
+of Zion, must indeed prove a plant of righteousness in this garden of
+the Lord.
+
+Did Jezebel fear this? Did this strong-minded, politic, crafty woman
+feel that her daughter was placed under influences which might draw her
+from the idols of her mother, and make her recreant to the policy of her
+father's house?
+
+Jezebel was too strong in the consciousness of her own power, to fear
+that her children would oppose her wishes or her plans. All experience
+proves that the wife exerts a powerful influence upon the character of
+her husband. Even where she has apparently little mental strength, she
+may possess great moral power, for evil or for good. This influence
+pervades her family, and is felt even while it is despised and
+disavowed. When holy and pure, it is as reviving, strengthening,
+invigorating as the pure breath of the morning. When it has its source
+in a selfish, polluted heart, it comes like the midnight miasma or the
+blast of the desert, prostrating and destroying all over which it
+passes.
+
+The character of the mother often determines the course and the destiny
+of her children. She imprints her own moral lineaments upon her
+offspring. She moulds their habits and she transfuses into them the
+feelings, motives, and principles which actuate herself. The influence
+of the mother is often so perpetuated in her daughters that the
+individual seems multiplied as she is faithfully reflected by them.
+Where the mental and moral characteristics are marked, they are almost
+sure to descend; and the character of Jezebel was one to leave its
+impress.
+
+Thus we find Athaliah worthy of the stock from which she sprang. She was
+the true, as she seems to be the only daughter of Jezebel. Though early
+allied to Jehoshaphat and removed into the kingdom of Judah, she
+retained all the idolatrous prepossessions of her father's house, and
+she exhibited all the traits which marked her race. She possessed the
+qualities which had been so prominently displayed by the course and life
+of Jezebel. The same desperate will, the same determined energy, the
+same daring courage and dauntless resolution, and the same proud
+ambition; and she was even more devoid than her mother of all the kinder
+feelings, affections, and sympathies.
+
+Jezebel had resolutely crushed all those affections and sympathies of
+her nature which would be likely to check her progress in her career of
+crime and power. She had trampled upon all that would obstruct her in
+the attainment of her object. Yet some of the feelings of the woman, the
+tenderness of the wife, the fondness of the mother, still seem to linger
+in her proud heart. Unprincipled as she was, she did not abandon herself
+to utter selfishness. In her most atrocious acts she seems to have had
+some regard to the aggrandizement of her family and to the gratification
+of her husband. The daughter was more depraved than her mother. Athaliah
+was utterly selfish, devoid even of the instinct of natural affection. A
+character more revolting is not presented to us in the pages of the
+historian, sacred or profane.
+
+A woman rioting in blood that she might gratify her ambition! A mother
+destroying her offspring that she might possess their inheritance!
+Jezebel was a depraved woman, but Athaliah was a monster--a woman
+destitute of all the feelings of humanity, working all evil, and only
+evil, from the mere love of self. With selfish desires which absorbed
+all consideration, and in their intensity prompted to unnatural crimes,
+having no object in view beyond her personal gratification or
+aggrandizement, there was not even the extenuation to be offered for
+Athaliah which could be urged for Jezebel; for the policy of Judea was
+opposed to idolatry, and in the family of Jehoshaphat she was surrounded
+by influences most favourable to a virtuous course, and influences which
+had never rested upon her mother. Under the very shadow of the Temple
+she perpetrated her most flagrant crimes.
+
+Although the depravity of Jezebel led her to adopt a corrupt religion,
+to reject a pure and holy worship, and to cling to the dark and cruel
+rites of heathenism, the voice of conscience was not silenced, the light
+of the soul was not entirely extinguished. She felt the need of some
+faith--she clung to the altars of her gods. But Athaliah seems to have
+sunk into the brutishness of those who own "no God." She seems to have
+trampled upon all faith, as she violated all obligation--insensible
+alike to the calls of conscience and the aspirations of devotion. She
+had no womanly sympathies. She had high mental endowments--she had a
+powerful will and strong passions--but she had no affections. There have
+been many Jezebels--but few Athaliahs. The affections compose so large a
+part of a woman's nature that we disown one who is without them. In her
+deepest guilt, in her lowest debasement, they still cling to her; and
+raised to the summit of power, they do not often wholly desert her.
+
+The princess of Israel must have been married at an early age, and she
+was long restrained by the character of Jehoshaphat from the public
+display of her wishes and inclinations. While he lived, Judah still
+retained the outward show of reverence for the God of Israel, and
+doubtless Athaliah often led her train to the temple of Jehovah; yet the
+infection of the character and principles of the daughter of Ahab was at
+work. A poisonous leaven spread through the royal family. The younger
+princes of Judah were contaminated; and when Jehoshaphat died, this
+influence of Athaliah was first manifest in the character of Jehoram. It
+is written of him that "he walked in the ways of the kings of Israel,
+after the house of Ahab, for the daughter of Ahab was his wife, and he
+did evil in the sight of the Lord."
+
+He commenced his reign by the murder of his brethren, the sons of his
+father. Jehoshaphat had provided for all his sons, giving them wealth
+and appointing them to offices of trust, while he left the kingdom to
+Jehoram. And without pretext or apology, Jehoram put them all to death;
+and their families were involved, as we may well believe, in their ruin.
+They were probably proclaimed outlaws, and then murdered wherever found,
+perhaps while dwelling in perfect security and in profound peace; and
+with them fell many of the other princes of Judah not so nearly
+connected with the royal family. The very commencement of his reign, the
+occasion of so much joyful festivity to the court, was thus marked by
+crimes which brought utter desolation to the families and terror to the
+hearts of the people of his kingdom; and we may well presume that the
+woman who afterwards proved herself so reckless and heaven-defying,
+prompted to this first crime. She who was herself so ready to commit
+deeds of blood would be quick to instigate others.
+
+The whole reign of Jehoram was impious and disgraceful. He erected
+altars on all the hills of Judea, to draw his people into the worship of
+Baal and Ashtaroth; while he compelled the inhabitants of Jerusalem to
+join in the corrupt festivals and the abominable rites of this Syrian
+goddess.
+
+Elijah, the prophet of Israel, was commissioned to reprove Jehoram, and
+to denounce the impending doom of his house. He was not ordered to
+present himself at the court of the King of Judah, but to write his
+message. "There came a writing to Jehoram;" and probably the King of
+Judah scoffed at the warning, and perhaps referred him to the unexecuted
+judgments denounced upon the house of Ahab, and to the present
+prosperity of the family, and the continued stability of the kingdom, as
+a proof of the fanatical delusion of the pretended prophets of the Lord.
+Yet the doom of the guilty Jehoram was accomplished even before the
+woes denounced upon Jezebel were fulfilled. Tributary kingdoms revolted,
+and in vain he sought to bring them back to obedience. The Philistines
+and the Arabians made an incursion into Judah, and carried away all his
+wealth, while they took his family captive; and Jehoram, smitten by a
+most loathsome and painful disease, died. He was buried without the
+usual honours paid to royalty. His memory and his person were alike
+offensive.
+
+Upon the accession of Ahaziah, the next king, the influence of Athaliah
+is soon recognised. He was the youngest and the only son not carried
+into captivity. It is said that "his mother's name was Athaliah, the
+daughter of Omri. He also walked in the way of the house of Ahab, for
+his mother was his counsellor to do wickedly,"--as wife and mother,
+alike unholy. "Wherefore he did evil in the sight of the Lord, like the
+house of Ahab, for they were his counsellors, after the death of his
+father, to his destruction."
+
+The second son of Ahab had succeeded to the kingdom of Israel, and
+Jezebel was surrounded by all the splendours of royalty. Peace and
+prosperity still attended her family. The death of Naboth and his sons,
+and the denunciations of the prophet, were probably forgotten, or
+remembered only to be despised. The royal houses, so closely allied,
+maintained a familiar intercourse, and the King of Judah was on a visit
+of sympathy to the King of Israel, who was sick and wounded, when the
+rebellion of Jehu broke out. It came upon the house of Ahab like a
+hurricane: in the midst of security and of apparently profound peace,
+the storm swept over and destroyed them.
+
+While the kings were in the palace of Israel, the rapid approach of a
+messenger awoke the curiosity rather than the apprehension of the King
+of Israel. With the rashness of a doomed man, he rushed upon his own
+destruction. As the messengers, whom he had sent to meet the approaching
+foes, returned not, the two kings hastened to meet the advancing troop.
