{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_18316/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_18316","id":"gutenberg_18316","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/18316","summary":null,"tags":["Bible. Old Testament -- Biography","Category: History - Other","Category: History - Religious","Women in the Bible"],"text":"Produced by Joshua Hutchinson, Sigal Alon and the Online\nDistributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nNOTABLE WOMEN\n\nOF\n\nOLDEN TIME.\n\n\nWRITTEN FOR THE AMERICAN SUNDAY-SCHOOL UNION.\n\n\nPHILADELPHIA:\nAMERICAN SUNDAY-SCHOOL UNION,\n1122 CHESTNUT STREET.\n\n\n\n\n_Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1852, by the\nAMERICAN SUNDAY-SCHOOL UNION,\nin the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Eastern District\nof Pennsylvania._\n\n_No books are published by the AMERICAN SUNDAY-SCHOOL UNION without the\nsanction of the Committee of Publication, consisting of fourteen\nmembers, from the following denominations of Christians, viz. Baptist,\nMethodist, Congregationalist, Episcopal, Presbyterian, Lutheran, and\nReformed Dutch. Not more than three of the members can be of the same\ndenomination, and no book can be published to which any member of the\nCommittee shall object._\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS.\n\n\n                                               PAGES\n\nTHE WIFE--(SARAH)                                  7\n\nTHE WIFE UNLOVED--(HAGAR)                         35\n\nTHE PARTIAL AND INTRIGUING MOTHER--(REBEKAH)      63\n\nTHE RIVAL SISTERS--(LEAH AND RACHEL)              89\n\nTHE AFFECTIONATE SISTER--(MIRIAM)                119\n\nTHE PROPHETESS--(DEBORAH)                        171\n\nTHE ARTFUL WOMAN--(JEZEBEL)                      187\n\nTHE AMBITIOUS WOMAN--(ATHALIAH)                  205\n\nTHE ORPHAN QUEEN--(ESTHER)                       231\n\n\n\n\nTHE WIFE--SARAH.\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\nWithin a few centuries after the flood, while some who had witnessed the\nsin and the destruction of the antediluvian world were still living,\nJehovah saw fit, in accordance with his designs of eternal wisdom, to\nseparate Abraham from his brethren, calling upon him to leave the land\nof his birth and go out into a strange land, to dwell in a far country.\nHe was to pass the rest of his days as a sojourner in a land which\nshould be thereafter given to a people yet unborn,--to a nation which\nwas to descend from him.\n\nAbraham was a lineal descendant of Shem, who was doubtless still living\nwhile \"the father of Abraham yet abode with his kindred in the land of\nthe Chaldees;\" and from the lips of his venerable progenitor, Abraham\nhimself may have first received the knowledge of the true God, and have\nlearned lessons of wisdom and obedience, as he sat at his feet. Shem may\nhave conversed with Methuselah; and Methuselah must have known Adam; and\nfrom Adam, Methuselah may have heard that history of the creation and\nfall, which he narrated to Shem, and which Shem may have transmitted to\nAbraham; and the history of the world would be thus remembered as the\ntraditional recollections of a family, and repeated as the familiar\nremembrances of a single household.\n\nTales of the loveliness of Eden,--of the glories of the creation,--of\nthe blessedness of the primeval state,--of the days before the fall;\nremembrances of the \"mother of all living\" in the days of her holiness,\nwhen she was as beautiful as the world created for her home, in all the\ndewy sweetness of the morning of its existence,--of the wisdom of man\nbefore he yielded to the voice of temptation, when authority was\nenthroned upon his brow, and all the tribes of the lower creation did\nhim homage;--of the good spirits who watched over to minister unto and\nbless them;--of those dark, unholy and accursed ones, who came to tempt,\nbetray and destroy them,--were recounted as events of which those who\ndescribed them had been the witnesses. And from the remembrances thus\npreserved and transmitted by tradition, each generation obscuring or\nexaggerating them, have descended what we call fables of\nantiquity,--great facts, now dimly remembered and darkly presented, as\nshadowed over by the mists of long ages.\n\nHow must the hearts of the descendants of Shem have thrilled as they\nheard from him the history of by-gone times--of a world which had passed\naway! How much had the great patriarch of his race, himself, beheld? He\nhad seen the glory and the beauty of the world before the flood. It was\ncursed for the sin of man, in the day of his fall--but slowly, as we\nmeasure time, do the woes denounced by God often take effect, and,\nthough excluded from Eden, the first pair may have seen little change\npass over the face of the earth. The consummation of this curse may have\nbeen the deluge; and those who dwelt on the earth, before this calamity\nswept it with its destroying wing, may have seen it in much of its\noriginal beauty; while those who outlived that event witnessed a\nwonderful change.\n\nFrom that frail fabric, the ark, which proved the second cradle of the\nrace, Shem had beheld a world submerged,--a race swept off by the floods\nof Almighty wrath. He had heard the shrieks of the drowning, the vain\nprayer of those who had scoffed the threatened vengeance, the fruitless\nappeal of those who had long rejected mercy. As the waves bore up his\nfrail vessel, he had seen the black and sullen waters settle over\ntemples, cities and palaces; and he had gazed until he could behold but\none dark expanse of water, in whose turbid depths were buried all the\nfamilies of the earth--save one.\n\nThose he had loved and honoured, and much which, perhaps, he had envied\nand coveted--the pride, the glory, the beauty of earth--all had passed\naway. And after the waters subsided, and the ark had found a\nresting-place, what a deep and sad solemnity must have mingled with the\njoy for their preservation.\n\nHow strange the aspect the world presented! How must the survivors have\nrecalled past scenes and faces, to be seen no more! How much they must\nhave longed to recognise old familiar places,--the Eden of Adam and\nEve,--the graves in which they had been laid! For doubtless Seth and his\ndescendants still remained with their first parents, while Cain went out\nfrom their presence and built a city in some place remote. The earth\nwhich Noah and his descendants repeopled was one vast grave; and what\nwonder that those who built above a race entombed, should mingle fancy\nwith tradition, and imagine that the buried cities and habitations were\nyet inhabited by the accursed and unholy. Such have been the fancies of\nthose who darkly remembered the flood; and as the wind swept through the\ncaverns of the earth, the superstitious might still imagine that they\nheard the voices or the shrieks of the spirits imprisoned within.\n\nShem seems to have far exceeded his brothers in true piety, and the\nknowledge of Jehovah was for many generations preserved among his\ndescendants, while few or none of them ever sank into those deep\nsuperstitions which debased the children of Ham. And it is beautiful to\nremark, that the filial piety which so pre-eminently marked him has ever\nbeen a prominent trait among all nations descended from him. Thus\nreceiving his impressions of the power, the truth, the awful justice of\nJehovah, from one well fitted to convey them,--and taught the certain\nfulfilment of promises and of threats,--Abraham was early inspired with\nthat deep reverential and yet filial love, that entire confidence,\nwhich led to the trusting obedience which distinguished his character.\n\nYet, from his very piety, sad must it have been when the command came to\nleave the plains of Mesopotamia, and go out a stranger and a pilgrim\ninto distant lands, to become a dweller among those who were fast\napostatizing from the true faith. \"But by faith he obeyed,\" and by his\nobedience he has given us an example and illustration of faith, which\nhas been held forth through all succeeding ages. To be the child of\nAbraham, to walk as he walked, is, after the lapse of thousands of\nyears, the characteristic of the true worshipper of God.\n\nGuided by an Omniscient hand, trusting in an Almighty power, cheered by\nthat mysterious promise, which, as a star of hope shining in the hour of\ndeepest darkness, still rose to higher brightness as it guided the long\nline of patriarchs, kings, and prophets, until it settled over the\nmanger of Bethlehem, and was lost in the full glory of the Sun of\nrighteousness,--Abraham girded his loins and prepared for a departure to\nfar distant lands.\n\nAt first, attended by his father and brother, he sojourned with them in\nHaran; and the family pitched their tents in that spot which was to\nbecome in future ages the battle-ground of nations, when the proud eagle\nof imperial Rome was trailed in the dust, and her warriors and her\nnobles fell before their fiercer foes. Long ages have intervened since\nthe tents of this Syrian family were pitched by the side of the waters\nof Charan; and midway between their days and ours, were these waters\ndiscoloured with the blood of those who fell in the battle of Charae, so\ndisastrous to Rome, ever haughty, and then exulting in the height of her\nprosperity. A few wandering shepherds now lead their flocks in the plain\nin which Sarah and Abraham dwelt, and where Cassius and his legions\nfell. But a short sojourn was permitted Abraham here. \"Arise and depart,\nfor this is not your rest\"--and again he listened to the command from\nabove, and gathered his flocks and servants, and girded his loins, and\nset his face towards the land promised to him, and to his seed after\nhim. And now he left his father and his brethren, and went with his own\nfamily, the head of his house, the future patriarch of his race.\n\nYet he was not alone. The wife of his youth was by his side. In all his\nwanderings, in all his cares, there was one with him to participate in\nhis joys and to alleviate his sorrows. With him and for him, his wife\nforsook home, kindred and country. We doubt not that she too shared the\nfaith of Abraham; that she too trusted and loved and worshipped the God\nof Abraham, and of Shem, and of Noah. Like Abraham, a descendant of\nShem,--like him too, she had been trained in the worship of Jehovah. Yet\nto the faith of the true believer, there was added the strong affection\nof the wife; and while Abraham went out obeying God, Sarah followed,\ntrusting God indeed, but leaning still upon her husband. In all her\nfuture life, she is presented to us the wife; devoted, affectionate,\nsubmissive; loving her husband with a true affection, and honouring him\nby a due deference.\n\nWith a beauty that fascinated kings, preserving the charms of youth to\nthe advanced period of her life, she still lived but for her husband;\nand when even the faith of Abraham failed, and he withdrew from the wife\nthe protection of the husband, and said, \"She is my sister,\" Sarah\nappears to have acquiesced in a deceit so unworthy of her husband and of\nherself, merely to insure his safety among the lawless tribes around\nthem.\n\nAs we read the story of Abraham's wife, we catch glimpses of ages and\nnations that were hoar with antiquity, and had passed away when our\nancient historians began the record of the past. Nation after nation had\nperished and been forgotten before the profane historian began his\nannals. Yet childless, still trusting in the promise of Jehovah, Abraham\nwandered for many years through the land which was to be given to him,\nand his seed after him. Now pitching his tent in Moreh; then building\nhis altar at Bethel; then driven by famine into Egypt; then returning to\nhis altar at Bethel,--and there separating from his nephew Lot, because\n\"the land could not bear\" both, he fixes his abode in Hebron.\n\nNo pictures of pastoral life are more beautiful than those presented in\nGenesis; and while we contemplate the character of Abraham, we catch\noccasional glimpses of his household, and of the manners of his age. We\nsee him exercising forbearance and relinquishing the rights of a\nsuperior, that there might be no strife between him and his too worldly\nrelative. We see him leading out his own band as a prince, to rescue\nthat same relative,--who, tempted by the promise of large wealth, had\nchosen a location full of dangers,--and, in the hour of victory,\nrefusing all spoil and showing all honour to the priest of the most high\nGod.\n\nAgain he is before us, sitting in his tent in the heat of the day, and\nhastening to receive strangers,--\"thus entertaining angels\nunawares,\"--and then interceding for that city doomed to destruction for\nthe wickedness of the dwellers therein.\n\nAnd again he appears as the prince, the patriarch, the head of his own\nfamily, and high in honour with those around him, ever observing all the\ndecorum and proprieties of oriental life. We see him, too, as one who\nwalked with God; as the priest of his household, presenting the morning\nand the evening sacrifice; as holding high communion with God in the\nhours of darkness; entering into that covenant which is still pleaded by\nthose who claim the promise, \"I will be a God to thee, and to thy seed\nafter thee.\"\n\nThis promise of a seed, from which was to spring a great nation, \"like\nto the stars of heaven in number,\" was frequently repeated, yet still\ndeferred. Youth, manhood, middle age, all had passed, and still no child\nblest the tents of Sarah; and while Abraham still believed, and it \"was\naccounted to him for righteousness,\" Sarah seems to have felt that not\nupon her was to be conferred the distinction of becoming the mother of\nthe promised seed. With the warm impulse of the woman, she sacrificed\nthe feelings of the wife and the instincts of the heart, to promote\nwhat she doubtless believed to be the plan of God and the happiness of\nAbraham. There is a deficiency of faith as much to be manifested in the\nforestalling the plans of Providence as in the denial of the promises of\nGod: and while Abraham still trusted and waited the fulfilment of the\npromise, Sarah sought, by her own device, to accomplish prophecy and\ninsure the blessing.\n\nIn accordance with the usages of those around her, she gave her handmaid\nto her husband to be his wife, \"that their children might bless her\nage.\" She doubtless felt herself strong enough in love to Abraham and to\nHagar to believe that her affection would embrace their children. But\nwhen the trial came, and all the instincts of the heart, all the\nfeelings of the wife revolted, she proved that this violation of a\nheaven-appointed institution brings only sorrow and strife. Yet there\nwas no alienation between Sarah and Abraham. The wife of his youth was\never dearer to him than the mother of his child.\n\nAt length, however, the promise was fulfilled. Sarah became a mother.\nMany years had passed since she had left the home of her fathers. The\ndays of man were now much abridged, and she was fast approaching the\nordinary limit of human life; but we may suppose her cheek was still\nfair and her brow smooth, and that she still retained much of the beauty\nof youth.\n\nWith a wondering joy, Sarah gazed upon the child so long desired--the\nchild in whose seed \"all the nations of the earth\" were to be \"blessed.\"\nAnd she said, \"God hath made me to laugh, so that all who hear shall\nlaugh;\" and while those that heard that Sarah \"had borne Abraham a son\nin his old age,\" wondered at an event so strange, Abraham must have\npondered the prophecy which had revealed to him the destiny of his\nrace,--perhaps foreseeing that Star which was to rise in a still distant\nage, and apprehending, however dimly and faintly, something of the\nmysterious connection between the birth of the child and the promise\ngiven in the hour of the curse--the blending of the fate of his race\nwith the eternal plan of mercy and redemption.\n\nThere is an instinct in our natures which leads us to rejoice at a\nbirth; but, could Sarah have foreseen the destiny of her race, tears\nwould have mingled with her smiles. Wonderful has been the past history\nof that people, strange their present condition, while the future may\ndevelop mysteries still more incomprehensible.\n\nIn the hour of rejoicing over the new-born babe, past transgression\nbrought forth its legitimate fruits. Sullenness and strife were\nbrooding in the bosoms of the Egyptian bond-woman and her son; and the\nquiet eye of the mother saw all the danger arising from the jealous hate\nand rivalry of the first-born of Abraham.\n\nIf the decision was stern, it was needful. \"Cast out the bond-woman and\nher child, for her son shall not be heir with my son, even with Isaac.\"\nHarsh words,--but it is better to dwell peacefully asunder, than\ntogether in strife and bitterness. The malignant passions which led\nIshmael to mock, might soon be stimulated by the mother to\nmurder,--chafed and irritated as she was by the constant presence of the\nchild who had supplanted her own. From the time of the departure of\nHagar from the household of Abraham, peace seems to have rested upon it.\nProsperity attended him. He no longer wandered from place to place. He\nremained in Hebron, sojourning with Sarah and her child.\n\nMany years passed,--years of peaceful quiet and happiness seldom\nallotted to such an age,--while they trained their child in the nurture\nof the true God, and were honoured by the princes around him, who sought\nto enter into league with him, for they saw that \"God blessed him in all\nthat he did.\"\n\nOnce again God saw fit to test the faith of Abraham by calling upon him\nto offer his son--his only son Isaac, whom he loved--as a sacrifice; and\nAbraham obeyed the divine command, and thus doing, uttered that prophecy\nwhich has thrilled so many souls, \"God will himself provide a\nsacrifice.\" In this trial, Sarah seems not to have been called to\nparticipate. The mother was spared the agony of feeling that her only\nchild was to be offered as a sacrifice--that the hope of her life was to\nperish.\n\n\"Sarah was an hundred and twenty years old, and she died.\" The dark\nshadow of death is, sooner or later, to fall upon each household.\nAbraham seems to have been at a distance--perhaps in the charge of some\nof his numerous flocks--when he was recalled to Hebron by news of\nSarah's death. And he came to mourn over her. The remembrance of her\nmaiden beauty and modesty, the grateful recollection of all her conjugal\ndevotedness, filled his soul. If light and immortality were brought to\nlight in the gospel, still the divine rays were faintly reflected in the\nformer dispensation, and the eye of faith even then penetrated the thick\ndarkness of the grave.\n\nAnd now, after these long years of promise and waiting, Abraham takes\npossession of the land which God had given to him and to his seed. He\nasks, however, but a small portion,--a tomb, a place for his dead,--and\na more beautiful description of a scene of mutual deference, of regard\nfor rights and respect for character and position, was never penned\nthan that which records the negotiation between the bereaved patriarch\nand the children of Heth. With the touch of magic, the whole scene is\nbefore us. The bereaved patriarch, courteous in grief, bowing in the\npresence of the sons of Heth,--the deep respect, the kindly sympathy,\nmanifested by those who, strangers to his religion, felt the claims of\nhis character,--mingled with that deep awe which the visitation of death\never inspires.\n\nThe last scene was now over, and Sarah has first taken possession of\nthat home to which she was to be followed by her husband and their\ndescendants. One by one they take their places by her side,--unwelcomed,\nunquestioned,--\n\n    \"Where none have saluted and none have replied,\"--\n\nand yet where all are gathered at last. We see her not as a sister or a\ndaughter. She is not known to us in the house of her father. Sarah is\nonly presented to us as the wife of Abraham. And as a wife the apostle\nhas held her up to her own sex as a model and example. \"Even as Sarah\nobeyed her husband, calling him lord,\"--exclaims the apostle, exhorting\nthe wife to due deference. The deep, fervent affection of the heart led\nto that outward manifestation of honour so beautiful and becoming; and\nas the only love which can be enduring is that which is founded on\nrespect, so it is the highest happiness of the wife to be able truly to\nhonour him whom she is bound to love and obey.\n\nWhen the heads of a household are thus united in warm affection and\nmutual respect, the influence will pervade the whole circle, and the\nfamily of Abraham presented a beautiful picture of such a household. The\nnumerous members composing a large family were governed by one who\nprovided for their sustenance, led them forth for the defence of\nrights, or the redress of injuries, or the rescue of the captive; and\nwho officiated as the priest as well as ruler of his household. In such\na community, the character of the head would be impressed upon the whole\npeople; and it was with obvious meaning that Jehovah exclaimed, \"I know\nhim that he will command his household after him.\" It was by example\nthat admonition was made availing. And the wife was ever ready, with her\nardent and trusting love, to aid and co-operate. Hastening, when he\nwelcomed the stranger, to prepare the feast, she was ever ready to\nreceive his guests and add her efforts to his hospitality.\n\nHatred, strife, and mutual alienation so often cloud over the unison of\nwedded life, and cause its sun to set in darkness, that few spectacles\ncan be presented more beautiful or more delightful than the old age of\nwedded life, soothed by true affection and mutual kindness. It is more\ntouching than the glow of youthful passion. It proclaims the presence of\nhigh moral worth. It is never found in the habitations of the unholy.\nThe love which thus survives the glow of youth, which bears the storms\nand the trials of life, must be founded on truth, on unimpassioned\nesteem, on approved integrity; and those alone who love God supremely,\nlove each other unselfishly.\n\nWhile Sarah honoured her husband, she too was treated with proper\ndeference. Her counsels were ever heeded, her voice had its due\ninfluence, and he still deferred to her wishes. It is beautiful to note\nthe increasing estimation in which she is held. Sarai, \"the mistress,\"\nbetokened her station as the head of a household; and as years brought\nhonours, and an enlarged sphere of duty, and a more elevated position\namong the people around them, Sarai was changed into Sarah--_my lady_.\nHer husband, in addressing the former Sarai as Sarah, \"my lady,\"\ngracefully returned the honour she bestowed when she called him \"lord.\"\nBy such manifestation of mutual respect and love, the chain of family\naffection is kept bright.