+And they met Jehu by the vineyard of Naboth, and there the King of
+Israel was slain, while the King of Judah fled, mortally wounded, to
+Megiddo, where he died. All that belonged to the house of Ahab in Israel
+perished in this hour of vengeance and righteous retribution. Jehu
+murdered those of the descendants of Jehoram who fell in his way; and
+Athaliah hastened to complete the fulfilment of the prophetic doom of
+her house by herself instigating the murder of all who remained of the
+royal family of Judah, although they were her own descendants! In her
+ruthless ambition she destroyed her grandchildren, that she might
+herself ascend the throne of Judah. She seems to have exulted in the
+blood and carnage which opened her way to royal power. Unmoved by the
+fate of her mother, with her sons and her brothers scarce cold in their
+untimely graves, by her cruel treachery she consummated the destruction
+of her family; and, stained with blood and polluted by crimes, she
+seated herself upon the throne of David, and usurped the inheritance of
+her children!
+
+For eight years Athaliah held this usurped position. No compunctious
+visitings of conscience seem to have haunted her. She felt neither pity
+nor remorse. She may have well sustained her ill-gotten power while she
+resided amidst the pomp and pageantry of royalty. Her resolute despotism
+seems to have held her subjects in awe, and to have quelled them all
+into subjection. She had herself wrought the fulfilment of the doom of
+her race. As the last of Ahab's children, the sword of divine vengeance
+was suspended over her head, and in the time appointed it fell. She was
+to die the death of her house--a death of blood.
+
+When the kings of Judah apostatized, while the individuals were
+punished, the race was spared. God still remembered his covenant with
+David; and, amid all the sin and desolation of Judah, the line of
+hereditary descent was unbroken. The root remained, and some scion
+worthy of the stock sprang from it.
+
+When Athaliah was ingrafted on the stock of royal Judah, she so debased
+it, that it seemed needful to purify it by cutting off all the branches
+to the very root. Yet one was saved. And, as if to display his own power
+and grace, God is at times pleased to select from the families the most
+apostate and unholy, the instrument of his work and the trophy of his
+grace. So he made the daughter of Athaliah the nurse and the
+instructress of him who was to reform the kingdom of Judah.
+Jehoshabeath, wife of the high-priest of the Lord, seems to have escaped
+the character and the doom of her family. Her's was a task most
+difficult. She was called to oppose the depravity of her mother and to
+thwart her bloody policy, and yet not to appear as her accuser and as
+hastening the execution of the Divine vengeance. Hard is it to the
+virtuous child to reprobate the character and course of the unholy
+parent, and yet preserve the reverence due to the relation. Jehoshabeath
+appears before us in a light which leaves a most favourable impression.
+The saviour of the infant heir of Judah, the son of her brother, she
+cherished, instructed and guarded him. At the proper time the
+high-priest communicated the secret of the existence of the child to the
+princes of the land, and the son of Ahaziah was proclaimed king. No
+assault was made upon Athaliah. She rushed, like others of her family,
+upon her doom, as if she were infatuated. The tumult of the people, the
+triumphant strains of sacred and martial music, the clashing of the
+shields of the soldiers as they bore their king aloft, brought the first
+tidings of the existence of the last of her race to Athaliah.
+
+The daughter of Jezebel was not easily daunted. Her courage rose in the
+hour of danger. She had purchased the throne at a price too great
+readily to relinquish the possession of it. She forced her way through
+the crowds who surrounded the Temple, and through the bands of soldiers
+who guarded the young king, until she confronted the child whose brow
+already bore the crown of Judah--a heavy weight for the infant king. In
+vain she rent her royal robes, and in vain she cried, "Treason!
+Treason!" None adhered to her--none followed her--none perished with
+her. She died by the sword,
+
+        "And left a name to other times
+    Link'd with no virtue, but a thousand crimes."
+
+The history of modern nations is not without examples of similar evils
+entailed upon those who, professing themselves the heads of a purified
+church and a reformed faith, choose (from motives of pride or policy) to
+seek an alliance with the adherents of a dark, cruel, and persecuting
+superstition. Such a marriage precipitated the Stuarts from the throne
+of England, cost one king his life, and the family a kingdom; and the
+marriages of policy among princes, contravening the rules of God's word,
+are often followed by most disastrous results, and hasten the evils they
+are contracted to prevent.
+
+In private life, also, the marriage of those who have renounced this
+world for a higher portion, with the worldly and the ungodly, is
+generally a source of sin or of sorrow. There can be little congenial
+feeling between the spiritual and the earthly; and the servant of God
+who chooses a wife from the daughters of sin and the devotees of
+pleasure, places himself in a position of peculiar trial.
+
+The spirit of the wife pervades the household. The husband may rule, but
+the wife influences. His voice is obeyed, but the wishes of the wife are
+consulted. Her friends are the welcome guests. His associates gather
+around his board and claim his leisure hour, but her voice whispers to
+him in his retirement. She comes between God and his soul. The strongest
+of men was shorn of his might by the companion of his bosom; the wisest
+was led into foolishness and idolatry by the influence of a corrupt
+woman.
+
+We are prone to think of the period to which we have been referring as
+one of barbarism, and of the nations of Israel and Judah as ignorant and
+uncivilized. Does it not seem as if the very heavens must have been
+shrouded and the course of nature changed during the perpetration of
+such bloody crimes? Does it not seem as if a natural darkness must have
+overspread the land? And yet it was not so. The sun shone in his
+brightness, the skies were as serene, the rain and the dew descended,
+the vine and the olive ripened, and the flowers shed forth their
+sweetness, and all the bustle and show of life went on, as at other
+times. The people were oppressed, but the courts of Israel and Judah
+were splendid and luxurious; and they doubtless boasted of their
+advancing refinement, even when they were sinking into corruption and
+depravity. It has ever been the policy of the monarchs who are guilty of
+the most atrocious crimes, who shrink from no acts of cruelty, to
+promote that despotism which may banish the remembrance of their
+enormities, and to dazzle and blind the eyes of their people by the
+glare and splendour which surrounds their court. And thus these guilty
+monarchs, by the patronage of the licentious festivals of heathen
+worship and the alluring rites of a corrupt religion, compelled their
+people to sin. They drowned the voice of conscience and prevented all
+reflection.
+
+All history has shown us that, as nations have been verging to their
+ruin, they have yielded themselves to criminal excess and sensual
+indulgence; and the boasted periods of splendour and high refinement
+have been but the preludes to long seasons of national calamity or
+entire overthrow. Thus we may suppose it to have been with the ancient
+descendants of Israel. The courts were splendid and all the arts were
+patronized, while the thin veil of refinement was thrown over deeply
+corrupt manners. The people, departing from a holy faith, were sinking
+into a sullen debasement, or giving themselves to sensual indulgence
+and brutal ferocity.
+
+Modern nations have followed in the footsteps of the ancient world. The
+same idols are still worshipped under other names--the same passions
+rule the unholy heart.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+ESTHER.
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+When Isaiah wrote, Babylon sat a queen among the nations, in the pride
+of pomp and power, in the full security of strength; yet he graphically
+depicted her desolation and foretold her present state, while he
+pronounced her doom--a perpetual desolation. She shall never be rebuilt!
+Her towers are fallen and her site marked by ruins.
+
+The decline of Babylon had begun. It was certain, although slow. Years
+were to pass before the sentence should be fully executed. At the
+period, when the transactions recorded in the book of Esther took place,
+Shushan was the royal city of Persia. We are told that in this--the City
+of Lilies--the king Ahasuerus held a great feast, probably in
+celebration of some recent success, or in commemoration of some great
+national event. He assembled all the princes and nobles of his vast
+empire, extending from Egypt to India, and gave a feast or succession of
+festivities, which continued for more than the third of a year.
+
+All that oriental splendour and magnificence could contribute, all the
+expedients that eastern luxury could desire, to multiply the resources
+and to heighten the enjoyment of pleasure, were brought to aid the
+designs of the monarch and to add to the festivities of his court.
+
+Yet motives of policy may have combined with the designs of pleasure. In
+all ages the despot has sought to blind and dazzle the people by a
+display of power and magnificence; and the princes and nobles around,
+from distant provinces, have swelled the retinue of their attendants.
+
+The amusements of monarchs and of courts have, through all varieties of
+manners and degrees of refinement, been much the same. The ancient
+Syrian or Persian, like the modern British or French monarch, had his
+royal parks and forests for hunting.
+
+All nations have patronized the various trials of skill and strength,
+and the mimic fight has ever been an amusement where war was the great
+business of life. And the royal pageantry was doubtless intermingled
+with the religious ceremonies which allowed a license to criminal
+indulgence and at the same time offered a supposed expiation for crime.