\n\nAs the household of Abraham was the household of faith, ordained as the\nmodel for all ages, it is well to analyze the elements which composed\nit, and to trace their combined influence. There was the conjugal union\nof the true worshippers of Jehovah, animated by the same hopes, governed\nby the same principles, whose hearts were united in the strong bonds of\nnatural affection. There was the confiding, unfailing affection, the\ndeep, reverential respect, and due obedience of the wife. There was the\ntender love, protecting care, the unwavering faith, the honourable\ndeference of the husband. The religion of this household was the\nreligion of faith and of obedience,--a religion which led them to\nforsake all at the command of God, which taught them to rely upon his\npromises, to fear his threatenings, to plead his grace, to trust his\nmercy, while it was a religion which led to a due observance of all the\nrelative duties of life, which taught the exercise of that impartial\njustice, careful benevolence, disinterested kindness, and ready\nhospitality to those without the family; and of steady love, of\naffectionate kindness, of sympathetic forbearance to the members of the\nhousehold within. The family of faith, where faith is pure, will ever be\na family of love; and as true piety is the best security for family\nhappiness, so family love is the best nurse for family piety.\n\nThere are many families among us who aim at being families of faith, who\nprofess to walk in the steps of Abraham, to imitate his example. Let\nsuch not confine themselves to the manifestation of his peculiar faith,\nto his trust and dependence alone. Let them walk as he walked before his\nhousehold, in the fear of God and the love of man, in the careful\nfulfilment of every relative and social duty, in the daily\nexemplification of a tender and loving spirit, carefully avoiding or\nremoving all sources of division. Let that piety which unites them to\nGod, be a bond, encircling all and drawing them near to each other.\n\nBy the cultivation of the simple domestic virtues, by the daily, quiet,\nself-denying trials, by the observance of the thousand decencies, the\nunaffected proprieties, the unostentatious efforts to bless and\ncomfort,--by the elevating influence of personal example,--by the\nbreathing atmosphere of a holy spirit,--the family is to be made the\nhousehold of faith, the nursery of the church.\n\nDirect instruction and formal efforts and stated observances are\nneither to be forgotten nor to be remitted; but these can only be made\neffectual by the living exemplification of a spirit of love, a life of\nholiness. It will ever be found true that he who prays most loves\nmost.\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nHAGAR--THE WIFE UNLOVED.\n\n\nThe Hebrew patriarch led his flocks and herds, surrounded by his large\nhousehold, from Haran to the land of the Canaanites; from thence to that\nof the Philistines, down into Egypt; wherever so numerous a family and\nsuch large flocks could find sustenance--water and herbage. And as he\nthus sojourned, many of the poor of these lands flocked to him for\nemployment and support; and while he bought the services of the parents,\nthe children born in his house became members of his family, were\ntrained as his servants, and were subject to his authority as the master\nof the household, the prince among his people, the patriarch of his\ntribe.\n\nAnd among these was Hagar, the Egyptian. We are not told whether she was\nborn in the house of Abraham, or rescued from those who may have stolen\nher from her home, or given by her parents to the wealthy and childless\nSarai. She was Sarah's handmaid--a relation, according to the customs of\nthe East (almost immutable) nearly as dear as that of a child. She was\nthe personal attendant, the constant companion of her mistress; and by\nher was doubtless instructed in the principles of the true religion,\nwhile she was thus accustomed to the accomplishments and occupations of\nthe age. The tasks of the favourite handmaids of Eastern families are\nstill light. To sit at the feet of her mistress with her embroidery; to\ncheer her with the simple music of the shepherd's tent; to aid her in\nthose domestic duties to which Sarah gave her own superintendence; to\nassist in preparing the wool of the flocks for the garments of the\nfamily; to watch her tent as she reposed by day, and keep by her side as\nthe camels slowly wandered through the valleys in search of pure streams\nor more abundant herbage, were probably the occupations and duties of\nHagar.\n\nYears thus passed on--and the dark-browed and dark-eyed Egyptian maiden\nhad grown into womanhood, and the freshness of youth, the joyousness of\nhealth and early life were her's, while her mistress was passing into\nage. Sarah no longer hoped to become a mother, and, believing that the\npromise was not intended for her, she urged Abraham to take another\nwife, offering for his acceptance her own handmaid, the Egyptian Hagar.\n\nThe authority of the mistress of the East over her own establishment is\nso absolute, the husband so interdicted from all interference, that,\nalthough Hagar had passed her youth with Sarah, she may have been\nhardly noticed by Abraham until Sarah proffered her. According to the\nusage of the east, Sarah had a right (the right then claimed by the\nparent) thus to dispose of her handmaid; and a marriage with her master\nwas the highest honour which could be bestowed on Hagar. She was given\nto Abraham to be his wife, and, the relation was--according to the usage\nthen prevailing--as legal as that sustained by Sarah, although the\nstation was inferior. No injury was intended to Hagar. No higher\ndistinction could have been conferred upon her, and, strong in love to\nboth Hagar and Abraham, Sarah doubtless supposed she might be able to\nwelcome and love their children, though denied offspring of her own.\n\nBut such departure from the law, precept, or institution of God,\ninvolves a long train of sin and sorrow, no matter what the\nintention--and the union of Abraham with Hagar was a direct violation\nof the institution of marriage in all its principles and intentions, and\nit could not but bring confusion and strife to the tent of the\npatriarch.\n\nIt was merely a marriage of interest and convenience, unhallowed by\nlove. The heart of Abraham never departed from the wife of his youth,\nnor could Sarah ever have intended to relinquish her hold upon his\naffection. It is the last claim a woman foregoes. And on the other hand,\nHagar could have felt no love for her master, so much her superior in\nage and station. Unholy pride and rank ambition were all the feelings\nwhich such an alliance could awaken in the heart of Hagar. Yet Hagar was\nthe least blameworthy, and, perhaps, not eventually the greatest\nsufferer. By the customs of society, she had no voice in the disposal of\nherself. Her heart was never consulted. She was only allowed to receive\nthe husband allotted to her--to acquiesce in the decision of others.\n\nThe natural results of such a union followed. The exaltation of Hagar\nexcited her pride and led to arrogance; and when she knew that she\nshould become a mother, her childless mistress was despised.\n\nIt is hard to bear contempt from those upon whom we have lavished\nkindness; to feel that we have exalted those who despise us: and all the\nindignation of Sarah was roused by the assumption and ingratitude of\nHagar; and, with the quick instinct of the woman, she retorted upon her\nhusband, \"My wrong be upon thee.\"\n\nA stranger indifference could not have been manifested than that showed\nby Abraham towards the youthful wife who should have now received his\nprotection and kindness. \"Behold thy handmaid is in thy hands.\" He\nrecognised no tie--he felt no obligation. What was Hagar, that she\nshould occasion strife between him and the wife of his youth, the\npartner of his life, the daughter of his own people!\n\nHagar was from this hour abandoned by Abraham to her mistress. When\nSarah resumed the authority belonging to her station, she assumed with\nit a power never before exercised. Forgetting all the love of past\nyears, all the claims of the present hour upon her kindness and\nforbearance, she treated the unhappy Hagar with such intolerable\nharshness, that the wretched woman fled from the face of her mistress\nand from the tents of her master, and sought refuge in the wilderness.\n\nWe can conceive what bitter, despairing thoughts, what a keen sense of\ninjustice and injury may have pressed upon her, as she sat alone by the\nfountain in the desert. Probably a little spot of green herbage denoted\nthe presence of water, while, all around, lay the sandy, rocky desert.\nThe stars, in the brightness of an oriental night, were looking down on\nher as she sat alone, her face buried in her hands, unheeded, there to\ndie. Then came the visions of her youth, the remembrances of her\nchildhood, the sound of her mother's voice, the dream of her smile--then\nthe tent of Sarah--then the alliance with her master, the excitement of\nher pride, the flush of hope, the exultation of a fancied triumph over\nthe childless, but still honoured wife; succeeded by the cold withdrawal\nof all the kindness of the patriarch, and the entire abandonment of her\nwhom he had taken to his bosom, to the implacable resentment of her\nformer mistress!\n\nThe temper of Hagar, the feelings thus excited--dark, sullen, bitter,\nrevengeful--when she fled from all, may have been impressed upon her\noffspring, and thus marked the future character of her race.\n\nStill, Hagar was not alone. The wanderer was not forgotten. In the hour\nof darkness and of desolation, there is One nigh even to those who\nforget him. \"And the angel of the Lord found her by the fountain in the\nwilderness, and he said: Hagar, Sarah's maid, whence camest thou? And\nwhither wouldst thou go?\"\n\nShe was not addressed as the wife of Abraham. The conventional usage, so\nopposed to the positive institution, was not recognised and thus\nhallowed by Him who had established marriage; and while Hagar was\npitied, she was reminded of her real condition. \"And she said, I flee\nfrom the face of my mistress, Sarah. And the angel of the Lord said unto\nher, Return unto thy mistress and submit thyself under her hands. And\nthe angel of the Lord said, Thou shalt have a son, and shalt call his\nname Ishmael, because the Lord has heard thy affliction. He shall be a\nwild man. His hand will be against every man, and every man's hand\nagainst him--and he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren. And\nshe called the name of the Lord that spake unto her, Thou God seest me,\nfor she said, Have I also here looked after him that seeth me?\" implying\na recognition of the unexpected interference, protection and blessing of\nGod.\n\nThe promises of God are always preceded by his commands, and the faith\nwhich clings to the promises is to be tested by the obedience which\nalone can make them availing. And when the words of the angel came to\nthe desolate soul of the woman in the desert, there were admonition,\nreproof, and command mingled with promise and blessing. \"Return to thy\nmistress.\" Return to thy duty, is the first requirement made of those\nGod seeks out.\n\nAnd Hagar humbled herself and obeyed the voice of the Lord. She\nreturned to her mistress. Trying as it must have been to one so\naggrieved, she submitted to her authority, and again became a member of\nthe household of Abraham. Had she disobeyed the angel, she and her child\nhad doubtless perished in the wilderness; but in yielding her proud and\narrogant temper, she secured the future blessing to her race, and\ninsured the safety of her child, while her submission and gentleness\nmust have won back Sarah to a kinder temper, to a more forbearing\ntreatment.\n\nAfter the birth of Ishmael, there intervened years--long years--in which\nHagar tasted the bitterest cup ever presented to the lips of woman. A\nwife unloved, neglected--a mother disregarded--a woman held in bondage\nby one who had made her a rival--dwelling in the presence of him who had\nput her from him! Her very presence brought reproach and sorrow to\nSarah and Abraham--the violation of the divine institution ever\nentailing its penalty.\n\nThe wife deserted, neglected, whose hopes have been crushed, ever turns\nto her offspring for comfort and sympathy; and ardent was the love,\nstrong were the ties, which bound the Egyptian mother to the son of the\npatriarch; and in Ishmael must all the hopes and affections of Hagar\nhave centred. Could she, indeed, have penetrated the future, could she\nhave seen her race, the seed of her son, filling the desert and dwelling\nas princes; while the seed of Sarah and of Abraham were held, as if in\nretribution of her own sufferings, in bondage in her own native\nland,--could she have passed through the intervening ages and seen the\nchildren of Ishmael issuing from their desert and setting their feet\nupon the necks of the proudest and mightiest, imposing their faith upon\na world, while they marched forth conquering and to conquer--could she\nhave contrasted the triumphant warriors of Arabia, the caliphs of the\neast and the west, with the wandering, desolate, persecuted,\ntrodden-down tribes of Israel--the proudest expectations of the woman\nand the mother would have been all answered. Could she have penetrated\nthe meaning of the words she must have so often pondered, she would have\nfound that the loftiest dreams of the rankest ambition were to be more\nthan realized.\n\nBut dimly and faintly must she have apprehended the meaning of the\nmysterious prophecy, even while she trusted the accompanying promise. As\nshe saw Ishmael, the only child in the tent of the patriarch, and loved\nby the father, she perhaps allowed herself to hope that he was yet to be\nthe heir, and that in his future honours she was to find a full\nrecompense for all the trials of her blighted youth.\n\nAfter long years of waiting, Sarah embraced a son, and the event, so\njoyous to the parents, awoke afresh the bitter remembrances of Hagar,\nwhile it roused her to the consciousness of her present lot and of all\nthe injuries inflicted upon her.\n\nIn all the trials and sorrows through which she had passed, she had had\nnone to sustain or sympathize with her. Her child remained her only\nearthly hope; and now she felt that another was to supplant him, and\nthus disappoint all her expectations.\n\nHer spirit rose in pride and wrath, and she infused her own bitter\nfeelings into the heart of her child. When Isaac was hailed as the heir,\nwhile all rejoiced, Hagar and Ishmael mocked both the infant and the\naged parents.\n\nForbearance was no longer safe, and the decision of Sarah was wise,\nthough harsh--yet it was sad to Abraham. Ishmael was still his son--his\nfirst-born. He had been ever dear to him; and when the angel of the Lord\nhad again confirmed the promise of a seed in whom all the nations of the\nearth were to be blessed, he had almost seemed to overlook it as he\npleaded for the son of the bond-woman, \"Oh that Ishmael might live\nbefore thee!\" while to Abraham was then confirmed the promise given\nbefore the birth of her child to Hagar. There was sorrow and perplexity\nin the heart of Abraham, but a message from heaven confirmed the decree\nof Sarah.\n\nThe patriarch arose, after a night of conflict and prayer, while the\nstars were still shining in the heavens, while the flocks lay in\nstillness around the tents, and before those who had revelled and\nrejoiced were awake, and called Hagar and her child. Can we not see\nthem in the gray of the morning? The father, the mother, the\nchild,--the patriarch, aged, but not bowed by age, still retaining the\nvigour of manhood--the boy shy, yet half-defying--the mother! In such an\nhour, all distinctions of rank and station would be forgotten, and all\nthe feelings of the woman be roused. Then and there Hagar might well\nforget that she was Sarah's bondmaid, and only remember that she had\nbeen Abraham's wife--that she was still Ishmael's mother.\n\nIn that hour must have risen the memory of her wrongs, of her saddened\nyouth, her darkened womanhood--of the selfishness with which he had\nwedded her; of the heartlessness with which he had deserted her; of her\nlong years of trial and contempt. And her eye might speak reproach,\nalthough the lips were closed and there was no voice. Should we not\nrejoice to believe that the patriarch whispered some regret for the\npast, and spoke of sorrow and repentance to her whose happiness he had\nso selfishly sacrificed, even as he consummated his work by casting her\nout, a homeless exile. Such is the enslaving power of custom, so easily\ndo we blind ourselves to our own delinquencies, that Abraham probably\naggravated Hagar's faults while he overlooked her injuries. He saw in\nher but the despiteful, revengeful handmaid; he forgot that she was an\ninjured wife--a neglected mother.\n\nYet no words of reproach, of entreaty, or explanation of the past, or\npromise for the future, are recorded as having passed between them. He\npronounced the decree, and laid upon the bondmaid, and not upon his\nnoble boy, the provision for the journey. She turned from the tents, and\nthus they parted!\n\nBut the connection of Abraham and Hagar had woven a thread into the\ndestiny of nations, still to be traced. She left the patriarch in\nsorrow, in bitterness of soul; but she went out to found nations, to\npunish rulers, to establish a long line who should transmit the name of\nher son and the influence of her character to remotest ages--even to the\nend of time.\n\nAccustomed to the wandering life of the desert, and provided for the\njourney, Abraham probably deemed Hagar competent to guide her steps to a\nplace of safety. But sorrow may have blinded her eyes, or despair made\nher reckless, and she was lost in the desert. The water was spent in the\nbottle--tons of gold could not open a fountain in the desert--and she\nsaw her child parched with thirst, \"faint and ready to die; and she cast\nhim under one of the shrubs, and went and sat a good way off, as it were\na bow-shot, for she said, Let me not see the death of the child; and as\nshe sat over against him, she lifted up her voice and wept. And God\nheard the voice of the lad, and the angel of God called to her out of\nheaven and said unto her, What aileth thee Hagar? Fear not! For God hath\nheard the voice of the child where he is. Arise, lift up the lad, and\nhold him in thy hand, for I will make of him a great nation. And God\nopened her eyes, and she saw a well of water, and she went and filled\nthe bottle with water, and gave the lad to drink.\" What an inimitable\ndescription of a mother's love! What a display of the watchful\nbenevolence of Jehovah!\n\nIn this hour of desolation, when no human aid was near, there was again\nthe Divine interposition, while there was no reproach, no allusion even\nto that sinful temper which had led to the banishment of both mother and\nchild, and caused them to come here to perish in the wilderness. Blessed\nbe God that he does not suffer the unworthiness of his children to\nseparate them from his love; that in the hour of extremity he is still\nnigh; that his ear is ever open to hear and his arm ready to save.\n\n\"And God was with the lad: and he grew and dwelt in the wilderness, and\nbecame an archer; and he dwelt in the wilderness of Paran.\" And his\nmother still dwelt with him; and in all his wanderings, wherever his\nfootsteps were turned, there was her home. There is a touching\nremembrance of her early life, in the fact that Hagar chose a wife for\nher son from among the daughters of her own people: \"She took him a wife\nout of the land of Egypt.\" And from this union have sprung the tribes\nwho still fill the deserts where Hagar sought a refuge. A wild race,\ndwelling in the presence of all their brethren, whose hand is against\nevery man, while every man's hand is against them.\n\nIshmael rose rapidly to rank, and Hagar lived to rejoice in his\nprosperity. The life which commenced in want, privation and wandering in\nthe wilderness, conducted her to wealth and honour. So dark and\ninscrutable are the ways of Providence, that at each step we are taught\nbut to seek the path of duty and obey the direction of Heaven.\n\nThe children of Ishmael seem to have long preserved the knowledge of\nJehovah. Hagar, who had received so many proofs of the being, power, and\nprovidence of the God of Abraham, might well instruct her descendants in\nthe principles of the true faith. The race of Ishmael have still\npreserved the rite which Abraham received as the seal of faith. Often\nmay Hagar have recounted the providences of God--the account she had\nheard, in the tent of Abraham, of the creation, the fall, the deluge,\nthe re-peopling of the world; and often, in the course of their\nwandering lives, she may have led her descendants to those deep waters\nwhich covered the guilty cities of the plain, and then described them as\nshe knew them before the wrath of God fell upon them.\n\nThe tribes of Ishmael have ever recognised their descent from Abraham;\nand the instructions of Hagar are preserved as national traditions to\nthis very day, though exaggerated by Eastern fancy, and mingled with\nwilder romance, as they have been transmitted from one generation to\nanother by the children of Ishmael, who still lead their flocks in the\nsame valleys, and pitch their tents by the same fountains to which Hagar\nresorted with Ishmael.\n\nHagar and Ishmael were no more members of Abraham's household, yet the\nrelationship of father and son was ever recognised. Doubtless Abraham\nimparted of his wealth to his first-born; and as Abraham often sojourned\nafterwards in Beer-sheba, probably not far from the spot where Hagar and\nIshmael so nearly perished, the father and son may have often met; and\nIsaac and Ishmael may have held kindly intercourse, when the bitter\nfeelings of rivalry and of conscious wrong had subsided. The ties of\nkindred were still allowed, and Esau sought a wife from the family of\nhis own kindred, as a means of conciliating his father and mother; thus\nshowing that a purer morality and a higher religious feeling were\ncherished than those among surrounding tribes. And when Abraham died,\nhaving attained a full age, his sons, Isaac and Ishmael, both far\nadvanced in years, buried him. The strifes, the bitterness, the hate of\nearly life seem to have been forgotten, and they united in the last\noffices of filial love and duty.\n\nThe son of the bondmaid had attained, during the life of Abraham, a\ndistinction beyond that of the son of the wife; and his immediate\ndescendant rose to wealth and honour, while, if one branch of Isaac's\nfamily tasted prosperity, those recognised as the heirs of that\nmysterious blessing were long known as wanderers, and then despised as\nslaves. Their long line of descent has run parallel, side by side,\ndistinct, unmingled; recognising a common origin, but never\nacknowledging a common brotherhood. The oldest nations of the\nearth,--the one exiled from the land given them, dwelling as outcasts\nand strangers among all the nations of the earth, yet still separate,\napart, a peculiar people; the other living at this day in the deserts\nwhere Hagar wandered, and where she fainted--a never-conquered people.\nAnd while Assyrian, Greek, and Roman have swept the world and exacted\ntribute of the nations around them, and other tribes have been swept\nwith the besom of destruction, the sons of Ishmael have still dwelt in\nthe presence of their brethren, ever enforcing, but still refusing to\npay tribute--free and wild as the lad who first became an archer in the\nwilderness. Unconsciously confirming prophecy, and still attesting the\ntruth of a revelation which they contemn and deny,--thus strangely\ndwelling so different from all other nations,--preserving the initiatory\nrites and the mystic symbols of the faith of Abraham, the customs and\ntraditions of the age of the patriarch,--these nations dwell distinct,\nseparate from each other and from all other nations, awaiting the day\nwhen blindness shall be removed from the eyes of the children of\npromise, and the descendants of Sarah and of Hagar shall be both\ngathered with the fold of Christ.