+
+While these employed the day, the games of chance, the wine, the music,
+the movements of the degraded dancing-girl, and the tricks of the
+buffoon and the jester, amused the late hours and varied the festive
+scenes of the night.
+
+The feast was drawing to a close, and, at the termination of this long
+season of hilarity, Ahasuerus extended the pleasures of the occasion to
+all classes of his subjects at Shushan.
+
+He threw open his palaces and pleasure-grounds, his parks and
+gardens--always of vast extent around eastern palaces--and admitted all
+the citizens to a feast prepared for them. Tents had been erected within
+the precincts of the palace for the tables--and these tents were
+furnished with all the luxurious appendages of the east--with white and
+green and blue hangings, fastened with cords of fine linen and purple to
+silver rings and marble pillars; while the beds--the couches around the
+tables, against which the ancients reclined--were of gold and silver,
+upon a pavement of red and blue, and black and white marble; while they
+gave them to drink in vessels of gold. Until these last days the princes
+and nobles alone had participated in the festive scenes; but now, as we
+have said, all ranks were allowed to share, and the citizens of Shushan,
+subjects of Ahasuerus, thronged the palace and trod the royal gardens,
+and, entering the tents, enjoyed all that royalty could offer in ancient
+Persia--far surpassing in costly splendour and elegance the
+entertainments of modern courts. And surely the monarch must have had
+strong confidence in the security of his government and the loyalty of
+his people, as he thus from day to day, for successive days, flung open
+to them the recesses of his palace.
+
+While the king thus feasted the men in the gardens and parks of the
+palace, Vashti, the queen, held a festival for the women within the
+secluded apartments appropriated to the female part of the royal
+household. She made them a feast within the house of Ahasuerus; and this
+queenly entertainment was conducted with all that regard for retirement
+and decorum which accords with Eastern manners. But whatever the
+amusements of the queen and her train of attendants, no rumours passed
+the carefully guarded bounds of the women's apartments. At length the
+long season of pleasure came to a harmonious close. No outbreak of the
+people of Shushan, no rising of distant provinces, no plotting of
+high-born traitors had marred the festal pomp. Yet the season of
+pleasure is always a period of trial, and the seeds of remorse and
+repentance are almost invariably sown in the hours of gayety. Amid all
+this brightness, a dark cloud hung over Ahasuerus. On the seventh and
+last day, when the heart of the king was merry--when he had forgotten
+royalty dignity and personal decorum, by sitting too long at the festive
+board--excited by pride and vanity, and stimulated by wine, he resolved
+to dazzle the eyes of the people by presenting to their admiration a
+gem, brighter and more lovely than any which sparkled in the royal
+crown. To verify his loud boasts of her matchless charms, he sent his
+chamberlain to bid the queen array herself in that royal attire which
+befitted her state while it displayed her beauty and proclaimed her
+rank, and thus present herself, that the assembled multitudes might
+admire her loveliness and confess his happiness.
+
+In Western lands, and in modern days, this command would convey no idea
+of shame or impropriety. The royal consort and her train of fair
+attendants have often graced the presence and shared the honours of the
+monarch and his court, and added refinement to luxury. But no offer
+could be more opposed to all ideas of Eastern delicacy and
+propriety--more degrading to the woman, or more offensive to the queen.
+
+By thus unveiling herself before the crowd, she would sink herself to
+the level of the most unworthy of her sex--while the violation of an
+established usage, in the time of such excitement and excess, might lead
+to the wildest disorder, and the queen might be exposed to every insult
+from crowds maddened by wine and ripe for disorder; while the monarch
+himself might not be able to protect her in a position so strange and
+unfitting.
+
+The modesty of the woman and the dignity of the queen alike forbade
+compliance with the strange order--and Vashti might well presume that,
+in the hour of reflection, when his senses had returned, the monarch
+would thank her for a prudence which probably alone preserved her
+dignity and his honour.
+
+But the passions of the king were inflamed. His reason was blinded, and
+artful courtiers, from motives of intrigue or pique, stimulated his
+anger. There are ever those who stand ready to administer to unholy
+passions, and who are watching for the fall of such as are high in place
+or favour. And still under the influence of wine, the rash monarch, by
+his own act, placed an inseparable barrier between himself and her whose
+charms had so lately been his proudest boast, and whose conduct had
+proved that she well deserved all honour and all affection. Vashti was
+separated from the king's favour; and flattering sycophants extolled the
+act of folly, as a measure which gave peace and security to every
+household in the realm. "All the wives shall give to their husbands
+honour, both to great and small." And thus the day closed by an edict
+that brought sorrow to many hearts, and desolation even to the gates of
+the palace.
+
+The excitement was past. The hour of reflection arrived, and "the king
+remembered Vashti." His resentment was appeased. "He remembered what she
+had done, and what was decreed against her." That which had been
+magnified into a crime and had given such deep offence, was now seen to
+be an act of wisdom and prudence--the result of true modesty, and that
+deep affection which sought alone the love of her husband, which shrank
+from the admiration of the crowd, and which ventured to disobey rather
+than forfeit self-respect and womanly pride--preferring to lose his love
+rather than expose his honour. An immutable decree--his own--separated
+him from one lately so beloved, and so truly worthy of high honour.
+
+The darkened and saddened aspect of the monarch declared his late
+repentance; and those who had precipitated the fall of the queen, to
+screen themselves, were prompt to devise methods of banishing the
+remembrance of the divorced Vashti. They would replace her by a new
+favourite. Yet, so surpassing was her loveliness, and so rare her
+beauty, that the courtiers could with difficulty find one whose charms
+might banish from memory the repudiated consort, until they sought
+through all the provinces of that vast empire for the fairest of the
+daughters of men.
+
+Hadassah, a daughter of Israel, a descendant of Benjamin, of the house
+of Kish, the family of Saul, first king of Israel, won the monarch's
+favour, and was promoted to the place of the disobedient but high-minded
+Vashti. Esther was an orphan, but she had been carefully guarded and
+instructed by her kinsman Mordecai; and while we are told that the
+maiden was exceeding fair, we may believe that her beauty was of a high
+order, stamped too by intellect and feeling, and that the soul which
+often sustained and impelled her in her trying exigencies, breathed
+through her features and animated her form. Yet Ahasuerus merely bowed
+to the fair shrine. He sought not to awaken the response of the soul
+that dwelt within.
+
+When the daughter of Israel was placed upon the throne of Persia, and
+another royal feast proclaimed the triumph of Esther and the happiness
+of Ahasuerus, the king displayed his royal magnificence by the bestowal
+of gifts upon his favourites; and the name of Esther was blended with
+other and higher associations, as, upon her elevation, the taxes of the
+burdened provinces were remitted and pardons granted to the condemned.
+
+Mordecai, the relative who had supplied the place of parents to Esther,
+was, as we have said, of the house of Kish. Mordecai was the Jew rather
+than the Benjamite. His heart was devoted to his country. When the child
+of his adoption was taken to the palace, Mordecai displayed his wise
+forethought in cautioning her against making her parentage and kindred
+known. He had been as a father to her, and a deep interest in the orphan
+of his care led him, day by day, to watch the gate of the palace--to
+mingle with the attendants, that he might catch a view of her train or
+gather tidings of her welfare. And thus, unknown as the relative of the
+fair queen, or as especially interested in the king, Mordecai was
+enabled to detect and reveal a plot for the assassination of Ahasuerus.
+Esther being informed of the plot, disclosed it to the king--the
+criminals were defeated and punished--but no reward was conferred upon
+Mordecai.
+
+The passion of Ahasuerus for his fair bride seems to have soon declined.
+The fickle voluptuary sought new pleasures, and the bride so lately
+exalted to a throne was no longer an object of envy. Many bitter tears
+have been shed by the victims of family pride or state policy, when thus
+allied to greatness and splendour. The sacred rite has often been
+prostituted to purposes of ambition and selfishness, and has thus become
+a source of guilt and misery. Esther, in her elevation, may have shed as
+bitter tears as fell from Vashti in her banishment and disgrace.
+
+Thus each state has its own trials and its own griefs--and it has its
+peculiar alleviations too. Perhaps the progress of the narrative will
+show us the source of that influence which seems early to have
+estranged Ahasuerus from his bride.
+
+Among the courtiers of the king there was the descendant of a race long
+at variance with the Jews. The Amalekites had been the enemies of the
+Israelites from the infancy of the nation. When the tribes came up from
+Egypt, faint and weary in the desert, the Amalekites had fallen upon
+them and attempted to destroy them; and during a series of ages there
+had been a war of extermination between the races. Nor had Amalek been
+subjected until Saul was raised to the throne and Israel had become a
+kingdom.
+
+When Israel and Judah had been destroyed or carried captive by the hosts
+of the Assyrians, the remaining Amalekites seem likewise to have been
+carried into the east, either as prisoners or allies. And now, from
+among all his courtiers, Ahasuerus had chosen, as his chief favourite
+and counsellor, Haman, the son of Hammedatha, a descendant of Agag--that
+king of Amalek who, as the prisoner of Saul, was condemned to death by
+Samuel, the judge of Israel. The descendant of a royal line and of an
+ancient race, Haman was as crafty as he was unprincipled and malignant,
+and his evil influence seems to have first drawn the king's favour from
+Esther. He did not know her lineage, but by plunging the king in every
+excess, by keeping all safe counsellors at a distance, he intended to
+increase his own influence and perpetuate his own power, while he was
+accumulating great wealth from the prodigality of his master and from
+the presents offered as bribes to obtain his favour.
+
+As he did not know the lineage of Esther, he did not persecute her; but
+as he feared an influence that might compete with his own, he strove to
+alienate the heart of Ahasuerus from her. Haman was advanced to honours
+far above all the native princes of the kingdom; even to the first seat
+in counsel, to the highest honours in the realm, and to constant
+companionship of the monarch.
+
+As, with trains of slaves and flatterers, he was hastening to the
+audience of the monarch, or returning loaded with marks of royal favour,
+he passed Mordecai the Jew, seated alone--unknown, unheeded, without
+rank or wealth--by the gate of the palace. "Yet Mordecai bowed not,
+neither did reverence to Haman." The two men seemed to represent to each
+other their respective nations; as if all the hate and malice of the
+race, and of long ages of national bitterness, were concentrated in an
+individual. They met as the Israelite and the Amalekite; and the
+memories of centuries of aggression and injuries, of shame and defeat,
+were crowded into the present moment. Mordecai saw in Haman, not only
+the foe to his race, but the crafty, unprincipled, unholy counsellor,
+who had already alienated the heart of the monarch from his youthful
+bride, and whose pernicious influence was spreading blight and
+corruption, misery and destruction--through an empire.
+
+Every feeling of the Jew, every principle of an upright, sincere heart
+forbade Mordecai to pay the homage demanded of him by Haman. Every
+sentiment of national pride, of family honour, of personal dignity, of
+self-respect, arose to deter the descendant of Israel from showing
+honour to the hereditary foe of his people and the persecutor of his
+faith.
+
+Haman, at the same time, saw in Mordecai the descendant of those who had
+triumphed over his nation and destroyed his ancestors. The descendant of
+Agag, the captive of Saul, he might naturally vent his indignation upon
+the tribe that humbled his house and subjected his nation and destroyed
+his ancestors. The contempt with which Mordecai regarded him roused all
+the ancient malignity of the Amalekite, and his hot blood called for
+vengeance.
+
+Yet he thought it a foul shame to lay hands on Mordecai alone. The ruin
+of one man would not heal his wounded pride. He meditated a deeper and
+more deadly revenge. He resolves to sweep the remnant of the Jews from
+the face of the earth!
+
+The proposed plan displays at once all his cruelty and malignity, and
+all his crafty influence over Ahasuerus, while it proves the king too
+much immersed in pleasure, or too much subjected to his artful
+favourite, to regard the welfare of his subjects or the interests of his
+kingdom.
+
+Superstitious and idolatrous, Haman cast lots day after day, for
+successive days, that a fortunate one might decide the day to be chosen
+for the work of death on which he was bent. And this accomplished, he
+hastened to secure the edict from the king. Surely the monarch must have
+been sunk in wine and debauchery who could thus unhesitatingly accede to
+the proposition to murder, in cold blood, thousands of unresisting
+subjects, when the worst allegation preferred by their enemy was "that
+their laws were diverse from all people." Yet here was the very
+principle of religious persecution; and as sanguinary edicts as these,
+enacted against God's ancient people, have been too often issued in more
+modern days, and no Mordecai has sat at the gate of the palace, mutely
+to plead for mercy--no Esther has staked her life upon the attempt to
+avert the doom!
+
+By the offer of an enormous bribe, to be collected from the plunder of
+those doomed to death, Haman sought the acquiescence of the king in his
+scheme. And though he refused the bribe, yet he bade Haman do with the
+people and their possessions as seemed best to him; giving him his
+signet ring, he seems to have divested himself of all care and
+responsibility, and Haman having issued the edict and commanded the
+couriers to distribute the royal mandate, they both returned to their
+pleasures. "The king and his counsellor sat down to drink."
+
+No elaborate essay upon the character of Ahasuerus, no analysis of the
+arts of Haman, could so display the indolent, luxurious, self-indulgent,
+voluptuous monarch, or so illustrate the secret of the favourite's
+power. The companion of his pleasures, he was careful to minister to all
+the sensual indulgence that could lead him to forget his duty and the
+obligations of right and justice incumbent upon the ruler of a great
+people.
+
+Of all the cruel and bloody mandates issued by despotic monarchs, and
+designed to answer either the purposes of private malice or unholy
+policy, few, if any, have exceeded this which was directed against the
+ancient people of Jehovah. The Jews who had returned to their own land
+were included in this proscription, for Judea was at this time a
+tributary of the Persian empire.
+
+"Then were the king's scribes called, the thirteenth day of the first
+month, and there was written according to all that Haman had commanded,
+unto the king's lieutenants, and to the governors that were over every
+province, and to the rulers of every people of every province, according
+to the writing thereof; and to every people after their language, in the
+name of King Ahasuerus, was it written, and sealed with the king's ring.
+And the letters were sent by posts into the king's provinces, to
+destroy, to kill, and to cause to perish, all Jews--both young and old,
+little children and women, in one day, even upon the thirteenth day of
+the twelfth month."
+
+Thus we see all the machinery of this powerful government put in motion
+to crush the Jews--a people widely dispersed and weak from their recent
+captivity and overthrow. As no crime was specified, so there was no
+offer of pardon or exemption on any terms; while to make it more
+distinctly understood, the terms which indicated their fate were
+singularly multiplied. "To _destroy_, to _kill_, to _cause_ to
+_perish_." And while the murder of a nation was thus made a legal
+execution, the mode was left to the option of the executioners; and
+every torment that malignity could devise might be inflicted, while all
+were stimulated by the promise of the plunder of their victims--"and to
+take the spoil of them for a prey."
+
+What scenes of horror, of suffering, would have followed the execution
+of this barbarous edict! The whole empire had probably been deluged in
+blood--for man, like the inferior animals, seems maddened by the taste
+of blood--and one cruelty is but the prelude and provocation of another;
+and in the time of strife, while all were made executioners of the law,
+private malice would confound others with the proscribed, and few could
+be safe in the hour of commotion.
+
+When this edict was published, and while Ahasuerus and Haman sat down to
+indulge in the pleasures of the table, all the city of Shushan was
+perplexed, confounded, and troubled--wondering what motives, what state
+policy, what strange conspiracy, had led to this sanguinary enactment
+against a people long dwelling among them--a nation who had furnished
+counsellors and ministers to their wisest monarchs.
+
+When Mordecai saw what was done, he rent his clothes and put on
+sackcloth with ashes, and went out into the midst of the city and cried
+with a loud and bitter cry. He published--he could not conceal--his
+grief and terror; and his crafty foe perhaps exulted in his misery. The
+long struggle between the Amalekite and the Israelite seemed now to be
+concluded. The fall of the Jews seemed to be sealed. All the power of
+the Persian empire was arrayed against them. They were prisoners in her
+different provinces, appointed to execution! All human power and
+authority and presumption of success was on the side of Haman, and
+against his intended victims.
+
+Mordecai had no hope on earth. His trust was alone in the God of his
+fathers--the God of Abraham and of Isaac and of Jacob--the God often
+defied by Amalek. In his distress he presented himself, clothed in
+sackcloth, at the gate of the royal palace; but no one arrayed in the
+garb of sorrow might enter the haunts devoted to luxurious pleasure. Yet
+the sight of his distress and the tones of his deep grief arrested the
+attention of the attendants of the queen, and her chamberlain reported
+the circumstances to her.