\n\nThere are Hagars of modern, as well as of ancient days,--of western as\nof eastern lands. She who is wedded from interest and convenience; she\nwho forms a heartless union from pride and ambition; she who awakes from\nher dreams of bliss to find herself an unloved, and perhaps to become a\ndeserted wife--all these prove the bitterness of the lot of the Egyptian\nHagar. He who has ordained marriage has graciously implanted the\naffections which are to make it a source of happiness; and those who\nform this union under other motives and influences run fearful risks.\nThere are many Hagars in the highest ranks of life, and even where the\nartificial distinctions of society are most highly regarded and\ncarefully recognised.\n\nWhen youth is wedded to age or sacrificed to decrepitude to promote some\nState policy, though the victims are not clothed in the garb of the\nEgyptian slave, but arrayed in the pomp of regal vestments, yet the\ndiamond often rests upon an aching brow, and the pearls press a\nsaddened bosom; and when the holiest of earthly institutions is thus\nviolated, each relation of life is profaned; and polluted streams\ndescend from the highest sources and diffuse their poison through all\nthe ranks of life--through all the gradations of society.\n\nThere will still be Hagars--women who marry for a home, or a support;\nand especially while woman is educated to be helpless--unable to provide\nfor her own wants; or while that prejudice is cherished which leads her\nto deem useful employment a degradation.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nHAGAR'S EXILE.\n\n    She fled, with one reproachful look\n      On him who bade her go,\n    And scarcely could the patriarch brook\n      That glance of voiceless wo:\n    In vain her quivering lips essay'd\n      His mercy to implore;\n    Silent the mandate she obey'd,\n      And then was seen no more.\n\n    The burning waste and lonely wild\n      Received her as she went;\n    Hopeless, she clasp'd her fainting child,\n      With thirst and sorrow spent.\n    And in the wilderness so drear,\n      She raised her voice on high,\n    And sent forth that heart-stricken prayer\n      \"Let me not see him die!\"\n\n    Her beautiful, her only boy,\n      Her all of hope below;\n    So long his father's pride and joy,\n      And yet--from _him_ the blow!\n    Alone she must his head sustain,\n      And watch his sinking breath,\n    And on his bright brow mark the stain\n      Of the destroyer, Death.\n\n    \"Let me not see him die,\" and lo!\n      The messenger of peace!\n    Once more her tears forget to flow,\n      Once more her sorrows cease.\n    Life, strength, and freedom now are given\n      With mighty power to one\n    Who from his father's roof was driven,\n      And he--the outcast's son.\n\n    How often we, like Hagar, mourn,\n      When some unlook'd for blight\n    Drives us away, no more to turn\n      To joys we fancied bright!\n    Forced from our idols to retreat,\n      And seek the Almighty's care,\n    Perchance we are sent forth to meet\n      A desert-angel there.\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nTHE PARTIAL AND INTRIGUING MOTHER--REBEKAH.\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\nAfter the departure of Hagar and her son from the tents of Abraham,\npeace seems to have returned, and it became the abode of filial and\nparental as well as of conjugal affection. Sarah's days were still\nprolonged, that she might exercise the duties and enjoy the pleasures of\na mother.\n\nThe heir of wealth, and the child of love and indulgence, the character\nof Isaac seems to have been the reverse of his brother, the restless,\nwandering Ishmael. The one, cast off from the care of the father and\ntaught to rely upon his own energies, early distinguished himself, and\nbecame the leader of a band, and a prince among the nations around;\nwhile the other, cherished and cared for, was content to dwell in the\npeaceful enjoyment of wealth and prosperity. Thus do we find that trials\nare necessary to develope the higher qualities and to call them into\naction. The truly great and noble, the eminent in talent or usefulness,\nare never nursed in the bosom of ease.\n\nSarah died; and while the bereaved husband felt his loss, the son could\nnot have been insensible. There was a dreary void in the home of the\npatriarch when the wife and the mother had been laid in the sepulchre.\nThere was no one to fill the place of Sarah--no one to bless their\nsimple meals. She no longer appears to welcome them as they returned\nfrom the field or the flock. The tribe is without a mother, the\nhousehold without a mistress. Many considerations led Abraham to desire\nthe marriage of his son, and he cast around his thoughts for a wife\nworthy of being the mother of the promised seed, and one who could well\nfulfil the duties which must devolve upon her as the head of his large\nhousehold. The people around him would have courted his alliance, and as\nyet no command from God forbade his forming family ties with the\ninhabitants of the land. But Abraham too well knew the influence of the\nwife and the mother, to choose a wife for the child of promise from a\nrace apostate from the religion of Jehovah. He knew the ensnaring\ninfluence which would there be brought to bear upon his family, and he\nresolved to seek a wife for Isaac among his far-distant kindred--those\nwho yet retained the knowledge and clung to the worship of the God of\nShem, of Noah, and of Adam. Though far separated from his brethren, yet\ncommunications seem to have passed, and Abraham had been told of the\nenlargement of the family of his brother; and he resolved, not only to\nseek a wife for his son from among his own kindred, but, while making\narrangements for such a marriage, he solemnly guarded against the return\nof his descendants to the land from whence he had been called.\n\nTrying as might be the long journey, and uncertain as seemed the issue,\nno inferior motives were allowed to be put in competition with the\nperpetuity of the worship and knowledge of God. A connection with any of\nthe families of the Canaanites would have been at once ensnaring to the\nhousehold of Abraham and injurious in its influence upon the heart of\nIsaac. Had Isaac married the daughter of an idolater, irreligion and\nimmorality would soon have pervaded the family of the patriarch, and\nthe knowledge of the true God have departed from the earth. Thus the\nbeacon light of nations had been extinguished, and the last altar\nerected to Jehovah had been broken down: for the other descendants of\nShem were fast departing from the God of their fathers,--and if the\nchildren of Keturah and Ishmael for a period retained the faith of\nAbraham, the torch which kindled the fire on their altars was lighted at\nthat which was kept burning on those of Isaac and Jacob, and the example\nof their families preserved alive the remembrance and the acts of the\nliving God in the nations around them.\n\nWith a train which became the suitor of a prince, with costly presents\nof gold and ornaments according to the custom of both ancient and modern\ndays, but more particularly conforming to Eastern usage, the\nconfidential servant of Abraham was sent on his embassy to the kindred\nof his master, there to receive a bride for the son of the patriarch. We\ngain a delightful impression both of the piety and intelligence of the\nhousehold of Abraham from the account of the messenger to whom this\nimportant transaction was intrusted. The faith of the patriarch animated\nthe other members of his household, and a strong chain of love encircled\nall. After a long journey, the train reached the plains of Mesopotamia,\nand then the tents of Nahor appeared in view; and then, in the prospect\nof the immediate discharge of his commission, the messenger of the\npatriarch sought explicit direction from the God of Abraham.\n\nWhile the description of the interview at the fountain, \"without the\ngate of the city,\" gives a most beautiful view of the manners of the age\nand the people, and an unsurpassed picture of the freshness and\nsimplicity of pastoral life, it proves at once the piety and the clear\ndiscrimination of the agent employed. The beauty of the youthful Rebekah\ncaught his eye, while the test he devised afforded a safe criterion of\nthe character of the woman. Weary with the labours of the sultry day,\nafter tending her own flocks, had she been indolent or inactive, selfish\nor sullen, she had turned from his request, and suffered his attendants\nto administer to his wants. But as she looked upon them--dusty, weary,\nparched by thirst, worn down by long travel--the sympathies of a kind\nnature were awakened, as the servant ran to meet her, saying, \"Let me, I\npray thee, drink a little water from thy pitcher.\" She said, \"Drink, my\nlord,\" and she let down the pitcher upon her hand and gave him to drink;\nand when he had done drinking, she said, \"I will draw water for thy\ncamels also, until they have done drinking.\" Thus did the maiden clearly\nprove that she possessed some of the qualities most necessary for a\nwife--that ready self-forgetfulness, that kindness, cheerfulness, and\ndesire to promote the happiness of others, that sunshine of the heart\nwhich sheds its brightening beams over all the clouds that darken\ndomestic life. Through all the ages of the world, in all the\ncircumstances in which mankind are placed, the wife has ever need of\nthem, and wisely may the suitor look for them. But the servant of the\npatriarch, \"still wondering, held his peace.\" Not until assured that she\nwas of the race of the true worshippers of the God of Abraham, that she\nhad been trained in the fear of the Lord, did he feel assured that the\nfair and kind Syrian damsel was to be chosen for the wife of his\nmaster's son. He had felt that the prayer was answered. He had taken out\nthe rich gifts intended for her, but he seems to hesitate as he says,\n\"Whose daughter art thou! Tell me, I pray thee, is there room in thy\nfather's house for us to lodge in?\" And she answered, \"I am the daughter\nof Bethuel, the son of Milcah, whom she bore unto Nahor.\"\n\n\"And the man bowed down and worshipped the Lord, and he said, Blessed be\nthe Lord God of my master Abraham, who hath not left destitute my master\nof his mercy and his truth. I being in the way, the Lord hath led me to\nthe house of my master's brethren.\"\n\nThe negotiation between the servant of Abraham and the father and\nbrothers of Rebekah was soon concluded. They deferred not the answer to\nbe given, when the messenger had laid before them his errand, and told\nthem of the wealth and honour of his master; and the whole transaction\nimpresses us with an idea of the piety and kindness of the family of\nBethuel.\n\nThe thing is from the Lord--while the rich gifts, made to all the\nmembers of the family, proved the truth of the statements of the\nmessenger, and perhaps enforced his plea. Yet, when he urged the\nimmediate departure of the bride for the tent of her husband, the hearts\nof the mother and of the brothers yet clung to the youthful maiden. They\nshrank from a separation so sudden, so complete--and they said, Let the\ndamsel stay with us a few days--at least ten. Oh, do not snatch her away\nfrom us so suddenly. But after that, she shall go.\n\nAnd he said, \"Hinder me not. Seeing that the Lord hath prospered me,\nsend me away that I may go to my master.\" And they said, \"We will call\nthe maiden, and inquire at her mouth.\" And they called Rebekah, and said\nunto her, \"Wilt thou go with this man?\" And she said, \"I will go.\"\n\nAre we not, even at this period, taught lessons of parental wisdom, in\nthe care displayed by the ancient patriarch respecting the choice of a\nwife for his son? In the care taken to secure an unstained parentage in\none who had been early trained in the habits of piety and godly\nprinciples of action? The character of the family is often stamped upon\neach member, and the marked features are transmitted from generation to\ngeneration, even where the character of the woman may be modified by her\nnew relations. As she advances in years she often returns to the habits\nof her youth, while she almost invariably adopts the practice of her own\nmother in the early nurture and training of her children.\n\nHe who would have reformed France was taught that he must begin his work\nby training mothers. And thus the ancient patriarch foresaw that the\ngreat nation that was to descend from him, like to the stars of heaven\nfor multitude, would long bear the impress of the character of the\nmother who rocked it in the first cradle of its existence, and his\nwisdom was manifested in the pains which he took to secure a good\nlineage and right habits and principles. The foresight of the father\ncould go no farther. Time must test the individual character.\n\nAfter they left the tents of Bethuel, the train, now augmented by the\npresence of the bride and her immediate attendants, her nurse and\nhandmaids, slowly wended its way back to the tents of the patriarch,\npursuing the natural highways of the country,--now by the stream, then\nacross the plain, then through the desert, sandy, barren, trackless;\nthen winding through the mountain pass, encamping during the heat of the\nday by the fountain and under the shade, and pursuing their journey in\nthe cool of the evening and of the morning.\n\nLove or devotion, or the mingling of both, led Isaac out into the fields\nat eventide to meditate, and his feet turned towards the route by which\nhis messengers might be expected, and the eye of his servant descried\nhim afar off, and he pointed him out to the stranger. And while the\nmessenger seems to have hasted to meet his master and give an account of\nhis mission, Rebekah descended from her lofty seat and covered herself\nwith a veil.\n\nHenry the Fourth, of France, met his bride soon after she entered his\nkingdom, and mingled with her attendants, that he might watch her\nunobserved; and when his presence was announced she kneeled, and he\ngracefully raised her up. Napoleon entered the carriage of his Austrian\nbride, and announced himself, while she gazed with wondering eyes upon\none, long only known as the enemy of her father's house and the terror\nof his kingdom. The meeting of the heir of the patriarch and his\nyouthful bride is quite as interesting a scene as any of those recorded\nof more modern days.\n\nAnd Isaac went out to meditate in the fields at eventide, and he lifted\nup his eyes, and, behold! the camels were coming. And Rebekah lifted up\nher eyes, and when she saw Isaac she lighted off the camel. For she had\nsaid unto the servant, \"What man is this that walketh in the field to\nmeet us?\" And the servant said, \"It is my master;\" therefore she took a\nveil and covered herself. And the servant told Isaac all things that he\nhad done. And Isaac brought her into his mother Sarah's tent, and took\nRebekah, and she became his wife, and he loved her.\n\nRebekah seems to have made an affectionate, happy wife. Many years\npassed before children were born to Isaac; and when the twin boys, Esau\nand Jacob, were in childhood, there was evidently a marked difference in\ntheir characters. Esau was active, restless, and enterprising, He grew\nup a hunter,--daring and bold,--loving a life of change and adventure;\nwhile Jacob was a \"plain man, dwelling in tents.\" Blindness was\nstealing over Isaac and unfitting him for the cares which rested upon\nhim, for the supervision of his numerous servants and his many flocks\nand herds. During the frequent absences of Esau upon his hunting\nexpeditions, these cares must have devolved upon Rebekah and Jacob. Her\nheart clung to the child who was ever with her in sympathy; while the\ntales of peril and adventure with which Esau enlivened the wearisome\ndays of his father, were as acceptable to blindness and loneliness, as\nwere the presents of the game he so frequently brought. \"And Isaac loved\nEsau.\" Thus the injudicious fondness of the parents sowed the seeds of\nbitterness and alienation between the two brothers, and led to their\nmutual estrangement. The birth-right, which implied the inheriting of\nthe blessing promised to the seed of Abraham, was despised by Esau,\nwho, doubtless, in his prolonged wanderings from home, and his frequent\nassociations with the inhabitants of the land, had been led to feel\ncontempt for the worship and the promises of God, and in his reckless\nlevity he transferred it to Jacob for \"_a mess of pottage_,\" while he\nfurther alienated himself from his parents and brother by marrying the\ndaughter of a Hittite. \"This was a grief and sorrow of mind to Isaac and\nRebekah.\" Forgetting the respect due to them as his parents; forgetting\nhis own position as the eldest son of the heir of the promise; heedless\nof the example of filial deference shown by Isaac, and of all the care\nthat preserved the family free from the corruption around them, he\nformed an union with those who were strangers to the faith of Abraham\nand of a race apostate from the worship of Jehovah. Yet, while mourning\nthe perverseness of his favourite child, the father, aged and blind,\ndid not propose to withdraw his favour from him; and, feeling that his\ninfirmities increased, Isaac bade Esau with his own hands prepare him a\nfavourite dish, that he might eat and bless him before his death. Did we\nbetter understand the customs of that age, we might find that Isaac was\nnot merely influenced by bodily appetite, but that there might be a\npeculiar significance in the act.\n\nWe do not love to dwell upon Rebekah's deceit and the lessons of\nfalsehood she taught her son--and the prophecy uttered before the birth\nof the children, neither justifies nor extenuates her guilt; for God has\nnever taught his people, that to promote his plans they are to violate\nhis laws.\n\nAlienated from her elder son, we see Rebekah, by intrigue and treachery,\nseeking to advance the interests of the younger at the expense of the\nrights of his brother. As we read the sacred narrative, every sympathy\nis awakened in favour of the injured Esau, and we hear, with burning\nindignation against the author of his wrong, his pathetic cry, \"Hast\nthou no blessing for me! Bless me, even me, my father!\" But the artifice\nof the mother and wife was successful. She secured all she sought--and\nher success brought its own punishment. Dark clouds of hate settled over\nthe household, and Esau waited only for the death of his father that he\nmight destroy the life of his brother; and to save the life of her son,\nthe mother was forced to send him into banishment. Again the intriguing,\nmanaging character of the mother appears. She assigned what might be a\nreason, but not the true reason, to Isaac. \"I am weary of my life,\nbecause of the daughters of Heth. If Jacob takes a wife of the\ndaughters of Heth, such as these which are of the daughters of the land,\nwhat good shall my life do me?\" The plea of the mother prevailed, and\nIsaac blessed Jacob, and he left the land of his father, ostensibly to\nseek a wife, but in truth to flee from the vengeance of his brother.\n\nThe son of the wealthy patriarch went not out like an Eastern\nsuitor--not with a train such as Abraham sent when he wooed Rebekah for\nhis son. To avoid the hate of Esau, he stole like a fugitive from the\ntents of Isaac; and, a foot-worn pilgrim, unattended, he sought the\nkindred of his mother. And here the mother and her favourite child\nparted. She had alienated his brother to promote his interests. She had\nsacrificed her integrity to secure his fortune, and her plan had\nsucceeded. She had secured the object at which she had aimed, and yet in\nthe result she had been forced to send forth her darling child--a\nhomeless wanderer.\n\nThere is no reason to believe that the mother and the son ever met\nagain. From this time she disappears. Surrounded by the alienated Esau's\nhated wives and ill-loved children, separated from the child of her\naffection, she may have sunk into a premature grave, or she may have\nlived many sorrowful years to feel the miseries she had drawn upon\nherself by her violations of the rules of rectitude, and an eager desire\nto promote the happiness of one child at the sacrifice of that of\nanother.\n\nThere are still too many families involved in all the bitterness of\ndomestic strife from the unjust partiality of one or both of the parents\nfor favoured children. If, as children advance in life and their\ncharacters are formed, a calmer feeling succeeds the trembling\ntenderness which guarded their infant days, and our love to them (as to\nall other mortal beings) results from an appreciation of their\ncharacters, so that one may awaken a purer regard than another, this\nfeeling is very different from that partial fondness which adopts one\nand gives him a place in our affection to the exclusion of another. That\ninstinctive justice which compels a higher regard for the purer moral\nworth, will, of itself, prevent that parental partiality which leads to\ninjustice or to an infringement of established rights and recognised\nprinciples. An unjust parent presents one of the most revolting pictures\nof human nature. The character involves a disregard of the most sacred\nties and the tenderest relations. And whoever exhibits parental\ninjustice, or that partial fondness which leads to injustice, at once\ndestroys the affections and violates the moral sense. Families trained\nunder such influences, still exhibit revolting scenes of human\ndepravity--of bitterness, strife, alienation and revenge. Who can tell\nhow much of the estrangement of Esau, and this early introduction of the\nworship of strange gods among his descendants, may have been induced by\nthe conscious alienation of his mother, and the unjust preference of the\ninterests of his brother? Had Rebekah, with a mother's love, striven to\nwin her eldest son back to his father's tent and the altar of his\nGod--had she still respected his rights and preserved his regard by\nundeviating truth and faithfulness, she would have retained a strong\nhold upon him, and her influence might have been long felt by her\ndescendants, in restraining them from the sins of those around them.\n\nWe cannot yet part with the two principal actors in these sad scenes of\ntreachery and deceit. We think of Rebekah, the companion of her blind\nhusband--deprived of the son who had shared and alleviated her cares,\nand conscious of having awakened that bitter hate which would seek the\nblood of a brother--still following in her thoughts the footsteps of the\nwandering Jacob, feeling that by her own intrigues she had banished him\nfrom his home and her presence.\n\nAnd we may follow Jacob, as he stole from the tents of Isaac, a wanderer\nlike the first fugitive, with his brother's curse upon him. Until this\nhour all Jacob's views and feelings seem earthly and grovelling. Until\nnow, there has been no indication of that trust and piety which\nafterwards marked his life. He had seemed worldly, cunning, ready to\nsnatch any personal advantage. From this period he seems to awaken to a\nhigher--a spiritual life. He seems to have comprehended the deeper\nmeaning of promise and prophecy. We cannot tell what remorseful and\ndespairing thoughts filled his soul as he left his home--how strange\nand inexplicable may have seemed all the ways of God toward him. Yet he\nmust have felt that, in punishment of his deceit and falsehood, he was\nthus sent forth with but his scrip and staff, while he left Esau to\ninherit the possessions of his father.