+
+No tokens of sympathy, no expression of condolence, however grateful,
+could assuage the grief of Mordecai in this hour of terror and alarm;
+and even though commanded by the queen, he declined to lay aside the
+tokens of wo, while he diligently sought to convey to the secluded
+Esther an account of all the machinations of Haman, and the assurance of
+the imminent danger to which her nation was exposed, and in which she
+was involved. He not only sent her a copy of the edict which condemned
+the Jews, but he charged her to supplicate the king on their behalf.
+
+The young queen must have felt like one awakened from a sleep to find
+herself upon the brink of a precipice. Her situation was full of danger.
+The flush of royal favour was past. She was neglected and forgotten. Her
+splendid palace was indeed but a prison, and her lordly consort might
+prove her executioner. For a long time she had not seen the king or
+received the least token of royal favour or remembrance, and a new
+favourite might have succeeded her in the court of the capricious
+voluptuary. Yet she was sternly charged by Mordecai to rouse herself,
+meet the peril, and, if possible, save her people, while he taught her
+to recognise the designs of a wise Providence in her elevation.
+
+"Then Mordecai commanded to answer Esther, Think not with thyself that
+thou shalt escape in the king's house, more than all the Jews. For if
+thou altogether holdest thy peace at this time, then shall there
+enlargement and deliverance arise to the Jews from another place; but
+thou and thy father's house shall be destroyed: and who knoweth whether
+thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this?"
+
+In the appeals of Mordecai to Esther, we may recognise the principles
+upon which he had trained her. The sense of duty, the obligations of
+religion, the call to self-sacrifice and exertion, had all been
+instilled while Esther was in private life, and they bear their fruit on
+the throne. Yet there must have been a conflict in the heart of Esther,
+before she could adopt the decision which might accelerate the doom of
+her people, while, if her appeal failed, her own fate was scaled with
+their's.
+
+Surrounded by all the splendour of the court, with all the pleasures
+that pomp and power can command, with troops of menials treading marble
+halls, with the more genial luxuries of fair flowers and pure fountains
+and soft music--Esther felt the insufficiency of all that earth can
+yield in the hour of sorrow and trial. We may almost fancy that we see
+her, with lofty brow and pale cheek, her dark soft eye fixed in thought,
+and the compressed lip telling of the firm resolve. She has decided! She
+will venture the loss of royal favour, and life itself, to secure the
+safety of her people. "I WILL GO IN TO THE KING, AND IF I PERISH--I
+PERISH." Words more simple, yet sublime in their high meaning, have
+seldom been recorded. Strong purpose and high resolve call for but few
+words.
+
+Yet Esther relied upon a power higher than that of Ahasuerus. She may
+have recalled the history of her nation; she may have remembered all the
+interpositions of Divine mercy in past extremities; and doubtless she
+relied upon those promises for the future which induced in Mordecai a
+confident hope of deliverance. She remembered that Jehovah--the God of
+Israel--hears the prayers of the humble and the contrite. She appointed
+a solemn fast of three days, in which the Jews of Shushan should humble
+themselves and remember her before the God of their fathers.
+
+A more eminent instance of simple dependence upon the Divine
+interposition, or of entire reliance upon the voice of prayer, has
+seldom if ever, occurred. There was no resort to outward ceremonies to
+awaken a deeper feeling, or to atone for the want of it by a formal
+observance. There was no altar, no sacrifice, no long procession, no
+promised offering, no resort to temple or priest, but there was the call
+upon God from the depth of the soul--the simple, unfailing trust of the
+heart, the personal humiliation, the individual prayer, the united
+offerings of supplication and confession from a whole people. There was
+the simple faith that relies on the Divine power and pleads the Divine
+promises with submission to the Divine will. It was a strange contrast
+to the sensual, gross, superstitious, and unholy rites of the heathen,
+while from its deep spiritual meaning, and from the entire absence of
+all merely formal observance, it was both a precedent and a model for
+future ages, and for the holy spiritual worshipper of other days.
+
+It was no heartless service, no formal act of worship rendered by the
+Jews of Shushan, when Esther called upon them to pray and to fast with
+her and for her. While the queen and her maidens fasted in the recesses
+of the palace, in many a lowly home or quiet chamber were gathered the
+race of Esther, to commit her and themselves to Jehovah, to beseech him
+to forgive the sins of his people and save them, for his mercy's sake,
+in this hour of their extremity. Mingled with their personal
+apprehension and anxiety for their wives and their children would be
+thoughts of "the daughter of their people"--their beautiful queen--so
+young, so fair, so lately exalted to the pinnacle of honour and glory;
+adorned with gems and wreathed with flowers, the pride of a monarch and
+the ornament of a court; now, neglected, abject, forsaken--included in
+the doom of her race, prostrate in some secluded apartment of the
+palace--her royal apparel exchanged for sackcloth and ashes--still
+cleaving to the God of her fathers, and still identifying herself with
+her kindred and countrymen. Whether they regarded her royal state, her
+tender years, her bitter desolation, or her heroic resolution, all the
+sympathies of the heart, all the purest feelings of the nation, would be
+called forth in her behalf.
+
+Other feelings would find a place in the hearts of the Jews as they
+contemplated their present state. The last deed of the Amalekite would
+bring to recollection the injuries of ages. This Haman, who now, in a
+time of profound peace and full security--while both races were exiles
+from the land of their fathers--had plotted the ruin of their nation,
+the total extermination of their race; who had doomed the feeble and
+helpless, the little one and the aged, to perish with the strong man in
+his might; this Haman was the son of those who fell upon the tribes,
+faint and weary, in the wilderness; who had pursued them with inveterate
+hatred; who had ever joined with their foes or stood ready to attack
+them in their defenceless state.
+
+When we recollect that the conspiracy of Haman but closed the long train
+of injuries inflicted on Israel by Amalek, we shall not so much wonder
+at the feelings sometimes expressed by the Jew. The character of the
+tribe was still the same--their course through all years was unaltered.
+And now, while Amalek has perished and the Jew survives, we can form no
+just estimate of that national feud. Haman was a type of his
+race--artful, cruel, treacherous, and bloody; and what the Roman was to
+Hannibal, what the ancient Persian was to Greece, what the Turk is to
+modern Greece, what Russia is to the Pole, such was the Amalekite to the
+Jew.
+
+While Esther had manifested her sense of dependence upon the eternal
+Ruler of nations, and her faith and reliance upon the God of her
+fathers, by humbling herself before him and relying upon his protection
+and interposition in this hour of darkness, she showed, too, a knowledge
+of the human heart, not often acquired at her age; an instinctive
+insight into the character and the motives of those around her, with the
+power of adapting herself to circumstances, that has seldom been
+displayed in one so young, combined with so many of the higher qualities
+of the woman.
+
+She knew the weak point in the character of Ahasuerus, and she forgot
+not the power of beauty, the influence of personal charms, as she
+arrayed her fair form in the rich and splendid vestments that so well
+became her, and summoned all the aid of oriental art and elegance to her
+toilette, that her presumption might be forgiven in her loveliness--that
+favour won by her beauty might be extended to her nation; and if she
+felt the hope of pleasing, as she surveyed herself in the polished
+metallic mirror, decked with the magnificence of a royal bride and
+adorned with the gifts of him whose favour she would seek, her heart
+might have sunk too at the remembrance of the favour she had once won
+and lost. In assuming the crown placed upon her brow by Ahasuerus,
+there was a tacit claim to her royal rights; for that gemmed circlet was
+not only a badge of rank, but a pledge of affection--a token of honour
+and royal favour, which elevated her above the throng of beauties who
+filled the courts of the palace. Had she arrayed herself in sackcloth,
+had she appeared as a mourner, an afflicted suppliant, she would
+probably have found the royal voluptuary more anxious to banish one who
+disturbed his pleasures, than to redress the grievances that appealed to
+his justice.
+
+Yet it must have been with trembling limbs and a beating heart that she
+stood before Ahasuerus; and, by entering his presence unbidden, she made
+her mute appeal to his mercy.
+
+And strange, at that unwonted place and hour, must have appeared the
+beautiful vision to the king, while courtiers and attendants stood in
+silent amazement. There was but one anxious moment before the sceptre
+was extended; the trembling queen touched it, and thus was encouraged to
+prefer her petition for any favour that the royal hand could bestow. The
+presence of Esther seems to have revived at once the fondness of the
+monarch, and all his coldness and indifference vanished like the mist
+before the rising sun. All the arts of Haman had been needed to wean him
+from her and to teach him to forget her. How rarely does a vile, unholy
+counsellor or companion seek to corrupt a private man, or a prince, or a
+ruler, without striving first to undermine the influence of the virtuous
+wife, mother, or sister!