\n\nHe had wandered until he was faint and weary, and then he had lain\nhimself down on the earth, with stones for his pillow and the heavens\nfor the curtains of his tent. In the silence of the night his soul was\nopened to spiritual revealings--to those influences from heaven which\nmarked the change in his future life. He _saw_ the angels of God\nascending and descending upon him. Often before this may they have\nvisited him--constantly may they have hovered over him--but now he was\nmade conscious of the presence, watch and interposition of the heavenly\nintelligences of the higher presence of the God of Abraham. From this\nhour we trace a different influence pervading the heart and life of\nJacob. He was awakened to higher motives--and from this hour he entered\ninto covenant with God, and took Him to be his God.\n\nAnd Jacob awaked out of his sleep, and said, \"Surely the Lord is in this\nplace, and I knew it not;\" and he was afraid, and said, \"How dreadful is\nthis place! This is none other than the house of God--and this is the\ngate of heaven.\" And Jacob rose up early in the morning, and took the\nstone that he had put for his pillow, and set it for a pillar, and\npoured oil upon the top of it. \"And he called the name of that place\nBethel.\" And Jacob vowed a vow, saying \"If God will be with me, and will\nkeep me in the way that I go, and will give me bread to eat, and raiment\nto put on, so that I come again to my father's house in peace, then\nshall the Lord be my God, and this stone, which I have set for a\npillar, shall be God's house, and of all that thou shalt give me I will\nsurely give the tenth unto thee.\"\n\nThe future life of Jacob was not free from the infirmity of human\npurpose--the imperfection of human nature. Yet from this time he walked\nwith God, and all his deportment was marked by deep and humble piety. We\ndoubt not that at this period he passed through that transforming change\nby which, in every age, and under every dispensation, the human soul has\nbeen enabled to enter into the mysteries of the spiritual life and enjoy\ncommunion with the Author of its existence, through that Spirit which\nbreathed the first breath of life by which man became a living soul.\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nTHE RIVAL SISTERS--LEAH AND RACHEL.\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\nThere are two characters, which by some associations of memory, or\ncaprice of fancy, are ever blended in our recollections--the one of\nancient, the other of modern days--the one of sacred, the other of\nprofane history. Catharine of Arragon, the unloved consort of the King\nof England, and Leah, the daughter of the Syrian shepherd, the hated\nwife of the Hebrew patriarch. There may seem to be as little\nassimilation of character and destiny, as there is of condition, between\nthe daughter and the wife of a Syrian shepherd, and the daughter of one\nof the proudest monarchs of Spain and the wife of the haughtiest king of\nEngland; but they were both women, and both wives of those who loved\nthem not; and this fact, whatever the condition of woman, stamps her lot\nas one of wretchedness. The wife neglected and despised is a woman\nsorrowful, whether she be the inmate of a tent or the dweller in a\npalace--whether she tend the flock or grace the throne.\n\nCatharine of Arragon, the daughter of Isabella and Ferdinand, seems a\ntruth-loving, devout woman, well prepared to welcome the great\nprinciples advanced by the Reformers, had she not been placed in\ncircumstances most adverse to their influence. Had Henry embraced the\ndoctrines and the principles of the Reformation from a conviction of\ntheir truth and importance--had he sought to regulate his own life by\nthe pure precepts of the Bible, and thus striven to disseminate a pure\nfaith among his people--had the conscientious Catharine been the\npatroness and the friend of the Reformers, instead of the trifling, if\nnot guilty, Anne Boleyn--the English church and the state of religion in\nthe English nation would doubtless have presented a different history\nfor the past, and a different aspect for the future.\n\nBut these are vain speculations. Catharine lived and died in the Papal\nfaith. From the circumstances in which she was placed, she clung to it\nas to her womanly honour, her queenly dignity--as she would preserve her\nname from blight, her child from shame. And when she saw herself\nsupplanted, when she was disgraced, divorced, her child declared\nillegitimate, and she knew her death was desired by one to whom she had\nbeen a devoted, faithful wife, what words could be more touching than\nthose the dramatist gives as her last message to the king! \"Tell him,\nhis long sorrow has passed away.\" Oh, none but a wife dying thus, with\nthe bitter consciousness that her life was undesired and that her death\nwould be unregretted, can feel their full import.\n\nThe bells which had tolled for Catharine of Arragon had hardly ceased to\nvibrate when the roar of the cannon announced the execution of Anne. The\none died in January, the other was beheaded in May; and she who, by\nexciting and encouraging the unholy love of the king, had unchained his\nfierce passions and taught him to break through all restraints, was\nherself, full early, their victim.\n\nShall we pass from the palaces of England to the tents of\nMesopotamia--from the last days of chivalry to those of the ancient\npatriarchs and shepherds of the earliest of recorded ages?\n\nWhen the wandering Jacob reached the abode of his mother's kindred, the\nland of Haran, he met, at the same fountain at which Rebekah had watered\nthe flocks of the messenger of Abraham, the daughter of her brother\nLaban. He had seated himself by the well, and when the maiden came, he\naided her to water her flocks; and he was thus introduced to his kinsmen\nby Rachel; and he told them that he was the son of Rebekah, of whom,\nperhaps, they had long lost the recollection; and with all the\nhospitality of the East--that hospitality which ever prevails among a\nsimple and pastoral people--he was welcomed by the kindred of the\nmother.\n\nThe brother of Rebekah had two daughters. Leah, the elder, was\ntender-eyed, but Rachel was beautiful; and both sisters loved their\ncousin, while the heart of Jacob clung to the younger, the fair damsel\nwho first welcomed him; so that he overlooked the claims of the\nelder,--the plain, if not disfigured, Leah. He brought no offerings with\nhim to conciliate the favour of the father, and, according to the custom\nof the East, to facilitate his marriage. But he offered his personal\nservice as an equivalent. And the son of Isaac served seven years for\nthe daughter of Laban. But this long period was passed; and dwelling, as\nJacob did, in the presence of Rachel, a member of the household of her\nfather, they seemed but as a few days, for the love he bore her.\n\nBut the time had now arrived when the marriage should be celebrated, and\nJacob claimed his bride. But he who had wronged his brother, who had by\ndisguise deceived his father, was now imposed upon by guile and\ntreachery; and all the hopes and expectations of these long years were\ndefeated. The customs of Eastern marriages favoured the deceit, and\nJacob found that he was wedded to Leah, and not to the object of his\naffection. The deceit was most unjustifiable. The disappointment and the\nresentment must have been proportionally great; and miserable was the\nexcuse of Laban, and wretched the device which was offered as an\natonement. Yet Jacob must have bowed before the retributions of an\navenging God, and the remembrance of his own treachery may have stayed\nhis anger.\n\nThus commenced the family of Jacob, with all the elements of dissension,\nstrife and bitterness incorporated into its very earliest existence. The\ndaughters of Laban both became the wives of Jacob, and they were rivals\nas women, as sisters, as wives and as mothers--forced to dwell\ntogether, yet ever in sullen hatred or bitter strife. When the ties of\nnatural affection are severed, the heart never ceases to bleed; and\nthere is no hatred so deep, so implacable as that which springs up where\nhearts once knit are thus alienated and forced asunder: and the sorrows\nand evils which sprang up in the family of Jacob may have led to that\ncommand so explicitly given by Moses--\"Neither shalt thou take a wife to\nher sister to vex her, in her lifetime.\"\n\nThe heart of Jacob never departed from Rachel. She was the chosen bride.\nHe loved her with a deep and true affection, while the forced claims of\nLeah awoke only the remembrance of the deceit. In the emphatic language\nof the Bible, \"he loved Rachel, but he hated Leah,\" and it was in\naccordance with the constant exhibitions of human nature that it should\nbe thus. He had never sought her love. No love, no devotedness, could\nefface the remembrance of her connivance at that deep-laid plot which\nhad imposed her upon him as a wife. Yet the lot of Leah was peculiarly a\nlot of reproach and trial--and as we behold her wretchedness, we are\nled, not to extenuate her fault, nor to palliate her sin, but to forgive\nand pity her sorrows.\n\nIn early youth the sympathies are all awakened for the beautiful and the\nbeloved Rachel, the only chosen, the betrothed bride. As we advance in\nyears, in deeper acquaintance with human hearts, in truer fellowship in\nhuman suffering, we learn to feel for the plain and hated Leah. There is\nsomething deeply touching in the quiet sorrow which marks her lot; in\nher deep consciousness of her husband's alienation and her sister's\nhate. We feel how difficult it might have seemed to resist the\nauthority of the father, when it was aided by the pleadings of her own\naffection and the customs of her people. We glance into the tents of\nJacob, and contrast Leah with the beautiful, the loved, the indulged,\nthe self-willed Rachel. There we see her, plain and unattractive in\nperson, broken in spirit, bowed down by the consciousness of her own sin\nand her husband's hate--her sister's bitter contempt--striving, though\nscarce hoping, to win the love of her husband; and welcoming the anguish\nof a mother, with the fond assurance, \"Now will my husband love me, for\nI have borne him a son.\"\n\nWe follow the sisters, as, still side by side, but with alienated hearts\nand estranged affections, they depart from the tents of their father to\nfollow the footsteps of their husband,--Rachel and her offspring are the\nfirst objects of the care, as of the affection, of the patriarch. Yet\nwe find Rachel, the loved and indulged wife, more murmuring, more\nrepining, more fault-finding than Leah. By sorrow and trial, Leah may\nhave learned submission; and the dearest earthly hopes disappointed--all\nher affections as a wife crushed and despised--in her hour of grief, and\nin the desolation of a widowhood of hate, she may have sought and found\nthat love which never faileth, which giveth liberally and upbraideth\nnot.\n\nAnd He whose ear is ever open to the cry of his creatures, who forgives\neven while he punishes their iniquities, pitied Leah, and, without\nupbraiding her for that deceit by which she became a wife, gave her the\njoys of a mother; and in all the names bestowed upon her children, Leah\nat once recognises the mercy of God, while she still remembers that she\nis hated of her husband--attesting at once her conscious sorrow and her\ntrusting faith.\n\nRachel was childless--and when she saw Leah rejoicing as a mother, it\nawoke all the bitterness of envy. With the unreasonable pettishness of a\nwife ever indulged, she reproached her husband. For once, the anger of\nJacob was kindled against the idolized Rachel. \"Am I in God's stead?\"\nsaid he. The consciousness of being the loved and the cherished one--the\noverflowing tenderness and the ready indulgence which Rachel received,\nmade her only more exacting and imperious; and while Leah seemed\nsoftened by trials and sorrows, her sister grew more unreasonable by\nindulgence, and was at once haughty and insolent. So corrupt is human\nnature, that the gratification of our desires too often merely excites\nthe pride and haughtiness of the human heart, and the prosperous claim\nthe blessings of Heaven as a matter of right; while it is mercifully\nordained that the very sorrow which ever follows transgression, the\nevils which await all departures from duty and right, should, by their\nvery tendency, awaken repentance and lead to a penitent and humble\nspirit.\n\nWhen the daughters of Laban left the house of their father, either from\na latent superstition, or from a family cupidity, Rachel stole the\nhousehold gods of Laban and secreted them; and with an art worthy of the\ndaughter of Laban, she prevented her father from reclaiming them; thus\npaving the way for the introduction of idolatry into the household of\nJacob. He had already introduced polygamy by his marriage with her, and,\nto secure her, and thereby gratify her rivalry of her sister, he had\nmultiplied his wives, and brought upon himself still heavier sorrows and\ntrials. It was the beauty of Rachel which first captivated the eye, and\nthen enthralled the heart of Jacob; and the wisest of men, thus\nensnared, are still led into sin and folly. All the influences of Rachel\nupon his heart and life seem to have been unhappy; and the narrative\nshows that the strongest passion, gratified in defiance of prudence and\npreviously imposed obligation, can only lead to disappointment and\nvexation. The two sisters both proved the love of the wife, in leaving\nall at the command of the husband; and the God in whom Jacob still\ntrusted, guarded him against all the designs of Laban, averted the wrath\nof his brother, and guided him to the land of Isaac. He had passed\nJordan with his staff and his scrip--he went out an outcast, and a\nfugitive; he returned with the train of a chief, the retinue of an\nEastern prince; and his heart swelled with thanksgiving as he recounted\nthe mercy and remembered the faithfulness of Jehovah. His father was\nstill living--the nurse of Rebekah, who so long since had left the\nfamily of Bethuel, came to close her eyes in the tents of the\ngrand-daughter of her former master; but the mother who had led her son\ninto sin, who had taught him to practise that deceit which had recoiled\nupon himself, is not mentioned. She, doubtless, was laid by the side of\nAbraham and of Sarah, in the cave of Machpelah. She had anticipated a\nshort absence, a transient separation from her son. She purposed to send\nfor him to return to his father, that he might yet be heir of the\nestate; but when Jacob did return in wealth and honour--yet bearing that\nbitter burden of care and sorrow, from which no honour, no wealth are\nexempt,--she who would have assuredly exulted in the one, and\nsympathized with the other, was not in the tent of Isaac. She came not\nforth to welcome her son, to embrace her relatives and daughters or\ncaress their children. Her place in the tent and at the board was\nvacant--her voice was hushed--her heart cold. The places that had known\nher, knew her no more. And thus it often is. Before man attains wealth\nor honour, those who had most rejoiced to witness it have passed away;\nwhile still, fair as is the outward lot, there are internal sorrows,\nimbittering every pleasant draught, and casting a shadow over all the\nbrightness of human existence. Thus it is that the most prosperous are\noften followed by a cloud, reflecting glory and radiance upon such as\nare without, but covering with gloom and darkness those who fall within\nits shadow.\n\nAnd soon followed the bitterest trial of Leah's life,--the shame,\nsorrow, and widowhood of her only daughter; avenged by those who\nneglected to guard her--while the husband, though indifferent to the\nsorrow and love of the wife, must have felt the anguish of the father.\n\nAnd the rivalry and strife of the sisters was over. \"Give me children or\nelse I die,\" was the cry of the wife whose wishes had been laws--and the\nprayer prompted by hate and envy was answered. Yet Rachel died. And in\nthat hour of mortal agony, of bitter suffering, Leah probably stood by\nher sister. With affections estranged, love turned into bitterness, with\nhearts alienated, but fates inseparably united, they had passed their\ndays. Their tents had been pitched side by side,--the voices of their\nchildren had been mingled together as they fell upon their mothers'\nears,--they had been called to worship at the same altar,--they had been\nmembers of the same household.\n\nForced thus to dwell together, constantly to meet, to be familiar with\nthe same objects, to have the same interests, they were alienated, but\nnot separated; and if their feelings were crushed, they were not all\nuprooted. As Leah saw her younger, her beautiful sister in the hour of\nextremity, in the agonies of a mother's sufferings, the sympathies of a\nwoman must have risen with the love of a sister, and bitter tears of\nrepentant sorrow must she have shed upon the pallid brow and quivering\nlips, as the hopes and the memories of youth and childhood gathered\naround, to reproach her for that deceit by which she had sown their path\nthrough mutual life with thorns, and made their joys to be but ashes.\nThere are no tears so bitter as those which are shed by affection, too\nlate revived, over those whom we have loved and yet injured,--over those\nfrom whom we have suffered ourselves to be estranged.\n\nRachel was buried in the way to Ephrath, which is Bethlehem. She was\nnot laid in the sepulchre of Abraham. The children were left to the\nfostering care of her hated sister. Her sons passed through trials from\nwhich she could not guard them, and they came to honours while she knew\nit not. At this distance, her life seems to us a dream--a few years of\npleasant childhood, a short vision of youthful love,--then comes the\nstrife of life, its stern discipline, its bitter trials, its\ndisappointed hopes, and its termination in the grave.\n\nAs we dwell upon the characters so truthfully delineated in the word of\nGod, and follow the record of human pride, passion and infirmity, we are\ntaught at once to magnify and adore the patience, the forbearance and\nthe mercy of Jehovah. And let us remember that it is because these\ncharacters are reflected in the pure mirror of truth that the dark\nshades so plainly appear. In every age the heart of man is the same;\nbut the temptations which especially evince this depravity may be\npeculiar to some particular age or condition.\n\nWe know not how long Leah survived her sister. Her advancing years were\nnot exempt from affliction, and age brings its own trials; yet\nprosperity rested upon Jacob--and in the decline of life she may have\nknown happiness desired, but not realized, in youth.\n\nAfter the death of his beloved Rachel, the heart of Jacob may have\nturned to Leah, and a peaceful friendship have succeeded the storm and\nthe conflicts of youthful passion. Sorrow may have knit hearts softened\nby the mutual consciousness of error and by the tears of repentance, and\nstrengthened by the hopes of pardon, and drawn to each other by the\nstrong ties of parental love for their mutual offspring. When the\npatriarch was called into Egypt, Leah went not with him. He had laid\nher in the gathering-place of his sons, in the tent of his fathers. From\nthe touching expression of the dying patriarch--himself far from the\nland of his fathers' sepulchres--\"And there I buried Leah,\" we feel\nthat, in age and bereavement, the heart of Jacob turned to Leah. The\nrepudiated wife of his youth became the solace of his age, and her\nmemory awoke the last tender recollections in the dying patriarch. As we\nhave read the book of God, we have been taught that good, inordinately\ncoveted, or obtained by injustice and deceit, ever brings a curse. The\nprincipal actors in the events recorded in these chapters of Genesis,\nmay have secured the object which they sought, yet the attainment did\nnot avert or mitigate the punishment of the treachery by which it was\nsecured.\n\nRebekah obtained the birth-right and the coveted blessing for her\nfavourite child, and by that act separated him from herself and doomed\nhim to a banishment from his father's house, and from that hour she saw\nhis face no more. Laban secured by his deceit the marriage of his\nunattractive daughter and the establishment of the beautiful Rachel, but\nhe thus alienated the children he still seems to have loved, and that\nwealth which he so coveted.\n\nLeah, by her connivance at her father's deceit, married the man she\nloved, but it was to lead a life of bitter, of heart-consuming sorrow.\nJacob, departing from the institution of marriage that he might yet\npossess Rachel, entailed upon himself a career of strife, bitterness and\ndisappointment; and introduced into his family an example that became a\nfruitful source of individual depravity and national corruption; while\nhe first witnessed the evil effects of his complicated domestic\nrelations in the conduct of his eldest son, and felt at once his shame\nas a husband and his reproach as a father. And are not these things\nwritten for our edification? Are we not, in every page of God's word,\ntaught explicitly that for man there is neither safety nor happiness\nsave in the path of duty and of literal obedience? That each departure\nfrom the rule of right, whatever be the motive, and crowned as it may\nseem to be with success, draws a long succession of sin and sorrow in\nits train? Many have studied the word of God to justify sin, or palliate\nguilt, by the examples of the former dispensation. Let it be carefully\nstudied, and it will show that the transgression which secured a\npositive object, still brought its punishment,--if delayed, never\nremitted--although successful, never justified. The word of God never\njustifies crimes, though in infinite wisdom He over-rules them to\npromote the designs of his eternal providence.\n\nModern days and Christian institutions allow no examples of the exact\ntype of the strife and rivalry exhibited in the household of the\npatriarch of Israel. Yet, while human nature remains as it is, there\nwill ever be the jealousies, the strifes, the bitterness arising from\nmisplaced affection, or alienated hearts, or jarring interests. There is\nstill to be found the coquetry which would win love from a sister or a\nfriend, and the treachery that would supplant the rival--as there are\nstill fathers who, for motives of interest, would sacrifice their\ndaughters, regardless of their hearts or their happiness. Youthful\nbeauty still attracts the eye and wins the heart, and the best and\nwisest of men are too often enthralled by mere personal attraction.\n\nHuman nature is ever the same, and the motives and feelings which swayed\nthe generations who have mouldered back to dust are still felt and\nacknowledged.\n\nWhile we thus attempt to trace the outlines of the domestic history of\nthese individuals, we cannot but feel that there is a surpassing beauty\nand excellence in the character of Abraham. He bore the fresh impress of\na renovated world, and was truly worthy of the pre-eminence which is\nalways allotted to him. Isaac seems to have dwelt in quiet, peaceful\nprosperity. Inheriting great wealth, dwelling until mature age with his\nparents, there seem to have been few occasions in which the prominent\ntraits of the character are displayed. His life offers less of interest,\nless to excite, less to praise and less to blame than either Abraham's\nor Jacob's. The father's energy, patience, faith and obedience had\nprepared the way for the prosperity of the son; and Isaac, nursed in\naffluence and cherished by maternal affection, seems to have exhibited\nless energy, enterprise and decision than either his father or his\ndescendants. His premature blindness doubtless conduced to this inactive\nlife. Yet he trusted and obeyed the God of his father, though he enjoyed\nneither the exalted faith of Abraham, nor was he favoured with the\nenlarged prophetic views of Jacob.\n\nIn all the trials and infirmities of Jacob--from the day in which he\nleft his father's house until the hour in which \"he gathered his feet in\nhis bed and died\" in Egypt--we see the evidence and the growth of true\npiety, of enlarged faith. He was encompassed with infirmities, and these\ninfirmities betrayed him into sins, which brought in their train the\nsorrows which, through Divine grace, purified and sanctified him. Thus\nhis character excites our increasing love and sympathy, and his\nadvancing piety our veneration.\n\nFrom the glimpses we obtain of the families of Nahor, Bethuel, and\nLaban, we trace a gradual departure from Jehovah among the descendants\nof Shem. Nahor and Abraham were possessors of like faith. They both\nworshipped the God of their fathers--of Shem, of Noah, of Methuselah, of\nEnoch, of Seth, of Adam. Bethuel's household still remained a household\nof faith, but in Laban we see the beginning of a departure from the true\nGod. The first steps towards idolatry were taken. There was the resort\nto a sensible representation,--some image probably used as a symbol of\nthe true God at first, but certainly ensnaring the heart, and ending in\nidolatry. Thus the gods of Laban, which Rachel stole, were leading him\nand his family rapidly to idol-worship, and to forgetfulness of the true\nGod. Still he had not sunk into gross idolatry. Laban still pledged\nhimself, and invoked the name of the God of Abraham and of Nahor, and\nof their fathers, when he entered into covenant with Jacob. He had not\nyet altogether abjured the worship of Jehovah: he had begun to mingle a\nfalse worship with it, and thus prepared the way for the full apostasy\nof his descendants.\n\nThat the chosen people might be kept from the taint of idolatry, Jacob\nleft Laban; yet Rachel had stolen her father's images--and there is then\ngreat significance in that act by which Jacob renewed his covenant with\nGod, when called upon to build the altar at Bethel.\n\n\"And Jacob said unto his household, and to all that were with him, Put\naway the strange gods that are among you and be clean, and change your\ngarments: and let us arise and go up to Bethel; and I will make there an\naltar unto God, who answered me in the day of my distress, and was with\nme in the way which I went. And they gave unto Jacob all the strange\ngods which were in their hand, and all their ear-rings which were in\ntheir ears; and Jacob hid them under the oak which was by Shechem.\"\n\nProbably the ear-rings were used as heathen charms or amulets. While\nidolatry, as a leprosy, was thus beginning to infect the household, he\nsaw the need of their purification; and there seems no accidental\nconnection between this searching out and putting away of idolatry in\nthe household of Jacob and the following death of Rachel: \"With\nwhomsoever thou findest thy gods, let him not live.\"\n\nThe cherished wife of Jacob, deeply tainted with the superstitions by\nwhich her family were corrupting the religion of Jehovah, may have been\nthus removed to prevent further contagion. While the apostle may refer\nto this example in his promise: \"Nevertheless she shall be saved in\nchild-bearing, if she continue in the faith.\" And this sin may have\nexcluded Rachel from the sepulchre of Abraham. The plague-spot\ndisappears from this time, and the purification of the household was\navailing. For many generations, whatever their other sins, the children\nof Jacob were kept from idolatry.\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nMIRIAM.\n\nTHE INFLUENCE OF WOMEN UPON THE DESTINY AND CHARACTER OF MAN, AS\nEXEMPLIFIED IN THE LIFE OF MOSES.\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\nThere were designs of infinite wisdom to be accomplished by the long\nsojourn of the children of Jacob in Egypt. The people of Israel were\nappointed to guard the name and worship of Jehovah, until He who was to\nbring life and immortality to light should rise from among them. Until\nthe \"Star\" that was to come from Jacob should shed its glorious radiance\nover this darkened earth. When all the children of men were departing\nfrom God, He chose this family to perpetuate the memory of his works and\nhis mighty acts in preserving the first history of the race, and to\nprepare the way for the fulfilment of the designs of infinite mercy\ntoward a sinful and apostate world. By miracles and judgments, by type\nand prophecy, by altars and sacrifices, he kept before this people the\nmysterious promise given in the hour of transgression.\n\nFrom this family was to descend him who was to be the light of the\nGentiles, and the glory of Israel, him who was at once the Almighty\nSaviour, the everlasting Father, the wonderful Counsellor, the man of\nsorrows and acquainted with grief, who bore our sickness, and took upon\nhimself our iniquities. And while from the family of Israel that high\nspiritual influence was to emanate, which was to renovate men's moral\nnature and change the aspect and condition of the race, restoring the\nknowledge of the true God; and again, through the great atoning\nsacrifice, opening the gates of eternal life and bringing spiritual\nblessings to all mankind,--the character of the children of Israel,\ntheir civil institutions, their legislation, their history, their laws,\ntheir literature, were to leave their impress upon all the nations of\nthe earth.\n\nThe apostle accounts it the chief honour of the Jews that unto them were\ncommitted the oracles of God. They were employed to transcribe and\npreserve the inspired books. From them went forth those who first\nannounced the great truths of a Saviour crucified and a Comforter\npromised. For successive ages the nation of Israel stood surrounded by\nthe heathen world,--stood the witnesses of the faithfulness of Jehovah,\nthe monuments of his truth and power, the only nation upon the face of\nthis earth who worshipped the true God.\n\nThick moral darkness shrouded all other lands--the nation of Israel\nalone had light in their dwellings, and the beams of the rising Sun of\nrighteousness fell upon them and revealed the gross darkness around\nthem.\n\nAnd he who had chosen the people of Israel for such a high purpose, in\ninfinite wisdom devised the means to fit them for their destination, and\nhe guided and guarded them in each stage of their national existence.\nEgypt was one of the first kingdoms founded after the deluge, and it is\nprobable that those who repeopled it after this event, had retained many\nimpressions of the former world. Her monuments, yet remaining, attest\nthe high antiquity of her arts and sciences, and her early advancement\nin refinement and civilization.\n\nHer priests and wise men were the instructors of the ancient world, and\nthe philosophers of Greece resorted to Egypt to study legislation and\nphilosophy, and Egypt imparted to Greece, and Greece to Rome, the arts\nand sciences by which they refined and elevated Europe.\n\nGod designed Egypt to be the nursery of the nation of Israel. The\ngranary of the ancient world offering abundant sustenance, he brought\nJacob and his sons into it as one family, and here they remained until\nthey multiplied and increased, and became like the stars of heaven for\nnumber; and He who led them into Egypt ordained all the events of their\nnational history so as to promote his own eternal plans.\n\nThe patriarch led his children, with their flocks and herds,--the wealth\nof a pastoral people,--into this land as the invited guests of Pharaoh,\nthe monarch of Egypt. And as he bowed before the king, the aged\npatriarch taught him at once the brevity of man's life and the\nunsatisfying nature of all earthly enjoyments, as recalled at the close\nof a long pilgrimage: \"Few and evil have been the days of the years of\nmy pilgrimage.\" Pharaoh received the aged man with respect, and showed\nhim all honour; while in consideration of the pastoral habits of his\nsons, a portion of land, separate from the Egyptians, was allotted them\nfor a place of abode. Thus they were kept a distinct, unmingled people,\nand enabled to maintain their own peculiar institutions, practise the\nrites of their own religion, and preserve the worship of the God of\nAbraham. And in all the oppression which they here sustained, we do not\nfind that their religion was ever persecuted or their rites forbidden.\nAnd as Egypt was the cradle of the nation of Israel, so it was to be the\nschool in which the children of Jacob were to form a national character.\nThe wandering, pastoral tribes, transformed into an agricultural people\nand settled residents, and instructed in the arts of civilized life,\nwere fitted to take possession of the allotted heritage. After fostering\ntheir infancy and feebleness, the monarchs of Egypt gradually changed\ntheir course as the increasing numbers of the Israelites excited jealous\napprehension. Yet all this varying policy and every cruel edict advanced\nthe designs of Jehovah and promoted the welfare of his chosen people.\nThe cruelty of the Egyptians alienated the hearts of the Israelites from\nthe nation and from the land of Egypt, and kept freshly before them the\nremembrance of the inheritance promised. While considered as strangers,\ntreated as aliens, and surrounded by enemies, the bonds of brotherhood\nwere more closely drawn, and they clung together, a distinct and\nseparate people.\n\nThe tribes were one nation. While the people of Israel were oppressed,\nthey were not enslaved. They were tributary, but not reduced to\npersonal bondage. They dwelt together in that portion of Egypt assigned\nto them. They spoke their own language. They seem to have regulated\ntheir internal affairs by their own elders. They maintained their own\nworship. Their family relations were unbroken. They must have amassed\nriches, for they brought great wealth out of Egypt, as the offerings at\nthe tabernacle show--and although in part this may have been received\nfrom the restitution which the conscience-smitten Egyptians offered upon\ntheir departure, all could not have been thus derived. The whole\nnarrative of the Israelites shows that they were rich in silver and\ngold, and possessed much cattle. Yet all their property was\npersonal--they owned no land. And much of the tribute was, doubtless,\nexacted as rent, paid by many in personal labour; and while they thus\nerected, perhaps, the proudest monuments of Egyptian art by this\nenforced labour, they were acquiring the various knowledge needful to a\nnation; while their very task-masters, by compelling them to acquire the\nhabits of industry, to which a pastoral people are always averse, were\nschool-masters, needful though harsh, teaching them to develop their\nenergies and forcing them to exercise patience and to acquire skill.\n\nLearning and wisdom have departed from Egypt. She has long been the\nbasest of kingdoms. The race of the Pharaohs has passed away. She has\nbeen for ages governed by slaves. Temple and palace are in ruins. Her\ntombs, sacred and precious, have been pillaged; And the bones of her\ngreat and noble ones, her priests and kings, feed the fire by which the\nwandering Arab prepares his food. Yet many monuments of her ancient arts\nremain, interesting as attesting her power, grandeur, and high\nadvancement in civilization, and still more valuable as corroborating\nthe sacred history and throwing light on many passages of the inspired\nword,--at once showing the former residence of the Israelites in Egypt,\nthe close connection of these ancient people, and affording proofs of\nthat wisdom which selected Egypt for the cradle and school of the chosen\nrace.\n\nThe Egyptians, gradually after the flood, lost the knowledge of Jehovah\nand departed from his worship.\n\nAt the time Joseph married the daughter of the priest of On, the\nEgyptians could not have sunk into that gross idolatry which contrasted\nso strangely with their wise legislation and scientific attainments; and\ntheir priests are supposed to have concealed, under mystic symbols,\nmysterious truths, which they imparted to the initiated, while they\ntaught a grosser system to the common mind. While in Egypt the\nIsraelites seem never to have been exposed to the debasing immoralities\nwhich prevailed among the nations around the promised land.\n\nThe children of Jacob sojourned in the land of Ham four hundred years.\nWhen Jehovah called his people out of Egypt they were fitted to receive\nthe laws and institutions which he designed to give them, and to take\nthe high position he assigned them among the nations of the earth. And\nlest, during their long sojourn in the wilderness, they should lose the\narts of civilized life, they were employed in the construction of the\ntabernacle. By the minute enumeration of all that was required for the\ncompletion of this work, we see that the erection involved an extensive\nacquaintance with the mechanical arts, and of those, too, which indicate\na high degree of advancement in the luxuries of polished life. Thus the\ngeneration born in the wilderness were instructed, and preserved from\ndegenerating into mere shepherds, hunters, or warriors. The restless\nwere occupied, and the work proved a bond of union for the whole people,\nexciting the interest and employing the energies of all the different\nclasses of the great multitude.\n\nThe long ages of the sojourn of the children of Jacob were drawing to a\nclose. The iniquity of the Canaanites was now full; the children of\nIsrael were prepared to be numbered among the nations of the earth; and\nthe events dictated by the craft and policy of men were ordained to\npromote the infinite designs of Jehovah. For four hundred years the\ndescendants of Jacob had dwelt in Goshen. From a pastoral they were\nalready become an agricultural people; they had learned to prize the\ncomforts of an established life, of quiet, peaceful homes, of pleasant\nplaces of abode. Dwelling in the richest portion of Egypt, protected\nfrom all foreign aggression, they there enjoyed abundance, peace, and\nprosperity, to which their wanderings in the desert furnished a sad\ncontrast.\n\nThe policy of Egypt had excluded the Israelites from her crimes. The\nenergy, the love of change and adventure, which a martial life imparts,\nwere unfelt; and had not oppression driven the Israelites from Egypt,\nthe promise of that goodly land destined for their race had hardly\ninduced the nation to leave their present abundance and protection.\nThus, by the various dispensations of his providence, Jehovah was at\nonce preparing a guide, leader, ruler, and future lawgiver for his\npeople, while by the continued vexation, oppression, and cruelty of the\nEgyptian rulers, he was suffering them to alienate the affections of the\nchildren of Jacob from a country which had become the native land of the\nIsraelites, which was the birth-place of generation after generation.\n\nAt the time Miriam, the sister of Moses, appears before us, the children\nof Israel had reached the fourth generation. A family had become a\nnation, a people in the bosom of another, dwelling together, distinct,\nseparate, too numerous to be easily or safely held in subjection, too\nvaluable as tributaries to be relinquished. Thus to hold them safely in\nbondage and to prevent their further increase, it became the settled\npolicy of Egypt to oppress and degrade them. As their jealous\napprehensions were at length awakened, by a policy as profound as it was\ncruel, the Egyptian monarchs endeavoured, in destroying the sons of this\npeople, to force the daughters of Israel to intermarry with their\noppressors, that they might obtain the wealth of the sons of Jacob,\nwhile the name and memory of his family would be swept from the earth.\nYet dwelling, as the Israelites did, in a separate province, it was not\neasy for Pharaoh to find those who would execute his purposes; and the\nfirst efforts to cut off the race of the chosen, failed. He was however\nso intent upon their extermination, that he did not hesitate to direct\nthat all the male children of the Israelites should be cast into the\nriver as soon as they were born.\n\nWhile there were so many to court the favour of the monarch and ever\nready for the darkest deeds, how could the sons of the Hebrews now\nescape? When Moses was born, his mother hid him three months; and when\nconcealment was no longer possible, she sought for the babe a strange\nplace of safety--in the very element which was indicated for its\ndestruction. The slender ark is framed by the mother's hands, and\ndeposited among the flags on the bank of the Nile. The morning was\nperhaps dawning, and the sky yet gray, when the anxious mother\nwithdrew.\n\nIn a few hours after, the chant of the boatmen is suddenly hushed, and\nthe passing labourers shroud their heads in token of reverence, as,\nsurrounded by her attendants, the daughter of Pharaoh approaches the\nriver. The slight ark, with its precious burden, floating among the\nreeds, attracts her eye, and, as her maidens draw it from the water, the\nwail of the desolate infant strikes her ear.\n\n\"The babe wept\"--and full fountains of womanly tenderness were broken up\nin the heart of the princess of Egypt. \"This is one of the Hebrew\nchildren,\" said she; and as she drew him from the waves, she resolved to\nsave and adopt the child.\n\nMiriam, the sister, had lingered near to watch, if not to save the\nchild. We may fancy the Hebrew maiden at a little distance, eagerly\nbending forward, and gazing with intense and breathless interest. And\nwhen the princess announces her intention to protect the infant, in all\nthe gladness of childhood she bounds forward, and, mingling with the\nroyal train, asks, \"Shall I go and call to thee a nurse of the Hebrew\nwomen, that she may nurse the child for thee?\" And Pharaoh's daughter\nsaid unto her, \"Go;\" and the maid went and brought the child's mother!\n\nThus had the God of Israel overruled all the designs of evil to his\npeople, by providing in the very family of Pharaoh a shelter and a home\nfor the child--doomed by the impious monarch to destruction--but\ndesigned by Jehovah to be the saviour of his people. He who was thus\ndrawn from the water was the ordained deliverer, guide, legislator, and\nprophet of Israel.\n\nAs Jehovah had appointed him to this high vocation, he not only guarded\nhis life, thus threatened, but made the instruments intended for the\nextermination of the race the means of the full accomplishment of all\nits mysterious destiny.\n\nThe child thus adopted into the royal family was not only saved from\ndeath, but was thus placed under influences most propitious for the\nattainment of all the various knowledge which could fit him for the high\nstation to which he was destined. That helpless infant was not only to\nbe the deliverer of Israel, but by his political institutions, his\nlegislative enactments, his moral precepts, his inspired teachings, he\nwas to mould the character of his own people, and to influence other\nnations down through all coming ages. High was the honour allotted him\nas the deliverer and the lawgiver of Israel--still higher that as the\nprophet of the Lord. He was the promulgator of the great moral laws of\nthe universe, originally engraven on the hearts of men, but now so\neffaced by sin as to be scarcely legible;--he was to establish those\ninstitutions which were to perpetuate the name and the worship of\nJehovah among the children of men; and that memorial which, by a long\nline of types and sacrifices, was at once to prefigure and prepare for\nthe great atoning sacrifice, offered for a lost world.\n\nOf all the fallen sons of Adam, none were ever destined to a station of\nmore arduous responsibility, of more extensive and long-continued\ninfluence than that appointed to this Hebrew infant; and He who had\nmarked out his destiny ordained the means which were to prepare him for\nit. Transplanted into the family of Pharaoh, he was there instructed in\nall the \"wisdom of the Egyptians,\" and Egypt (as we know) was the\nfountain of ancient learning, science, and philosophy. While Jehovah\ncommunicated by direct inspiration to Moses, yet the mind of the ruler\nand leader of Israel had been prepared by that instruction which\ndevelops the capacity, expands the mind, and enlarges the apprehension\nto receive and understand the institutions Jehovah gave his people, and\nhe was thus enabled to co-operate with an enlightened mind in all the\ndesigns of God. But if the schools of Egypt imparted that intellectual\nattainment, mental discipline and knowledge of legislation in its\nvarious forms, so necessary for the lawgiver, there were other\ninfluences which were needful for the perfection of the character. There\nwas a knowledge higher and holier than that ever taught by priests or\nGrecian philosophers,--a wisdom beyond that of the Egyptians, \"the\nknowledge of the Lord,\" the God of his fathers, and the first great\ntruths of religion should be breathed into the soul in the whispers of\nparental love. The earthly parent should lead the child to the feet of\nthe great Creator.\n\nAnd then in the formation of a character which was to leave its impress\nupon all future ages to the close of time, the affections were to be\ncultivated, the sympathies awakened, and all that is pure and kind and\nelevated in the nature of man drawn forth. And where is the influence\nwhich so gently moulds the character, refining, softening, and elevating\nit, as the affectionate, intelligent sister? As a man advances in life,\nthe continual influence and association of virtuous and accomplished\nwomen is felt in all the relations he is called to sustain.\n\nWe see in the various circumstances of the life of Moses a Divine\nrecognition of the value of the family relation and of the importance of\nthe influence of women in the formation of character.\n\nBefore Moses was admitted to the schools of Egyptian learning, before he\nwas exposed to the snares and the splendours of a court, before he was\ncalled to a throne, he had learned lessons of the deepest wisdom from\nthe lips of his parents. One higher than the royal of earth spoke\nthrough the princess, when she said, \"Take this child and nurse it for\nme, and I will give thee wages.\" And faithfully did the mother fulfil\nher charge. She strove to imbue the soul of her child with living faith,\nwhile upon that infant heart she impressed the maxims of eternal\ntruth--she imparted those lessons of trust and confidence, and\ninculcated that deep conviction of the power of truth, which led the\nman, by the grace of God, in the prime and flush of life, to refuse to\nbe called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to suffer\naffliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for\na season.\n\nHad that mother been unfaithful to her high trust, had she infused into\nthat infant heart lessons of ambition and worldliness, he had perhaps\nfailed in the hour of trial, and another had led the tribes of Israel to\nthe chosen land. A little band guarded Moses; the princess of Egypt,\nthe mother of Moses, and his sister Miriam. Each one exerted her\npeculiar influence upon his character, while his future destiny attested\nthe varied power of these influences and their relative value.