+
+Warily does the royal suppliant present her request, still uncertain of
+the degree of favour on which she might rely. She offered no petition
+that could embarrass the king. She made no complaint of past neglects.
+She uttered no word of upbraiding for forgotten vows; but delicately
+implying that his presence was the source of her happiness, that this
+had constrained her to break through all the formal observances of
+courtly restraint and endanger life itself, she besought him to honour
+her by attending a banquet which she had prepared. Thus she avoided the
+awakening of the suspicions of Haman by even asking to see the monarch
+without his presence. Including him in her invitation, she allayed all
+jealousy of a wish to exert an influence inimical to his, while she thus
+offered an additional inducement to Ahasuerus to honour her feast.
+
+By a strong effort and great self-command, the young queen retained her
+calmness and preserved her grace and gayety. And even when the banquet
+had closed and the guests had retired, and the king again asked her to
+prefer her petition, she did not venture to prefer that which was
+nearest her heart. His favour was too uncertain and his favourite too
+powerful. She only besought his presence again as a guest, and again his
+favourite was included in the invitation.
+
+The Jews were still lying low before their God. When the feast in the
+palace was broken up, and the gates were shut, the high walls cast their
+shadows upon the moat. The sentinels still moved with measured tread.
+The lights gradually disappeared, except those that told of some one
+watching over the sick or dying, or some chance-beam betraying a late
+carousal. In the palace, the soft footfall of the attendants in the
+antechambers, could not disturb the slumbers of the monarch, while
+strains of sweetest music were ready to lull him to repose, as warder
+and sentinel kept watch over his safety. But still "that night the king
+could not sleep;" and wakeful, restless, solitary, he commanded his
+attendants to bring him the archives of his kingdom, and read to him
+the records of his reign. Strange request! How few monarchs would care
+thus to review the past, and force themselves to the judgment awaiting
+them from a higher tribunal and from future ages!
+
+It was not chance which held the eyes of the king waking. It was not
+chance which drew his attention to the conspiracy defeated by Mordecai,
+and to the investigation of the treatment he had received for so high a
+service. No reward, no honour had been conferred upon one who had saved
+the life of the sovereign. A strange forgetfulness or neglect of the
+prime minister of the realm! While Ahasuerus was devising some mode of
+requiting the obligation due to one who had rendered the state important
+service, he called for a counsellor, and was told that Haman was
+without, in the court.
+
+Haman left the banquet of Esther in all the assurance of royal favour.
+He had attained to honours which distinguished him above all the
+subjects of the Persian empire. He had received distinctions which
+elevated him above even the princes and nobles of the kingdom; and in
+his pomp and power he passed, with his train of attendants, menials,
+flatterers, and followers, through the gates of the royal palace, "the
+observed of all observers;" and as he came into the thronged
+thoroughfare that led from the royal abode, all did him homage and
+showed him reverence--save one.
+
+Mordecai, the Jew, still sat at the king's gate--probably, still wrapped
+in sackcloth. His eye met that of Haman, but it quailed not. It was a
+stern, reproving glance! And while all others did lowliest obeisance,
+Mordecai neither bowed nor uncovered his head.
+
+There was no word--there was no reproach--but there was a silent
+defiance, that conveyed to the soul of Haman an assurance of disgrace
+and defeat, and that told him he was despised, amid all his honours and
+prosperity. He hastened to his home. He gathered his household around
+him and told them of his riches, his honour, his prosperity, and the
+assurance his large family afforded him that his riches would descend in
+his own line, and that his ancient lineage and royal race should thus be
+perpetuated. He told them of the high honour that day received at the
+royal feast, and of a like honour in reserve for the morrow. But still
+his pride was mortified by Mordecai's course. "All this availeth me
+nothing," he said, "so long as I see Mordecai, the Jew, sitting at the
+king's gate." Wretched, malignant man! What a picture of the power and
+force of evil passions--of that selfishness which could find its
+happiness in the misery and suffering of others!
+
+His hatred of Mordecai seems the more insane, when we remember that
+Haman held his fate in his hands, or rather had actually sealed his
+doom. He might well forego forms of reverence from the man he had doomed
+to death. Yet the desire for the humiliation of Mordecai, for some token
+of abasement and fear, seems to have absorbed all other feelings; and as
+this was the only thing withheld, so it was the only thing desired. To
+soothe the disgust and allay the indignation of Haman, the family
+council decreed the immediate death of Mordecai, and they doomed him to
+the gallows--a most ignominious death. While this instrument of his
+destruction was in preparation upon the grounds of Haman, he sought
+Ahasuerus, that the sentence might be ratified. He who had given him the
+power to murder a nation, would surely assent to forestalling the doom
+of an individual; and Mordecai's disobedience to the royal order, his
+disrespect to the minister who represented the authority of the
+sovereign and the laws of the realm, seemed to offer a fitting pretext.
+
+While Haman was waiting in the antechamber for audience, Ahasuerus was
+resolving some mode of requiting Mordecai; and, ever prone to rely on
+favourites and counsellors, he was unable to decide for himself; so he
+sought advice from his favourite courtier, who was so near at hand. To
+him the question was submitted: "What shall be done to the man whom the
+king delighteth to honour?" Ever selfish, ever intent upon his own
+promotion, and constantly loaded with marks of royal favour, Haman very
+naturally presumed that fresh honours were destined for him, and that he
+was to be allowed to designate the very marks of favour which he most
+desired.
+
+"Now Haman thought in his heart, to whom would the king delight to do
+honour more than to myself?" And so he answered the king: "To the man
+whom the king delighteth to honour, let the royal apparel be brought
+which the king useth to wear, and the horse that the king rideth upon,
+and the royal crown 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 delighteth to honour,
+and bring him on horseback through the streets of the city, and proclaim
+before him, Thus shall it be done to the man whom the king delighteth to
+honour."
+
+If Haman intended this as a mere vain-glorious display--an impressive
+pageant, designed to publish to the people the high dignity of royal
+favour which he personally enjoyed--it would not be without meaning; but
+we cannot but think that, according to Eastern usage, there was a deeper
+significance in the ceremony.
+
+The customs of the East are almost immutable, and there was much
+similarity between those of Egypt, Assyria and Persia. When Joseph was
+exalted to be ruler of Egypt, he was clothed in royal vestments, and
+passed in triumphant procession through the city, while all were called
+upon to bow the knee before him. Daniel was clothed in scarlet and in
+purple (the badges of royalty) while his honours were announced. But
+Joseph rode in the second chariot of Pharaoh, and his distance from
+royal state was clearly defined, while Daniel was declared third in the
+empire of the Medes and Persians.
+
+In appropriating all the badges of royalty--the crown, the robes, the
+horse, the princely attendance--Haman seems to have been preparing a
+claim to higher honour than those of Joseph or Daniel; to be even
+preparing to ascend the throne. All the homage that could be shown the
+subject had long been exacted. A nation was now under a dreadful doom
+because only one of their race withheld it; and now he would take to
+himself all the appendages of royal state!
+
+A sudden tumult in the palace, a popular outbreak, so common with
+despotic governments, might easily be accomplished, and Haman might
+ascend the throne of Ahasuerus--for the lines of descent seem to have
+been not unfrequently changed in the Persian empire; and in the
+convulsions of despotic states, even slaves have mounted the thrones of
+their masters.
+
+Whether, in his designs, he merely sought the gratification of a present
+vain-glorious ambition or was preparing for a higher destiny, the
+revulsion must have been most overwhelming, the change and surprise
+inexpressible, when the announcement and command of the king fell upon
+his ear.
+
+"Make haste!" said he, "take the apparel, and the horse, as thou hast
+said, and do even so to Mordecai the Jew, who sitteth at the king's
+gate. Let nothing fail that thou hast spoken." You have devised the very
+highest honour that I can render: now confer it on the man I designate.
+
+The Eastern despots are arbitrary; and Haman, confounded and petrified,
+ventured no remonstrance. He bowed and obeyed. He departed as the
+messenger of honour to Mordecai the Jew. Whatever the malignant and
+bitter feelings of his heart, he dared not give expression to them. He
+was compelled to serve the man he hated, to confer the highest honour on
+the man he had doomed to the deepest obloquy, publicly to bow before one
+whom he hoped to trample beneath his feet! With what contending
+feelings must he have delivered the mandate of the king to Mordecai!
+What strong emotion must have convulsed his soul! Yet the most powerful
+feelings are seldom displayed. The green sod covers the pent volcano,
+and a slight trembling alone denotes the action of the devouring
+element. It is all repose and calmness on the surface while the billows
+of flame are raging beneath.
+
+Thus the aspect of the courtier was calm, though sullen, while with his
+own hands he acted as chamberlain to the Jew and arrayed him in robes of
+royalty and honour. We may imagine a group for a painter, in Haman,
+dark, malignant, and sullen--and Mordecai, calm, proud, unbending,
+receiving service from his enemy. And after having with his own hands
+arrayed the new object of royal favour, Haman was placed at the head of
+the proud war-horse, as he slowly bore the Jew through the multitude,
+who thronged the street "to behold the man whom the king delighteth to
+honour." We seem to see him--the proudest, the most arrogant of
+men--with bowed head and averted eye, while Mordecai sits erect and
+firm, in all the dignity of conscious worth.
+
+As they slowly proceed through the thronged thoroughfare, obstructed by
+crowds who came to gaze upon the pageant, many a significant sneer or
+half-uttered jest would convey to Haman a sense of his degradation in
+appearing as the groom of the despised Jew.
+
+When the ceremonies were over, Mordecai again appeared at the gates of
+the palace. Nothing in the apparent condition of the two was changed,
+and the pageant may have seemed like a dream to Mordecai. He was only
+anxious to know the proceedings and fate of Esther. Yet he must have
+gathered hope for the future, as he still trusted and waited upon God.
+
+But a dark cloud had fallen upon Haman. He foreboded his doom. He was
+humbled, disappointed, degraded, disgraced. He had been paraded, before
+the multitudes, the menial of the Jew. He had been forced to confer on
+the man he hated the very honours his soul most coveted. "And Haman
+hasted to his house mourning and having his head covered." And he told
+his wife and the friends whom he had gathered to consult upon the fall
+of the Jew, all that had befallen him. And clear, far-sighted, daring,
+and unscrupulous, the wife who had counselled Mordecai's destruction,
+foretold to Haman his own doom. "If Mordecai be of the Jews, before whom
+thou hast begun to fall, thou shalt not prevail against him, but shall
+surely fall before him."
+
+And they were probably counselling some measures for his personal
+safety; for when they were yet talking, came the king's chamberlain,
+and hasted to bring Haman to the feast Esther had prepared.
+
+As the feast proceeded, the king entreated Esther to ask some gift that
+he might bestow as a token of favour, or a pledge of affection. And then
+Esther, with a simple fervour, force, and dignity, and with the pathos
+of true feeling, offered her supplication for herself and her nation.
+"And Esther answered the king and said, If I have found favour in thy
+sight, O king! and if it please the king, let my life be given me at my
+petition, and my people at my request. For we are sold--I and my
+people--to be destroyed, to be slain, to perish." She quotes the words
+of Haman's edict, and then adds, "But if we had been sold for bond-men
+and bond women, I had held my peace, although the enemy could not
+countervail the king's damage," nor recompense the loss of so many of
+the king's useful citizens and peaceful subjects. Nothing could be more
+sweet, gentle, submissive, and truly dignified than her appeal. And the
+imagination and astonishment of the king are graphically displayed in
+his answer. Who is he? Where is he that hath presumed in his heart to do
+so? Who has dared to conspire against one so near my person, so exalted
+by my favour?
+
+Confounded, amazed--and probably for the first time suspecting the
+Jewish extraction of the queen--Haman was still speechless when Esther
+made her direct and firm reply: "That adversary, that wicked man, is
+Haman," here in the royal presence--here in the full blaze of royal
+favour.
+
+In the conscious justice of her cause, she had desired to be confronted
+with the man she accused, and he was present, that he might enjoy every
+opportunity of defence, if innocent; and if guilty, that he might
+receive the just reward of his deeds. The king was filled with wrath at
+this proof of the presumption and malice of his favourite, and he left
+the banqueting-room and went into the palace-garden.
+
+Haman, quick to read the feelings of his master, "saw that wrath was
+determined." Unable to escape the watchful attendants, and moved by
+terror, he approached the royal couch of Esther to beseech her, whom he
+had greatly injured, to intercede for him. And while he was thus
+engaged, the king re-entered the banqueting-house. His wrath was
+rekindled. The imprudence of Haman hastened the doom his crimes had
+provoked. The excited monarch, witnessing his apparent familiarity,
+accused him of designs of which his previous presumption might show him
+capable. His sentence was pronounced--his doom was sealed. The
+attendants covered his face, (a most significant act, still retained in
+Eastern courts,) and he was carried from the royal presence-chamber, and
+hung upon the very gallows he had erected for Mordecai. The flowers
+which were gathered for the feast and the wreaths entwined for his brow
+were still fresh.
+
+The succeeding interview of Ahasuerus with his still loved and more than
+beautiful consort, must have been one of no slight interest. There was
+much to unfold and to explain; there was something to confess and to
+forgive; and as the character of Haman was now exposed and his acts were
+revealed, the king may have regarded himself as the bird escaped from
+the fowler. Esther revealed her lineage; while the rising favour of
+Haman, the dangers to be anticipated from his hatred to her nation, well
+justified the prudent caution of Mordecai. As the queen told the king in
+what relation Mordecai stood to her, Mordecai was brought before him;
+and the former honour proved but indeed the installation into the
+highest offices of trust, while the vast possessions of Haman were
+conferred on Esther, and Mordecai was appointed her steward.
+
+Yet, while the royal favour and protection was extended to these
+individuals, the edict was still in force against the race, and again
+Esther besought the king to interpose his power and protection. The laws
+of the Medes and Persians, however impolitic and unjust, could not be
+repealed. The king had no power over the statutes he had made. Like the
+deeds of life, once passed, they were unchangeable. He might regret the
+act, he might deprecate the influence thus put in operation, but he
+could neither recall nor cancel them; and one instance attempted might
+have destroyed the royal power.
+
+Although Haman was removed, his family were numerous, and there was
+doubtless a large class of his ancient tribe who viewed him as the
+lineal descendant of their monarchs and entitled to their allegiance.
+They expected to share his triumphs, and, disappointed and exasperated,
+they would be ready to avenge his death. Haman being recognised as the
+highest officer of Ahasuerus and as his chief counsellor as well as
+favourite, he had great power and influence, and doubtless had a large
+party in his interests--either won by past favours or hope of future
+wealth and honour. At the same time all the discontented and turbulent
+of the land would be ready to join an outbreak which made the murder of
+any Jew lawful, where it could be accomplished, and which gave their
+possessions to those who were their destroyers.
+
+All that Ahasuerus could do to avert the threatened extermination of the
+children of Israel, was to allow them to defend themselves if any dared
+to attack them. The whole empire was convulsed with the desperate
+struggle between the Jews and the faction of Haman; and while the royal
+authority aided the Jews in Shushan, so that they were entirely
+victorious, seventy-five thousand of their assailants perished in the
+provinces, where we are told the Jews gathered themselves together and
+stood for their lives; and it is recorded to their honour, that upon the
+spoil of their enemies they laid not their hands. And all this suffering
+and blood was the result of the policy of Haman. The Jews were not the
+aggressors, although they came off victors.
+
+It was the last conflict between the nations of Amalek and Israel, and
+threatening and prophecy were thus fulfilled while both nations were
+strangers and exiles from their own lands; and while the tribe of Amalek
+perished, the sons of Haman, who probably led the conflict in Shushan,
+were condemned to the same ignominious death which their father had
+suffered. We infer their actual guilt from the fact that they seem to be
+unmolested until the day appointed for the extermination of the Jews. As
+leaders of the tumult they deserved the doom they received.
+
+The lot is from the Lord; and the day of vengeance thus deferred from
+Haman's regard to the casting of the lot, gave the Jews full time to
+prepare themselves to resist their foes, and defend themselves after the
+issuing of the second edict, by which they were empowered to act on
+their own defence, and to repel openly by armed resistance.
+
+The book of Esther is one of the most beautiful and variously
+instructive and interesting portions of the Old Testament. While it
+illustrates the providential care of Jehovah over all his people, and
+his readiness to hear their prayers and interpose for their deliverance,
+it shows too that he ruleth over all the nations of the earth, and that
+all the arts of intriguing men in courts and cabinets, the various
+changes which occur, either affecting nations or individuals, are all
+allowed to promote his infinite designs--all accomplishing his eternal
+plans. While his people, like Esther and Mordecai, gladly co-operate in
+the designs of the Almighty, his enemies are made the unwitting and
+unwilling instruments of advancing the same designs, and are
+accomplishing his purposes for the re-generation of a corrupt world--for
+the establishment of the kingdom of the redeemed, and the complete
+redemption of the children of God.