\n\nAs the saviour of the young Hebrew, as his protectress and adopted\nmother, the daughter of Pharaoh had a large claim upon him, and to her\nhe was indebted for many of those high attainments which fitted him for\nhis office. The slight incidental notices of the daughter of Pharaoh\ngive us a delightful impression of her character.\n\nThere is something higher and nobler than a princess. She was a true\nwoman, filled with all the quiet sympathies and kind affections of her\nsex, and possessing an energy and a persevering constancy which led her\nto fulfil her generous purposes, and made her impulses bear the fruits\nof benevolent action.\n\nSuch women show what women should be, and such women in all ages make\nthe influence of their characters to be felt. To her fostering care\nMoses owed life and advancement, education, honour, the standing of a\nprince, the polish and the refinement of the court. She proved her\nappreciation of knowledge, and we may well infer her own cultivated\nintelligence from the care with which she provided for the instruction\nof her charge. She showed that she could feel and that she cherished all\nthe sympathies of domestic love, by providing for their indulgence, by\nallowing their continuance, and yielding to their claims, even though\nshe was a princess of Egypt, the daughter of the haughty Pharaoh, and\nher adopted child belonged to a race studiously oppressed, degraded, and\nexposed to all contumely, and while, doubtless, she was no stranger to\nthe prejudices which led her countrymen to look upon the sons of Israel\nas an outcast and despicable race. Still the bonds of national\naffection, of kindred and brotherhood, were all respected. The whole\nnarrative shows that Moses was never alienated from his family, never\ntaught to forget that he was a Hebrew. His patroness felt that there\nwere holy ties never to be disregarded nor trampled upon.\n\nAnd while the princess of Egypt surrounded her infant charge with right\ninfluences, while she provided wisely for his intellectual culture, she\nlikewise brought the influence of her own personal character to bear\nupon him. The influence of a pure woman, who unites refinement to\nintelligence, and adds to them the polish of the court without its\ncorruption, would be as powerful as it would be salutary, and when to\nthe higher qualities, mental and moral, the polished refinement and\ngraceful attention to all the proprieties of life are imparted, a high\nfinish is given to the character. Nor was that acquired grace and\ncourtly manner a thing of frivolous import. It exerted an important\ninfluence upon the future destiny of the individual. The successful\nleaders of great multitudes have often owed almost as much to that high\nbearing and dignified demeanour which should be the distinct badge of\nthose who are numbered with the great, as to their skill and\ndiscernment; and while treated in the court of Pharaoh as a scion of\nroyalty, the young Hebrew acquired that air of conscious authority to\nwhich inferior minds always defer. He gained there that knowledge of\ncourtly splendour and gayety which forced in him the conviction of their\nperfect insufficiency for the high demands of the spiritual nature, and\nthat knowledge of the heart of man and its depraved qualities most\nneedful to one who was at once to lead and control a multitude, and who\nwas to stand before kings as the envoy of Jehovah.\n\nThe Israelites never seem to have entered the Egyptian armies. It would\nhave been contrary to the policy of the kings either to have encouraged\na martial spirit or to have placed arms in the hands of this multitude;\nyet as one of the family of Pharaoh, Moses led the armies of Egypt. And\nneedful it was that the future leader of Israel should be well\ninstructed in all the tactics of war--should understand all the\nproviding for, the ordering, and the encamping of vast hosts. It was\nperhaps only by arduous military service that he could have developed\nthat capacity indicated by the vast skill with which an army of six\nhundred thousand men, encumbered with their wives and little ones, could\nbe encamped in regular order, whether marching or resting. Ever\ndesiring peace and acting on the defensive, yet ready to repel\naggression, for forty years the nation of Israel were encamped as the\nhosts of an army. Each tribe with its own banner, marching and\ncountermarching, taking down and putting up their tents, with all the\nskill and regularity of a disciplined army, and often engaged in actual\nwarfare. He who could thus order and regulate such a host must have\npossessed the skill and science of the general. While the habits of long\ncommand, added to the consciousness of authority and Divine reliance,\nenabled him to prevent or control turbulent outbreaks.\n\nWhile the legislator of Israel owed so much to the fostering care of the\ndaughter of Pharaoh in preparing him for his high destination, we cannot\nbut feel a deep interest in her who so unconsciously contributed toward\nan influence and prepared an instrumentality quite adverse to the\napparent interests of her people. We cannot but hope that, while she\nthus hastened the accomplishment of promise and prediction, she was\nherself led to the knowledge and worship of Israel's God.\n\nMight not one who thus adopted the brother, encircle in her affection\nthe sister whose affectionate entreaty gave the babe a mother for its\nnurse? The fraternal affection which marks the family seems to indicate\nmore than occasional intercourse. Between Miriam and her brother there\nwas that sympathy which always results from an intimate association. The\nprincess of Egypt may have imparted to Miriam many of the\naccomplishments of the courtly circle, for we find that she was skilled\nin music, that she led the dance; while, in return, Miriam may have\nimparted that higher knowledge and those deep truths of which her people\nwere the appointed conservators, and the daughter of Pharaoh may have\ntasted the blessings which were held in trust for future ages.\n\nMiriam was the only sister of Moses, and she first appears as watching\nthe fate of that child in whose destiny all the ages and all the nations\nof earth were to have an interest. The tender care which watched the\ncradle on the Nile continued through life, and from the day Moses was\nsaved, down to the day when Miriam died in the wilderness, she seems\never associated with her brothers in all their efforts and designs. The\ninfluence of the sister is peculiarly her own. It is felt in early life\nin its softening, refining, and purifying tendency--in diverting opening\nmanhood from rude sports or gross pursuits to the enjoyments of a more\nelevated and pure nature, and shedding a charm around the pleasures of\nhome; while, if no other ties intervene, the bonds of affection grow\nstronger with each successive year.\n\nWe cannot trace the course of Miriam's life. She appears before us for a\nseason and then we lose sight of her for many years. She may have passed\nthem in the retirement and obscurity of her rural home in the land of\nGoshen. She may have been counted in the train of the princess of Egypt\nand shone in the court of Pharaoh. Princes may have flattered her and\nnobles sued for her love. She seems never to have married,--yet her\nheart may have had its own history of love, perhaps unrequited,\ndisappointed, or sacrificed at the altar of prudence, of conscience, or,\nit may be, ambition. Oh what a tale of suffering and of enjoyment would\nthe history of one human heart present, if faithfully recorded!\n\nYears had passed: childhood was gone--youth was fleeing. The brother had\nattained a high distinction in the court of Egypt. He had tasted the\npleasures of wisdom and the enjoyments of science and knowledge, while,\nas the adopted child of Pharaoh's daughter, he stood before the people,\nthe prospective heir to the crown.\n\nThus, in the prime of life, endowed with the richest gifts of mind and\nthe attractions of manly beauty, adding the polish of the courtier to\nthe wisdom of the philosopher--and all the adventitious advantages of\nroyal birth received by his adoption--there lay before the young Hebrew\na bright vista of prospective glory and honour and earthly happiness.\n\nBut not to sit on the throne of Egypt had Jehovah raised this child of\nthe chosen people from the death designed by their oppressor. Not to fit\nhim for the throne of Egypt had he surrounded him with all that was\npropitious to intellectual and moral attainments and guided and watched\neach step of his course from his infancy.\n\nDeep and inscrutable must have seemed the designs of Jehovah, as, when\nall was brightest, the dark clouds gathered around this favoured son of\nthe Hebrews, and all the promise and purpose of his saved life seemed\ndefeated. The hour of trial came--probably, as it generally comes,\nsuddenly and unexpectedly. It was the hour which was to test his\nprinciples and prove his faith. The hour in which all the allurements of\nsense, the gratification of ambition, and (it may have seemed) the\nclaims of grateful affection, were brought into conflict with the stern\nclaims of duty and principle, and in this hour he did not fail. He chose\nrather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the\npleasures of sin for a season. He refused to be called the son of\nPharaoh's daughter. His choice was made. He abjured the throne and left\nthe court. What disappointment must have fallen upon hearts who had\nlooked to his exaltation as a pledge of good for his race, and who saw\nin his downfall the prolonged dominion of tyranny and persecution!\n\nYet Moses was not permitted to remain in peace, although he had sunk\ninto obscurity. He who was to lead the hosts of Israel through the great\nand terrible wilderness--who was to endure toil, labours, and privation,\nneeded the nerve, the hardihood, the physical training, which could not\nbe gained in the luxurious courts of the Pharaohs, or in the quiet, and,\ndoubtless, comfortable and abundant homes of the husbandmen of Goshen.\nAmid the enjoyments of home, the pleasures of study, he need not have\nregretted the loss of a throne.\n\nFor many years he, who had been trained in luxury and elegance, led the\nflocks of Jethro, and knew all the privations and the endurances of the\nshepherd in the desert. And while his frame was thus hardened and\ninvigorated, while he learned to forego pleasure and endure bodily\ntoil, his soul was nourished by solitary meditation and high communion\nwith God. The philosopher can find instruction and interest in the works\nof creation, but only he who adds the adoration of the worshipper to the\nwisdom of the philosopher is prepared to study the works of Jehovah\naright.\n\nWhat deep thought, what high imaginings, what profound reverence must\nhave filled the soul of the Hebrew shepherd as he watched the stars in\nthe silence and loneliness of the desert. As he sat, a solitary and\nbanished man, under the shadow of the rocks of the wilderness, how\nstrange, how incomprehensible must have seemed the events of his past\nlife. The visions of his youth, the splendour and warlike pomp of the\narmy or the pageant of courts, must have come over his soul like a\ndream. Even to us how strange seems this long sojourn in the\nwilderness, this enforced inactivity and apparent uselessness. Yet the\nGod of Israel was promoting his own designs both among his people and in\nthe heart of him who was to be their leader--weaning them from their\nplace of abode, and preparing them for their departure, and fitting\nMoses to be their leader, guide, ruler, and lawgiver. Each dispensation\nof his providence, each passing occurrence, all the thoughts, the\nemotions, the solitary meditations, the reverential communion, the\noccasional intercourse with the few dwellers of the desert,--like the\nstrokes, slight and almost imperceptible in their effect, which the\nblock receives from the hand of the sculptor,--all were fitting the\napparently exiled Hebrew for his high vocation as a prophet and\nlegislator.\n\nAnd it is often thus. For many years may Jehovah be preparing his\ninstruments for that event to which he destines them, and which they\nmay then speedily accomplish. Yet this work in the soul, by which man is\nprepared to co-operate with his Maker, is silent, unseen, unmarked, so\nthat often we may account this time as lost. And man, ignorant of his\nfuture destiny, and of the state to which he is to be called, will ever\nfind it his true wisdom carefully to fulfil the present duty and to aim\nat deriving instruction and benefit from each dispensation of Divine\nprovidence, and from the ordering of each event of his life.\n\nIn the careful provision made for the training of Moses, in the various\ninstrumentalities used to prepare him for his appointed trust, we are\ntaught that by no miraculous intervention does God supersede the\nnecessity of the improvement of the faculties he has bestowed. The more\nenlightened the understanding, the more the powers of reason are\ncultivated, the more intelligently can man serve his Creator, and the\nmore entirely does he co-operate in the designs of Infinite Wisdom. God\ndoes not bestow, by direct inspiration, that wisdom or knowledge which\nis to be gained by the diligent cultivation of the natural faculties, to\nsave man the fatigue and labour of the acquirement. Those upon whom he\nhas most richly bestowed the gifts of spiritual wisdom have been most\ncareful to cultivate their natural endowments.\n\nBoth Paul and Moses were learned before they were inspired, but God did\nnot supersede the use of the powers of the mind by the higher gift of\nthe Spirit. The providential dealings of God are adapted to the laws of\nthe human mind, and in the government of his creatures he never violates\nthe principles which he has established.\n\nThe occupation of the shepherd was at length to be abandoned. By\noppression and suffering and ignominious exactions, the children of\nIsrael were prepared to leave their homes--the land in which they had\ndwelt for centuries--and venture across the sea and into the desert.\nWhen we remember that husbandry had been the national occupation, when\nwe consider how strong is the instinct which binds man to the land of\nhis birth and the graves of his fathers, and how strong is that bond\nwhich attaches one to the spot he has cultivated, to the land he has\nploughed and sowed and reaped, we cannot wonder at the coercion needful\nto rouse a people whose energies were all depressed, and who had been\nheld in check and kept stationary for ages.\n\nBut the people were ready to depart. The oppression of Pharaoh had\nprepared the way for the display of the Divine faithfulness and power.\nJehovah sent his ambassador from the desert to the court of the King of\nEgypt, to demand their freedom. During his long exile, most who had\nknown Moses in his early days, had passed away; and the few that were\nleft would hardly recognise in the shepherd of the desert, with his\nstaff for his badge of office--bearing the marks of toil and exposure,\nof deep thought and solitary meditation--the young and gallant prince,\nthe courtier and the warrior of former days. She who had cherished him\nhad probably been laid in the tomb of her royal race, and the name and\nthe memory of Moses may have been forgotten in the palace and the court.\nYet there he stood, before the throne which might have been his seat,\nthe ambassador of the King of kings, bearing the stern message of\nJehovah--\"Let my people go, that they may hold a feast unto me in the\nwilderness.\" Yet wo after wo was denounced and executed--pledge after\npledge given and violated--and not until one long wail over the dead and\ndying resounded through the land were the children of Israel permitted\nto leave the land of Egypt. The loss of three millions of subjects, of\ntheir labour, their tribute, and the removal of all their personal\nproperty, would weaken and impoverish the kingdom. Every motive of\npolicy and pride urged the monarch to resist the demand, and thus he\nsuffered the penalty due to his contumelious defiance of the God of\nIsrael, while the judgments inflicted upon him strengthened the faith of\nthe Israelites. The expulsion of the Moors and of the Jews from Spain,\nthe banishment of the Huguenots from France, furnish similar though not\nparallel cases, in modern ages; and these show that the loss of\npeaceful, industrious subjects to a kingdom is like taking the\nlife-blood from the system. Centuries have passed, yet these nations\nhave not recovered--and thus Egypt must long have felt her loss.\n\nAfter the tribes of Israel had passed through the Red Sea, the sister of\nMoses again appears before us. When he poured forth that chant of\ntriumphant thanksgiving--the oldest song of nations--Miriam gave a\nresponse worthy of the sister of the leader of the hosts encamped before\nthe Lord. With timbrel she led the daughters of Israel in the dance. And\nwell might the prophetess of Israel teach the dance of ancient Egypt to\nthe daughters of her people on this occasion. The representations\npreserved in painting and sculpture show that this was not the gay and\nvoluptuous movement of modern days, but rather a succession of graceful\ngestures, regulated by music, expressive of joy and emotion. Thus the\nmaidens of Israel offered praise and adoration; nor was it unseemly in\nthe warlike monarch of after ages thus to worship before the ark of the\nLord, although his pious act provoked the ridicule of the daughter of\nBaal.\n\nFrom this time until the day of her death, Miriam is found co-operating\nwith her brothers in their designs and efforts. However the earlier\nyears of her life had passed, she had attained to a high distinction\namong her people. While she seems to have neither claimed nor exerted\nauthority, her rank and position, in her sphere, were as well defined\nand as elevated as that of her brothers. Throughout the whole narrative\nwe find proofs of the high consideration with which she was regarded.\n\nWhile in early life her influence as a sister had refined and softened\nthe rudeness and roughness of their boyhood and youth, and similar\nassociations with the brothers in mature years had enlarged her mind and\nimparted intelligence and strength to her understanding.\n\nDuring the long sojourn in the wilderness, Miriam, \"the prophetess of\nIsrael,\" was probably the counsellor of the mothers and the instructress\nof the daughters of her people; while between the sister and the\nbrothers there ever seems to have subsisted the most tender,\nconfidential friendship.\n\nBut, alas for imperfect woman! There was a time in which the dark\npassions and malignant tempers of our evil nature so triumphed in the\nhearts of Miriam and Aaron, that they arrayed themselves against Moses.\nThe dissension which troubled the camps of their leaders threatened to\nspread and involve the multitude of Israel in all the evils of rebellion\nand civil war.\n\nDuring his exile, Moses had married the daughter of the priest of\nMidian. The descendant of Abraham, Jethro was a worshipper of the God of\nhis fathers, and we have recorded proofs of his piety and wisdom. Yet\nthe marriage of Moses was not apparently in accordance with the views\neither of his brother or sister. There is a selfish tenderness sometimes\nexhibited, which leads the dependent mother or single sister to regard\nwith jealousy one who claims a closer tie, and Miriam may not have been\nfree from the infirmities of weaker natures. Yet the notices, slight as\nthey are, of the \"Ethiopian\" woman, perhaps impress few minds\nfavourably; and we cannot but feel that in herself she may not have been\nall that the friends of the lawgiver of Israel could have wished in a\nwife. Bred in the seclusion of the wilderness, she was probably\ndeficient both in the intelligence and the accomplishments which\ndistinguished Miriam. And Miriam and Aaron seem at last to have\ncherished feelings of bitterness toward their sister-in-law, which were\nfast extending to the brother himself.\n\nThey evidently disliked the foreigner. They may have compared the\ntoil-worn daughter of Midian with the high-bred maidens of Egypt, who in\nformer days would have welcomed the addresses of one numbered with the\nprinces of Egypt, or with the daughters of his own people, as offering\nan alliance more worthy the ruler of Israel; and Miriam, elevated by the\ndistinction conferred upon her as the prophetess of Israel, conscious of\nsuperiority in all feminine accomplishments, seems to have forgotten the\nlove of a sister and to have lost the humility befitting a woman.\nDomestic bitterness was fast preparing the way for political\ndisaffection, and the dark clouds which had gathered around the tents of\nthe leaders threatened to burst upon the whole camp of Israel.\n\nThen Jehovah himself interposed. As the principal offender, the\nprophetess of Israel was publicly rebuked before all the congregation of\nthe Lord; and then, as a leper, expelled from the camp, shut out from\nall human associations, in shame and solitude, Miriam, diseased and\nsuffering, lay for seven days. In this time she doubtless humbled\nherself and repented of her sin. Yet, during this interval, the vast\nmultitude showed their respect by remaining stationary; and while Aaron\nconfessed their sin, Moses interceded for his faulty, erring, but still\nbe loved sister.\n\nIf the conduct and fault of Miriam are to be censured and deplored, it\nis to be confessed that it was not peculiar to the sister of the leaders\nof the hosts of the Lord. Women of later ages, conscious of intellectual\nsuperiority, elevated by position, or merely distinguished by\nusefulness, have sometimes been proud enough to despise the inferior of\ntheir own sex, and to arrogate to themselves the power allotted to man;\nand their awakened pride and vanity have introduced strife and confusion\ninto the counsels of those who were appointed to guide the people of\nGod.\n\nThere is meaning in this record of the faults of those whose hearts had\nbeen, from infancy to age, knit together. While God has implanted the\nnatural and domestic affections, they are still to be guarded,\ncherished, and cultivated. The jealousies, the petty strifes of domestic\nlife, the little dislikes, the unguarded tempers of those who dwell\ntogether, have sometimes alienated hearts that have been united from\nchildhood. The love that has grown strong by the mutual endurance of\noppression, toil, privation, and danger, has been turned to gall by the\ninfusion of the constant droppings of domestic strife. Pure, unselfish\nlove is the spontaneous growth of a holy heart. It must be nurtured and\ntended, or it will wither and die in our corrupt nature.\n\nThe afflictions and punishments which harden the hearts of those who\nreject God, bring such as love his laws and character to submission and\npenitence. Miriam was restored to her former usefulness, probably better\nfitted for her high position, while the hearts of the brothers seem\nunited anew to each other and to her; and the authority of Moses,\nvindicated by God, was strengthened by his own forbearing love and\ndisinterested gentleness. And from thenceforth, while a due subjection\nwas observed, there seems to have been an entire co-operation between\nthem.\n\nMiriam died in the wilderness of Zin, and the brothers buried her. There\nis a peculiar sadness in this separation, occurring, as it evidently\ndid, not long before the close of their various pilgrimages.\n\nAs we follow the inspired narrative, we are naturally impressed by the\ncare with which Jehovah selects and prepares those whom He intends as\nthe instruments of advancing the welfare of his people and his own\nglory; and while this may be more clearly traced in the case of the\nhighly distinguished legislator and prophet of Israel, we may be\nassured that it extends not less certainly to the lowest and the\nhumblest.\n\nThe influences by which the lawgiver of Israel was so early surrounded,\nwe are willing to accept as a divine attestation to the power and value\nof female culture in the formation of the character.\n\nThree women are brought distinctly before us, as connected with the\nearly history of Moses. The mother's high duty and privilege it was (as\nit ever is) to instil into his opening mind those great truths and first\nprinciples which are at the foundation of all excellence. Had the nurse\nof Moses been an Egyptian idolatress, the character of the man had\ndoubtless been very different. While Moses owed all his worldly\nadvancement to the princess of Egypt, he derived other advantages from\nbeing brought under the familiar influence of one who preserved, amid\nthe corruptions of a court, the best sympathies of our nature. A\nknowledge of human character and a power of adaptation to all the\ncircumstances of his eventful life were thus imparted, and which could\nbe hardly elsewhere acquired, yet they were very needful to one who was\nto fill the office allotted to him.\n\nGod has graciously ordered that while the parents and guardians are to\npass away, there are early ties which are enduring. Where families are\nproperly regulated, added years strengthen the bonds of natural\naffection. Through all the vicissitudes of his life, the brother and\nsister of Moses clung to him. We first see Miriam watching the\ncradle-ark in which the infant was concealed, and she never appears\nexcept some event in his career brings her into view. Yet, through their\nlong lives she was his companion and helper, participating in his\nlabours, soothing his sorrows, and aiding and encouraging him in his\nwork. She is a type of a large class--we mean the daughters and the\nsisters who are not wives. Her life shows that a woman may be\nhonourable, useful, distinguished, and happy, and yet remain\nsingle--that the holy duties of the wife and the mother are not the only\nduties. How many homes would be comparatively unblessed but for the\npresence of a dutiful daughter or a loving sister! How largely our own\nage is indebted to women as teachers; women, who, like the prophetess of\nIsrael, while assisting their brothers to proclaim the oracles of God,\ndevote themselves to the instruction of their own sex, and bless men by\ninstructing women!\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nDEBORAH--THE INFLUENCE OF WOMAN.\n\n\nThe book of Judges gives a concise view of the people of Israel for a\nperiod of four hundred years, extending from the death of Joshua to the\nbirth of Samuel.\n\nIt is peculiarly interesting as showing how God deals with the nations\nof the earth in visiting national sins with national punishments. It has\never been the painful office of the historian to record the crimes and\nmisfortunes of mankind, and to present the outbreaks of society rather\nthan to note its gradual advance and improvement, or to dwell upon the\nperiods of peaceful prosperity. Like the records of a court of justice,\nit presents the criminals and the offences and those implicated, while\nthe thousands of peaceful citizens are never brought to view. The flow\nof human life is, like that of a mighty river, unmarked during its mild\ncourse; but when it bursts its bounds and overflows its channel and\nspreads a wide destruction, it is watched with interest and its\ndesolating ravages are all recorded.\n\nOf the many women who have attained honour and celebrity amidst the\nintrigues of courts and cabinets and the revolutions of empires, few\nhave retained the purity and the peculiar virtues of their sex. Deborah\nseems to have united the sagacity and courage of man to the modest\nvirtues of woman. She appears before us affecting no pomp, assuming no\nstate. The wife of Lapidoth--one known only as the husband of Deborah,\nbut thus known never to be forgotten--she abode with her husband in\ntheir own dwelling, under that palm-tree distinguished, when Samuel\nwrote this book, as \"the palm of Deborah,\" between Ramah, where Rachel\ndied, and Bethel, where Jacob worshipped. \"And all the children of\nIsrael came up to her there for judgment.\"\n\nThe people of Israel had departed from God and from the laws of Moses,\nand for twenty years they had been mightily oppressed by Jabin. During\nthis long period no priest called the people to repentance, no prophet\nwas commissioned to promise them relief.\n\nWe may imagine Deborah dwelling among her people, a devout,\nstrong-minded, enlightened woman. She saw their sins, she participated\nin their trials, and she warned those around her of the evil of\ndeparting from Jehovah. She recalled His past acts of judgment and of\nmercy. She was well acquainted with the laws of Moses, and she\nrecognised in the punishment of the people the fulfilment of prophecy.\n\nThe influence of such a woman--a woman instructed in the religion of\nJehovah--a woman of faith and of prayer--would be felt, first, in her\nown family, or in her immediate circle of friends; and then would\ncommence the reformation and the repentance and putting away of past\nsins and the return to the God of Israel. And as the influence spread,\nthe circle extending, the whole nation would seem to have been affected,\nand they naturally resorted to one whose wisdom and piety were so well\nestablished, when any questions of their law, either civil or religious,\nwere to be settled. Thus the children of Israel came up to her for\njudgment. They came to her--for her feet abode within her own dwelling.\nHer influence extended throughout all the borders of her land, but her\npresence still blest her own house. The prophetess of Israel was still\nthe wife of Lapidoth, and her only authority was that of piety, wisdom\nand love. A more beautiful instance of a woman's true, legitimate\ninfluence cannot be given. Quietly, unostentatiously exercised, it\npenetrated through the nation and brought them back to Jehovah, and\nprepared the way for the removal of their yoke.\n\nFor many years she was doubtless employed in reclaiming and instructing\nher people. Through this influence the children of Israel were prepared\nto assert their liberty; and then Deborah was inspired to call upon\n\"Barak the son of Abinoam,\" to gather an army, and take his station on\nMount Tabor, where the Lord would deliver the enemies of Israel into his\nhands. She did not propose to attend--certainly not to lead--the army;\nbut, giving her message, her counsel and her prayers, would still abide\nunder the palm-tree and remain with her husband. But the appointed\ngeneral knew so well the value of her presence in inspiring the people\nwith confidence, and felt so much the need of her prayers, that he\nrefused to go unless she sanctioned the expedition with her attendance.\n\"And Barak said unto her, If thou wilt go with me, I will go; but if\nthou wilt not go with me, then I will not go.\"\n\nThus appealed to, the answer was immediate: \"I will surely go with thee;\nnotwithstanding the journey that thou takest shall not be for thine\nhonour, for the Lord shall sell Sisera into the hands of a woman.\"\n\nMount Tabor, chosen for the encamping-place of the army of Barak, still\nrises like a tall cone in the vast plain of Esdraelon, which, stretching\nacross the land to the sea, has since been the battle-ground of nations.\nFrom the wide plain on its lofty summit, Deborah and Barak could look\nover almost all the land. The view of the hills of Judea, of the sea of\nTiberias, and of a country of wide extent, still repays the toil of\nthose who climb to its summit.\n\nBut since the days of Deborah and of Barak, Tabor is generally supposed\nto have witnessed another scene. The Man of grief, who bore our sins and\ntook upon himself our sorrows, climbed its steep ascent with his\nfavoured disciples--And Moses and Elias appeared unto him there, and\nthere \"they talked with him.\" Of what? Not of the battle of Deborah and\nBarak with Sisera--although they stood where the leaders of Israel had\nwatched the hosts of their enemies encompassing them. It was a converse\nof high things, not meet for us to know. And there he was transfigured\nbefore his wondering disciples, and his \"raiment became exceeding white\nas snow, so as no fuller on earth can white them.\" And there was a cloud\nthat overshadowed them, and a voice out of the cloud, This is my beloved\nSon--hear him. Alas! the Divine command has been ill obeyed. Tabor yet\nretains the remains of a fortress and preserves the marks of warfare;\nbut no trace of the meeting there of the great lawgiver and reformer of\nIsrael with Him who came both to fulfil and to abolish. No temples have\nyet been there erected to Him whose mission was far above all who were\nsent either to announce or prepare for his forthcoming.\n\nFrom Mount Tabor the leaders and hosts of Israel watched their enemies\ngathering from afar and encompassing them. With the chariots of iron, so\nmuch dreaded by the Israelites, came the archers, and the spearmen, and\nthe multitude that were with them--all assembled to surround and to\ndestroy the allies of Barak.\n\nBut when Deborah gave the signal, \"Up! for this is the day in the which\nthe Lord hath delivered Sisera into thine hands: is not the Lord gone\nout before thee?\" Barak went from Mount Tabor with ten thousand men. The\nvictory was complete--\"Jehovah triumphed, His people were free.\" The\nhosts of the enemy were vanquished. The river Kishon, that ancient\nriver, swept them away. And the victory was celebrated by a song of most\ntriumphant, yet grateful exultation, in a strain of the loftiest, purest\npoetry, such as the prophets and psalmists of Israel alone could pour\nforth:--\n\n      Praise ye the LORD for the avenging of Israel,\n    When the people willingly offered themselves.\n    Hear, O ye kings!\n    Give ear, O ye princes!\n    I, even I, will sing unto the LORD;\n    I will sing praise to the LORD God of Israel.\n    LORD, when thou wentest out of Seir,\n    When thou marchedst out of the field of Edom,\n    The earth trembled, and the heavens dropped,\n    The clouds also dropped water.\n    The mountains melted from before the LORD,\n    Even that Sinai from before the LORD God of Israel.\n      In the days of Shamgar the son of Anath,\n    In the days of Jael, the highways were unoccupied,\n    And the travellers walked through byways.\n    The inhabitants of the villages ceased,\n    They ceased in Israel,\n    Until that I Deborah arose,\n    That I arose a mother in Israel.\n    They chose new gods;\n    Then was war in the gates:\n    Was there a shield or spear seen\n    Among forty thousand in Israel?\n      My heart is toward the governors of Israel,\n    That offered themselves willingly among the people.\n    Bless ye the LORD!\n    Speak,\n    Ye that ride on white asses,\n    Ye that sit in judgment,\n    And walk by the way!\n      They that are delivered from the noise of archers in the place of\n        drawing water,\n    There shall they rehearse the righteous acts of the LORD,\n    Even the righteous acts toward the inhabitants of his villages in\n      Israel:\n    Then shall the people of the LORD go down to the gates.\n    Awake, awake, Deborah!\n    Awake, awake, utter a song!\n    Arise, Barak!\n    And lead thy captivity captive, thou son of Abinoam.\n    Then he made him that remaineth have dominion over the nobles among the\n      people:\n    The LORD made me have dominion over the mighty.\n    Out of Ephraim was there a root of them against Amalek;\n    After thee, Benjamin, among thy people;\n    Out of Machir came down governors,\n    And out of Zebulun they that handle the pen of the writer.\n    And the princes of Issachar were with Deborah;\n    Even Issachar, and also Barak:\n    He was sent on foot into the valley.\n    For the divisions of Reuben\n    There were great thoughts of heart.\n    Why abodest thou among the sheepfolds,\n    To hear the bleatings of the flocks?\n    For the divisions of Reuben\n    There were great searchings of heart.\n    Gilead abode beyond Jordan:\n    And why did Dan remain in ships?\n    Asher continued on the sea shore,\n    And abode in his breaches.\n    Zebulun and Naphtali were a people that jeoparded their lives\n    Unto the death in the high places of the field.\n      The kings came and fought,\n    Then fought the kings of Canaan\n    In Taanach by the waters of Megiddo;\n    They took no gain of money.\n    They fought from heaven;\n    The stars in their courses fought against Sisera.\n    The river Kishon swept them away,\n    That ancient river, the river Kishon.\n    O my soul, thou hast trodden down strength.\n    Then were the horsehoofs broken\n    By the means of the prancings, the prancings of their mighty ones.\n      Curse ye Meroz! said the angel of the LORD,\n    Curse ye bitterly the inhabitants thereof;\n    Because they came not to the help of the LORD,\n    To the help of the LORD against the mighty.\n      Blessed above women\n    Shall Jael the wife of Heber the Kenite be,\n    Blessed shall she be above women in the tent!\n    He asked water, and she gave him milk;\n    She brought forth butter in a lordly dish.\n    She put her hand to the nail,\n    And her right hand to the workmen's hammer;\n    And with the hammer she smote Sisera, she smote off his head,\n    When she had pierced and stricken through his temples.\n    At her feet he bowed, he fell, he lay down:\n    At her feet he bowed, he fell:\n    Where he bowed, there he fell down dead.\n      The mother of Sisera looked out at a window,\n    And cried through the lattice,\n    Why is his chariot so long in coming?\n    Why tarry the wheels of his chariots?\n    Her wise ladies answered her,\n    Yea, she returned answer to herself,\n    Have they not sped? have they not divided the prey;\n    To every man a damsel or two;\n    To Sisera a prey of divers colors,\n    A prey of divers colors of needlework on both sides,\n    Meet for the necks of them that take the spoil?\n    So let all thine enemies perish, O LORD!\n    But let them that love him be as the sun when he goeth forth in his\n      might.\n\nOne such strain preserved from any other ancient nation would establish\ntheir claims to the highest order of poetic genius, and lead to the most\nindustrious and painful research for all that could throw light upon\ntheir literature. It comes over the soul now like the full burst of\nmartial music. It stirs the blood and quickens the pulses with its\nstrain of triumph, while it melts us to pity, as it brings before us so\ngraphically, with such exquisite power--yet such slight allusion--the\ndistress and desolation of Israel. It is a finished picture of the age.\nWe see the judges, those that ride on white asses (still reserved for\nroyal stables) that walk by the way; while it gives us a full character\nof Sisera and the mother who trained him. We see the mother--haughty,\nproud, avaricious, surrounded by \"her wise ladies,\" who are flatterers\nrather than counsellors--ready to exult in the rapine and plunder of the\narmy of her son; her natural fears awakened by his delayed return, yet\nhushed and soothed by the enumeration of the spoil. No feeling of pity\nsoftening the love of vengeance,--the desire for the plunder of a\nconquered people engrossing all.\n\nAnd in Sisera we see the proud, cruel, licentious spoiler--all the\npowers of his evil nature called into exercise by success and the long\nindulgence of every evil passion and gross appetite--arrogant,\noppressive and cruel in success; abject, cowardly and overreaching in\nadversity. We can well imagine the state of an oppressed people ruled by\nsuch a man at the head of a licentious soldiery. And harsh as may seem\nsome of the expressions of Deborah, in her joyous outbursts of praise\nand thanksgiving, they arise from the ineffable miseries, the deep\ndegradation, the oppressive cruelties, to which all the daughters of\nIsrael would have been exposed had he been triumphant; and a mother in\nIsrael might well exult in a deliverance from one whose desolating track\nwas marked by lust and carnage.\n\nWe do not love to dwell on the treachery of Jael--we do not feel called\nupon to justify the act, although Deborah might well rejoice in the\ndeliverance of her people from so stern a foe, so foul an oppression.\nSisera appears as abject in the hour of defeat as he had been insolent\nand arrogant and cruel in the hour of triumph.\n\nAfter Israel was restored to liberty we hear no more of Deborah; but\n\"the land had rest forty years.\" She again returns to her own sphere, to\nthe unostentatious, yet all-pervading usefulness of domestic life. No\nhonours, no triumphs, no statues were awarded to her. No monuments seem\nto have been erected to her memory. The palm-tree was her fitting\nmemorial; delighting the eye, affording shade, shelter and nourishment;\nasking and securing nought from man, watered by the dew and rain of\nheaven, and rejoicing in the beams of the sun--still pointing to heaven\nwhile sheltering those beneath it.\n\nJehovah seems to permit such examples to stimulate woman to usefulness\nand to vindicate their capacity; and thus there ever have been and are\nstill Deborahs--mothers in Israel--those who, dwelling under their own\nroof, in the seclusion of domestic life, yet send forth an influence\nwhich extends far and wide.\n\nThe sound, rational piety of such women, and their lives of humble\nfaith, of prayer, and of consistent usefulness, have often awakened a\nhigh tone of religious feeling and led to extensive revivals of pure\nreligion.\n\nWithout departing from their allotted sphere, without forgetting the\ndelicacy and proprieties demanded from their sex, they have been greatly\ninstrumental in elevating the moral and religious standard of a\ncommunity by their faithfulness in reproving the erring and reclaiming\nthe backsliding, while by their kindly sympathy and effectual\nco-operation, they have aided, encouraged, and, by their prudent,\njudicious counsel, guided--the appointed leaders of Israel.\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nJEZEBEL.\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\nAlthough the family of Jeroboam were soon swept from the throne of\nIsrael, yet those who succeeded still pursued the policy by which he had\nbeen governed; and through all the contention and bloodshed which marked\nthe reigns of different dynasties, they all persisted in the idolatry\nestablished by him. \"They all did evil in the sight of the Lord, and\nwalked in the way of Jeroboam and in his sin, wherewith he made Israel\nto sin.\" But of Ahab, the son of Omri, it is written that \"he did more\nto provoke the God of Israel than all that were before him.\" He pursued\nthe path which had been marked out by his predecessors when he married,\nand he found in his wife an efficient aid. By the strength of her mind,\nby the energy of her character, by the introduction of an idolatry at\nonce more corrupt and more ensnaring, she did more to complete and seal\nthe apostasy of Israel than all who had gone before her.\n\nThe name of Jezebel has descended to us as one of the most opprobrious\nepithets which can be applied to a woman. Little did the haughty queen\nwho bore it imagine what a reproach and offence it was to become for\nfuture ages, in unknown lands, and among unborn nations.\n\nWe think of her always as old, withered, thirsting for blood, and\nincapable of the finer sentiments and all the softer emotions of human\nkind. There was a time in which she shone as the centre of a splendid\nand luxurious court, where minstrels sang to her and poets praised her\nand princes flattered her, while statesmen confessed her influence and\ncabinets adopted her plans. Fascinating, artful, able, ambitious, and\nunprincipled, she may be regarded as chief among many of the most\ncelebrated of this class of her sex of ancient or modern days.\n\nThere have been queens, not of heathen lands and barbarous Asia, but of\nrefined and christianized Europe, upon whose memories rest quite as dark\nshadows as those which cover the character of the Queen of Israel. It is\nsad to remember how many of the most atrocious acts which disgrace the\nannals of our race are to be traced to the influence of female ambition,\njealousy, hate, or revenge. Larger possessions than that of the vineyard\nof Naboth have been obtained by perjury and blood; and few modern courts\ncould consistently condemn the principles or the policy by which the\nmonarchs of Israel attempted to consolidate and perpetuate their\ndominion. In the estimation of many statesmen and many historians,\ngreatness has sanctified all the means by which power is either to be\nattained or preserved, and the splendour of the court has fully atoned\nfor all the oppression of the people.\n\nWhile she was fitted to co-operate with her husband, and ready to\npromote his designs and to embrace the policy which had guided the court\nof Israel, she soon assumed and ever maintained that influence which the\nstronger mind, the more powerful will, ever exerts over the inferior and\nweaker. Through all his reign, Ahab ever deferred to her; and while she\ngoaded him onward in his career of crime, she stimulated and upheld him\nby her daring defiance of the commands and threatenings of the prophets\nof the Lord. She possessed all the energy, power, and constancy which\never belongs to minds of a high order, and which fit them for greatness\nin virtue or crime--insuring widespread usefulness or leading to\ndesperate wickedness. She never was turned from her course. She never\nfaltered, trembled, or hesitated in the pursuit of her object. She\nwitnessed, unawed and unmoved, miracles of judgment and of mercy. She\nsaw unpitying a land consumed by drought and a people perishing by\nfamine; and when the parched earth drank the showers of heaven, while\nshe rejoiced, she was neither softened nor made penitent by the\nblessing.\n\nAhab could not entirely divest himself of every national characteristic,\nor the remembrances and associations of his faith and his people. There\nstill clung to him some remains of the fear of the \"Lord God of his\nfathers,\" some feelings of reverence and awe for the name and worship\nof Jehovah. No such compunctions troubled Jezebel. When Elijah visited\nAhab, the impious monarch quailed before him and trembled at the\ndenunciation of Divine wrath. Jezebel answered his reproofs by scorn and\nthreats, and her menaces drove the prophet from the altar where he had\ntriumphed.\n\nYet her history is replete with sad interest. While it declares the\ncertain ruin which follows national sins and national corruption, it\ndisplays also much of the wonderful forbearance of Jehovah. As we\nretrace his dealings even with the guilty house of Ahab and the apostate\npeople of Israel, we are reminded of _One_ who, ages after, wept over\nJerusalem. \"Oh, if thou hadst known, in this thy day, the things which\nbelong to thy peace--but now they are hidden from thine eyes.