+
+As we look at the book of Esther, through the long dark vista of
+intervening ages, we are presented with a beautiful picture of a past
+period. Nations have perished and left no memories; and while all the
+other portion of our world, at that day, is shrouded in darkness or
+buried in forgetfulness, the light of revelation falls upon the court
+of Ahasuerus, and we see it in all the gorgeous splendour of oriental
+magnificence.
+
+The prosperous monarch of a powerful empire--munificent, prodigal, not
+deficient in capacity or heart, but indolent, and fond of luxury and
+feasting, he yields himself to the influence of the favourite; and when
+ready to rush into the seductions of pleasure, he still, at times,
+rouses himself and executes his own will, asserting his authority by
+some act of despotic power, of justice or cruelty, as the impulse
+prompts--he is a type of a large class of those to whom the destinies of
+more modern nations have been committed.
+
+In Haman we see the courtier--crafty, proud, vain, ambitious,
+aspiring--intent upon personal aggrandizement, and the acquisition of
+wealth; gaining his influence over the mind of the monarch by
+ministering to his pleasures, and maintaining it by banishing all pure
+influences and crushing all nobler feelings. The history of Haman is
+replete, too, with instruction, in displaying the absorbing power of the
+selfish and malignant passions, and their fatal influence upon character
+and happiness.
+
+One unsatisfied desire will embitter all the most coveted possessions.
+There will ever be something to be achieved--some enemy to humble, some
+higher elevation to attain, some Mordecai in the gate, whose reverence
+withheld is more desirable than all the homage of the multitude
+bestowed.
+
+He who cherishes in his heart a hatred of a class or an individual, is
+nursing a scorpion which will poison every kind feeling. We must love,
+not only to make others happy, but that we may be happy ourselves. We
+may withhold all marks of approbation from the unworthy, and still
+regard them with the benevolence required by the law of love.
+
+Thus while Mordecai saw in Haman the same persecuting spirit that had
+marked all his race; while he saw him, unholy, unprincipled, securing by
+his acts an influence over his master, which he abused; prostituting the
+royal authority to the ruin of the kingdom, making it subserve the
+purpose of his own unhallowed ambition; alienating the monarch from the
+queen, and inducing the disregard of the duties of private life as of
+sovereign power--Mordecai, as an upright, honourable, high-minded man,
+refused to render one, whose course he deprecated, whose character he
+abhorred, the honour accorded even by royal favour. He neither bowed nor
+did him reverence. But he did not assail him. He did not form any dark
+and treacherous plots against him. He did not revile him. All that he
+sought was to lead the blinded monarch to a calm investigation into the
+proceedings of his treacherous counsellor. And Haman had every
+opportunity of repelling accusation and justifying himself, as he was
+ever allowed to be present when Esther made her charges against him.
+There is a world-wide difference between the firm, indignant
+disapprobation with which a virtuous mind regards an evil man, working
+ill to all, and that malignant hatred which arises from selfishness and
+envy, and which pursues with bitterness and cruelty all that does not
+minister to its indulgence.
+
+If it should seem strange to us that the national antipathy should so
+long be cherished, we may remember that it is quite as strange that
+national character should be thus faithfully transmitted through so many
+generations; and those who so confidently predict a change of character
+from the mere change of the circumstances of a people, may do well to
+ponder the facts presented by the past history of the races of the
+earth.
+
+There are other contrasts between the characters of Mordecai and Haman.
+Haman was superstitious, yet not religious. He was artful, selfish,
+treacherous, bloodthirsty, corrupt himself and corrupting others,
+ambitious and vain-glorious. Mordecai was pious, upright, conscientious;
+fulfilling every duty, yet seeking no selfish aggrandizement, no wealth,
+no personal honour--even when placed in circumstances where he might
+claim them as a just reward--and never exerting an influence for selfish
+purposes; still ready to forego and sacrifice all that was demanded at
+the call of duty.
+
+While we see in Mordecai the devoted worshipper of the true God, the
+high-minded patriot, the man of inflexible integrity--an integrity that
+scorned the bad acts that would minister to the pride of false
+greatness--and a nobleness that rose above the desire for court
+favours, the strong features of his character are softened into beauty
+by his love for the orphan relative, his watchfulness over her
+childhood, and the interest displayed by his daily inquiries for her
+welfare. His affections were kind and tender, while his principles were
+unbending; and we feel that we love the man, though we are constrained
+to render a deeper homage to the patriot.
+
+Esther is one of the most beautiful characters in the gallery of
+Scripture portraits. Her character is peculiarly feminine; and while her
+path is marked by events of moment, it appeals to our hearts in each
+vicissitude of her lot. Youth and beauty always throw a charm around the
+possessor. Faint, perishing, transient as they are, they awaken all the
+sympathies of our nature; a deep compassion, a foreboding of the future;
+while the knowledge of the sorrows and trials which await those to whom
+the present is so bright, heightens our interest. Thus in each stage of
+the narrative, Esther comes to us with all that can awaken sympathy and
+excite interest.
+
+The fair flower is transplanted from Judea to the lands of the East--a
+scion of a stock soon removed--sheltered, watched, nourished by the pure
+dews of Divine truth; taken from seclusion and loneliness, where but one
+eye beheld its opening beauty, to the gardens of royalty; and there,
+among gayer and gaudier flowers, like the pure lily of the valley,
+winning royal favour by purity, sweetness, and graceful loveliness.
+
+We follow her from her lonely home to the palace, and think how many
+fears and alarms mingled with the triumph of her beauty, the
+consciousness of her power, when an empire blessed her name and
+celebrated her beauty. And a deeper feeling is roused for the royal
+bride, lately so flattered, caressed, and honoured, now suddenly
+forgotten, neglected--left to the loneliness of her apartments or the
+companionship of her formal attendants, while her lord pursued his
+career of pleasure, apparently unmindful of her existence.
+
+A bitter lot it is to the young, to be loved and then forgotten. And sad
+the contrast to the royal Esther, between her late elevation and all the
+incense of homage and affection then offered, and her present
+desolation. Yet it was a season of needful humiliation. It awoke her
+from the dream of splendour and gayety, and brought her back to the
+sober realities of life and its stern duties; and it was also a season
+of preparation for the trials that awaited her. It brought her to seek a
+happiness higher than could be found in palaces or courts, a favour more
+desirable than that of an earthly monarch, a love that is unfailing, a
+faithfulness that should be enduring--and thus, when the day of trial
+came, she was prepared. She could cast herself upon the arm that never
+falters, she could seek the interposition of the God of her nation, and
+of each individual who trusteth in him and relieth upon his mercy.
+
+There was something beautiful in the blending of her conscious
+helplessness, her sense of loss of the favour of her royal lord and of
+the love and courtly honour she deserved, of her entire dependence upon
+the protection and interposition of Heaven, and her resolution to
+venture all for her people.
+
+IF I PERISH--I PERISH! If we can recall the recollections of our
+childhood, we shall remember the breathless interest with which we
+attended her, in fancy, to the presence-chamber and awaited the extended
+sceptre. All the excitement of romance is concentrated in the story of
+Esther. And as we follow the narrative of her final triumph, her
+restoration to the love of her husband, the salvation of her people, and
+the exaltation of her family, we cannot but pursue the train of thought
+and feeling, and fondly hope that the influence of Esther and Mordecai
+might redeem Ahasuerus from the vices of youth, inspire him with higher
+motives, elevate him to a loftier standard, and rouse one, not deficient
+in natural kindness or nobleness of capacity, from a selfish voluptuary
+to an enlightened, able, and just ruler of a great people.
+
+The Jews still commemorate the feast of Purim, and celebrate their
+deliverance from Haman; and in all the climes and lands to which the
+race have been transported, they have carried the remembrance of the
+daughter of their people--the beautiful queen of ancient Persia, who
+ventured her life to ransom her race.
+
+We would learn from the whole history lessons of sobriety, of
+contentment with an humble lot, of the duty of cherishing the spirit of
+love, of kindness, of benevolence, of repressing the first germ of
+selfishness, of malignity, of envy; of dependence upon an over-ruling
+Providence; of encouragement to prayer, to trusting and waiting upon
+God.
+
+"Call upon me in the day of trouble, and I will answer thee," is said to
+each contrite heart now, as truly as to Israel of old; and none who have
+thus truly sought the Lord in lowliness and penitence, ever sought him
+in vain. His care and protection are still around his people; and
+although the enemies of his church may try her, they shall never triumph
+over her.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Notable Women of Olden Time, by Anonymous
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