\"\n\nDuring the earlier years of the reign of Ahab, while Jezebel was engaged\nwith all zeal and activity in proselyting the people of Israel to the\nworship of Ashtaroth and Baal, she was constantly resisted by the\nprophets sent as messengers from Jehovah. And many miracles of mercy and\nof judgment, wrought before her by the power of the Lord God of Israel,\nshould have convinced her of the truth of His messengers--His\nindisputable claim to be the God--the Lord God. She resisted all--not\nfrom the want of evidence or the power of believing, but from the\nperverseness of a determined will and a hardened heart. Yet he who\nstyles himself a God merciful and gracious, long strove with her, though\nat last she provoked him to depart and leave her to her chosen way.\n\nThe seizure of the vineyard of Naboth seems to have consummated the\niniquity of Jezebel, while it brought all the distinguishing traits of\nher character into full light.\n\nJudah was a land of rocky hills and narrow though fertile valleys. The\npossessions of Israel were broader and more luxuriant; and in the\nbeautiful plain of Jezreel the kings of Israel had built their favourite\ncity of Samaria. In that city, Ahab erected the temple consecrated to\nBaal, and there he maintained four hundred and fifty priests for his\nservice, while the Queen of Israel kept four hundred in the groves\nconsecrated to Ashtaroth. \"But the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite was\nhard by the palace of Ahab, King of Samaria.\"\n\nThe King of Israel desired the vineyard of Naboth, either to enlarge his\ngrounds or to add to their beauty and variety. Yet, despotic and\nunprincipled as he was, the laws of possession were so fixed, the rights\nof property so established, that, on the refusal of Naboth to sell his\ninheritance, he dared not use violence; and he sank into sullen\ndespondency.\n\nIt has ever been characteristic of wives like Jezebel to maintain their\nascendency by arts and blandishments, and by ministering to every\ncorrupt propensity of their husbands. With the watchfulness of a devoted\nwife, she saw the vexation of her husband.\n\n\"Why is thy countenance so sad?\"\n\n\"And he said unto her, Because I spake unto Naboth the Jezreelite, and\nsaid unto him, Give me thy vineyard for money; or else, if it please\nthee, I will give thee another vineyard for that.\"\n\nNaboth had said, God forbid that I should give the inheritance of my\nfathers unto thee.\n\nThe faithful Israelite may have recoiled from the thought of its passing\ninto the hands of the unholy worshippers of Baal and Ashtaroth and being\npolluted by their orgies. But Ahab did not give the denial in its full\nforce. He represents Naboth as simply refusing. \"I will not give thee my\nvineyard.\"\n\nWe seem to see the actors before us, in the spirited, yet simple\nnarration, as it proceeds. Ahab, heavy, sullen, morose--with clouded\nbrow and furrowed cheek. Jezebel, with her flashing eye, her queenly\ngait, her haughty aspect, and all the workings of pride and craft and\nambition expressed in her faded but still striking features. With what\nutter contempt would she look upon the husband who sank into despondency\nbecause he had not the skill to devise, or the will to perpetrate, the\niniquity which would insure the attainment of his desires!\n\n\"Dost thou govern Israel? Arise, and eat bread, and let thine heart be\nmerry. _I_ will give thee the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite.\"\n\nAnd a darker plot, or one more artfully devised, has seldom been\nunravelled among all the iniquitous intrigues of courts and statesmen.\nNaboth was doubtless a true worshipper; and for once Jezebel professed\nall honour to the laws of Jehovah. He was arraigned and tried by the\nlaws of Moses--long trampled upon and disused. And all the solemnities\nof religion were resorted to, to aid her plans and advance her purpose.\n\nFalsely arraigned, accused, and condemned, Naboth was executed, and his\nsons perished with him. The hands of his brethren were imbrued in their\nblood. She who managed the plot found other agents to execute her\ndesigns. With impious hypocrisy, she insulted heaven by ordaining a\nsolemn fast, for God and the king had been blasphemed. These\ntransactions display the deep depravity of the Queen of Israel, while\nthey show the influence of her character and example upon her people.\nThe very ministers of justice were made the abettors of her guilt; and\nlaw, with all its formalities and solemnities, was made to sanction\ncrime. How many sins were committed to gratify one idle, covetous\ndesire! God was insulted and defied and blasphemed; justice was\ncorrupted; and falsehood, perjury, and murder were all used to\naccomplish the wicked will of Jezebel. And how many victims have been\nthus arraigned, and perished thus, in later days! This deed awoke the\nvengeance of Jehovah. Even as Ahab took possession of his blood-stained\nfield, the prophet of the Lord met him and denounced the doom of the\nperpetrators of the dark crime. All were to perish, and all were to die\ndeaths of blood and shame. Husband, wife, parents, and children--all, to\nthe latest generation, were to be cut off--to be rooted out of the earth\nas an abominable stock, and to rot in the sight of the heavens. Ahab\nhumbled himself, as he received the message of the prophet, and showed\nan outward reverence: and his doom was so far softened that the\ndestruction of the family was not immediate: but Jezebel seems still as\nbold and unmoved as ever. Jehoshaphat, the King of Judah, entered into\nalliance with Ahab, and visited his court to witness the splendour and\nshare the hospitalities of Jezebel; and while both were warring against\nSyria, Ahab was slain in battle.\n\nJezebel doubtless would have scouted the folly of those who saw the\nfulfilment of both prophecy and sentence in the dogs licking the blood\nfrom the chariot and the armour, as they were washed in the pool, which\nprobably was on the lands of Naboth; yet she might have foreseen thus\nher certain fate--and as Ahab had died, so she should die. Her doom was\nyet deferred. She long survived her husband, and prosperity and such\nhonours as attend the prosperous were her's. She was the daughter, wife,\nand the mother of kings. Her sons ruled Israel. Her daughter sat on the\nthrone of Judah. She dwelt in royal state at Jezreel, and enjoyed\npossessions which had been obtained by revolting crimes. Ahab had died a\nbloody death. Jehoshaphat was gathered to his fathers; the King of Syria\nperished by the hands of his servant; and Elijah was taken up to\nheaven--but Jezebel still lived.\n\nWhat were the occupations of her old age? Was she still busy, restless,\nand intriguing? Or did the past haunt her with dark remembrances of\nshame and crime, and the avenging future cast its shadow over her soul?\nDid the stern decree of the prophet ring in her ears, and late remorse\ndrive her to the dark cruelties of her bloody idolatry, in the idle hope\nof expiation? Such an old age could not have been happy. She was left to\nfill up the measure of her iniquity, while memory told of past sins, and\nconscience whispered of the coming retribution, and the avenging justice\nof heaven hung like a dark cloud over her guilty house. Past the season\nof pleasure, deprived of the power she had so abused, without the honour\nand sacred reverence due to virtuous age, she may have had a foretaste\nof her future retribution, though surrounded by all the splendour of\nroyalty, with trembling and abject slaves ministering to all her wants.\n\nOne son after another quietly took possession of the throne of Israel,\nand Jezebel may have derided the prophecy of Elijah; yet the sentence,\nlong delayed, was fully executed. The hour of foretold vengeance\narrived. In one day, the King of Israel was dethroned and murdered, and\nthe race of Ahab was swept from the face of the earth. The last act of\nher life was worthy of Jezebel herself,--of the Queen of Israel in the\ndays of her prime. She heard of the death of Jehoram and of the\ninsurrection of Jehu. Neither the timidity of a woman nor the yearnings\nof a mother had a place in her soul. In the hour of carnage, surrounded\nby all the horrors of death, the pride of her nature prevailed, and all\nthe daring of her character was displayed. She forgot neither the\nproprieties due to her rank nor the embellishments needful for her\nperson. With the vanity of the woman and the pride of a queen, \"she\npainted her face and tired her head,\" and then haughtily presenting\nherself before the murderer of her children, she uttered a maddening\ntaunt and defiance. By the hands of her servants she was cast from the\nwindows of the palace of Israel into the very grounds which had been the\nvineyard of Naboth; and as she was dashed to the earth, the wheels of\nthe chariot of the destroyer of her race passed over her, and the feet\nof the horses trampled upon her. \"And the dogs ate Jezebel by the walls\nof Jezreel.\" Thus her doom was accomplished!\n\n[Illustration]\n\nThere have been many like her. Her crimes have been sometimes equalled\nin atrocity. Her ruling passions were pride and ambition; and she\ndoubtless clung to the idols of her land from the unbounded license\ntheir worship gave to sensuality, and the opportunities it afforded, in\nits feasts and festivals, for display and gayety.\n\nBut she clung more tenaciously to her idolatry from motives of\nself-interest and national aggrandizement. It was the test of loyalty\nfor Israel. It was in perfect consistency with such a character to turn\naway from all evidence and to reject what she did not wish to believe.\nIn the expressive language of the Bible, she \"hardened her heart;\" and\ndoubtless, like skeptics of later days, she could ascribe what she could\nnot disprove to the working of natural causes, or to the arts of\npriestcraft.\n\nWe can all stifle the convictions of conscience and contemn the\nprinciples which conflict with our interest or our inclination; and\nthere are in every station unconscious imitators of the Queen of Israel.\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nATHALIAH.\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\nThe pious king of Judah not only formed a political alliance with\nIsrael, but he even permitted, and probably encouraged, his son, and the\nheir to his throne, to marry the daughter of the impious Ahab and the\nidolatrous Jezebel. Jehoshaphat saw not the Queen of Israel as we see\nher--as unlovely as she was unholy. Dazzled by the splendour of her\ncourt, won by her grace and queenly bearing, he may have overlooked her\ncrimes. The most unprincipled have sometimes carefully and successfully\ncultivated much that gives grace and attraction to social life. Some,\nwhose hearts have been utterly selfish and callous, and whose lives have\nbeen one dark record of crime and cruelty, have yet shone as the centres\nof splendid circles, diffusing all around them pleasure and gayety. And\nmen, themselves unstained, have been won by these fascinations to a\nclose association with those whose principles were worthy only of\nreprobation, and whose association should have been shunned as in the\nlast degree contaminating.\n\nThe intimacies between those who love and worship God and those who\nreject him are ever full of danger. And while the courtiers of Ahab and\nthe flatterers of Jehoshaphat may have applauded the liberal policy of\nthe King of Judah, and his freedom from the bigotry of the prophets who\nwould reform Israel, he was pursuing a course which was to involve his\nfamily in calamity and bring corruption into his kingdom. Jerusalem and\nSamaria were not very remote from each other, and the kings of Israel\nand Judah seem at this period to have maintained frequent personal\nintercourse: an intercourse which appears not to have elevated the moral\ncharacter of Israel, while it surely led to the deterioration of the\npiety of Judah; for when godly persons mingle freely with the\nimpious,--especially if this intercourse originates from mere motives of\nambition or worldly expediency,--the former will be much more ready to\nsink to the level of the worldling than to raise the worldling to their\nown.\n\nThe influence of this association with the depraved court of Israel\ndoubtless had its effect upon the heart of Jehoshaphat. He was not drawn\ninto idolatry, but he probably was less zealous in the service of\nJehovah and in the vindication of his ways. He may have rather\nsympathized with the monarchs of Israel in their attempts to establish\ntheir own faith and maintain their own authority, than with the\npersecuted people of Israel in their efforts to preserve the worship of\ntheir fathers. While he regretted the idolatry of Jezebel, he may have\ncensured what would be called the uncourtly intolerance or the bigoted\nzeal of the prophets, who uttered such denunciations and threatenings\nagainst the reigning family. Perhaps he pointed out to the few faithful\nIsraelites whom he might meet in the train of Ahab or at the court of\nIsrael the propriety of a more gentle mode or a more conciliating\npolicy. As the friend of Ahab, he betrayed the cause of God, and upheld\nhis iniquities. In all the persecutions they sustained, we do not find\nthat the prophets of the Lord ever sought a refuge among their brethren\nof Judah. Hardly could they have expected shelter and protection from\nthe king who was allying his own family with the house of Ahab. They\nfound shelter among the heathen; they were nourished by miracles; they\nwere hid in the coverts of the rocks, and were fed by ravens, while\nJehoshaphat and his court were rejoicing in the alliance of Jehoram with\nAthaliah--the royal son of Judah with the royal daughter of Israel; and\nthe worshippers of Jehovah and the devotees of Ashtaroth and Baal were\nmingled in their train.\n\nThere might have been heavy forebodings and low, suppressed murmurs\namong those who remembered the statutes of the Lord, and who recalled\nhis dealings with his people; but the multitude could rejoice in the\nsplendour and the festivities of the occasion; the court could exult in\nthe pomp and display; and wise politicians could talk of the benefits to\nthe two countries of speaking one language, springing from a common\norigin, and preserving their own national integrity, and yet presenting\none united front to the common enemy. And Jehoshaphat may have hailed\nthis marriage as the master-stroke of his policy, while\nreligiously-disposed courtiers whispered that a scion of Israel,\ntransplanted to Judah and nurtured by Jehoshaphat, under the influences\nof Zion, must indeed prove a plant of righteousness in this garden of\nthe Lord.\n\nDid Jezebel fear this? Did this strong-minded, politic, crafty woman\nfeel that her daughter was placed under influences which might draw her\nfrom the idols of her mother, and make her recreant to the policy of her\nfather's house?\n\nJezebel was too strong in the consciousness of her own power, to fear\nthat her children would oppose her wishes or her plans. All experience\nproves that the wife exerts a powerful influence upon the character of\nher husband. Even where she has apparently little mental strength, she\nmay possess great moral power, for evil or for good. This influence\npervades her family, and is felt even while it is despised and\ndisavowed. When holy and pure, it is as reviving, strengthening,\ninvigorating as the pure breath of the morning. When it has its source\nin a selfish, polluted heart, it comes like the midnight miasma or the\nblast of the desert, prostrating and destroying all over which it\npasses.\n\nThe character of the mother often determines the course and the destiny\nof her children. She imprints her own moral lineaments upon her\noffspring. She moulds their habits and she transfuses into them the\nfeelings, motives, and principles which actuate herself. The influence\nof the mother is often so perpetuated in her daughters that the\nindividual seems multiplied as she is faithfully reflected by them.\nWhere the mental and moral characteristics are marked, they are almost\nsure to descend; and the character of Jezebel was one to leave its\nimpress.\n\nThus we find Athaliah worthy of the stock from which she sprang. She was\nthe true, as she seems to be the only daughter of Jezebel. Though early\nallied to Jehoshaphat and removed into the kingdom of Judah, she\nretained all the idolatrous prepossessions of her father's house, and\nshe exhibited all the traits which marked her race. She possessed the\nqualities which had been so prominently displayed by the course and life\nof Jezebel. The same desperate will, the same determined energy, the\nsame daring courage and dauntless resolution, and the same proud\nambition; and she was even more devoid than her mother of all the kinder\nfeelings, affections, and sympathies.\n\nJezebel had resolutely crushed all those affections and sympathies of\nher nature which would be likely to check her progress in her career of\ncrime and power. She had trampled upon all that would obstruct her in\nthe attainment of her object. Yet some of the feelings of the woman, the\ntenderness of the wife, the fondness of the mother, still seem to linger\nin her proud heart. Unprincipled as she was, she did not abandon herself\nto utter selfishness. In her most atrocious acts she seems to have had\nsome regard to the aggrandizement of her family and to the gratification\nof her husband. The daughter was more depraved than her mother. Athaliah\nwas utterly selfish, devoid even of the instinct of natural affection. A\ncharacter more revolting is not presented to us in the pages of the\nhistorian, sacred or profane.\n\nA woman rioting in blood that she might gratify her ambition! A mother\ndestroying her offspring that she might possess their inheritance!\nJezebel was a depraved woman, but Athaliah was a monster--a woman\ndestitute of all the feelings of humanity, working all evil, and only\nevil, from the mere love of self. With selfish desires which absorbed\nall consideration, and in their intensity prompted to unnatural crimes,\nhaving no object in view beyond her personal gratification or\naggrandizement, there was not even the extenuation to be offered for\nAthaliah which could be urged for Jezebel; for the policy of Judea was\nopposed to idolatry, and in the family of Jehoshaphat she was surrounded\nby influences most favourable to a virtuous course, and influences which\nhad never rested upon her mother. Under the very shadow of the Temple\nshe perpetrated her most flagrant crimes.\n\nAlthough the depravity of Jezebel led her to adopt a corrupt religion,\nto reject a pure and holy worship, and to cling to the dark and cruel\nrites of heathenism, the voice of conscience was not silenced, the light\nof the soul was not entirely extinguished. She felt the need of some\nfaith--she clung to the altars of her gods. But Athaliah seems to have\nsunk into the brutishness of those who own \"no God.\" She seems to have\ntrampled upon all faith, as she violated all obligation--insensible\nalike to the calls of conscience and the aspirations of devotion. She\nhad no womanly sympathies. She had high mental endowments--she had a\npowerful will and strong passions--but she had no affections. There have\nbeen many Jezebels--but few Athaliahs. The affections compose so large a\npart of a woman's nature that we disown one who is without them. In her\ndeepest guilt, in her lowest debasement, they still cling to her; and\nraised to the summit of power, they do not often wholly desert her.\n\nThe princess of Israel must have been married at an early age, and she\nwas long restrained by the character of Jehoshaphat from the public\ndisplay of her wishes and inclinations. While he lived, Judah still\nretained the outward show of reverence for the God of Israel, and\ndoubtless Athaliah often led her train to the temple of Jehovah; yet the\ninfection of the character and principles of the daughter of Ahab was at\nwork. A poisonous leaven spread through the royal family. The younger\nprinces of Judah were contaminated; and when Jehoshaphat died, this\ninfluence of Athaliah was first manifest in the character of Jehoram. It\nis written of him that \"he walked in the ways of the kings of Israel,\nafter the house of Ahab, for the daughter of Ahab was his wife, and he\ndid evil in the sight of the Lord.\"\n\nHe commenced his reign by the murder of his brethren, the sons of his\nfather. Jehoshaphat had provided for all his sons, giving them wealth\nand appointing them to offices of trust, while he left the kingdom to\nJehoram. And without pretext or apology, Jehoram put them all to death;\nand their families were involved, as we may well believe, in their ruin.\nThey were probably proclaimed outlaws, and then murdered wherever found,\nperhaps while dwelling in perfect security and in profound peace; and\nwith them fell many of the other princes of Judah not so nearly\nconnected with the royal family. The very commencement of his reign, the\noccasion of so much joyful festivity to the court, was thus marked by\ncrimes which brought utter desolation to the families and terror to the\nhearts of the people of his kingdom; and we may well presume that the\nwoman who afterwards proved herself so reckless and heaven-defying,\nprompted to this first crime. She who was herself so ready to commit\ndeeds of blood would be quick to instigate others.\n\nThe whole reign of Jehoram was impious and disgraceful. He erected\naltars on all the hills of Judea, to draw his people into the worship of\nBaal and Ashtaroth; while he compelled the inhabitants of Jerusalem to\njoin in the corrupt festivals and the abominable rites of this Syrian\ngoddess.\n\nElijah, the prophet of Israel, was commissioned to reprove Jehoram, and\nto denounce the impending doom of his house. He was not ordered to\npresent himself at the court of the King of Judah, but to write his\nmessage. \"There came a writing to Jehoram;\" and probably the King of\nJudah scoffed at the warning, and perhaps referred him to the unexecuted\njudgments denounced upon the house of Ahab, and to the present\nprosperity of the family, and the continued stability of the kingdom, as\na proof of the fanatical delusion of the pretended prophets of the Lord.\nYet the doom of the guilty Jehoram was accomplished even before the\nwoes denounced upon Jezebel were fulfilled. Tributary kingdoms revolted,\nand in vain he sought to bring them back to obedience. The Philistines\nand the Arabians made an incursion into Judah, and carried away all his\nwealth, while they took his family captive; and Jehoram, smitten by a\nmost loathsome and painful disease, died. He was buried without the\nusual honours paid to royalty. His memory and his person were alike\noffensive.\n\nUpon the accession of Ahaziah, the next king, the influence of Athaliah\nis soon recognised. He was the youngest and the only son not carried\ninto captivity. It is said that \"his mother's name was Athaliah, the\ndaughter of Omri. He also walked in the way of the house of Ahab, for\nhis mother was his counsellor to do wickedly,\"--as wife and mother,\nalike unholy. \"Wherefore he did evil in the sight of the Lord, like the\nhouse of Ahab, for they were his counsellors, after the death of his\nfather, to his destruction.\"\n\nThe second son of Ahab had succeeded to the kingdom of Israel, and\nJezebel was surrounded by all the splendours of royalty. Peace and\nprosperity still attended her family. The death of Naboth and his sons,\nand the denunciations of the prophet, were probably forgotten, or\nremembered only to be despised. The royal houses, so closely allied,\nmaintained a familiar intercourse, and the King of Judah was on a visit\nof sympathy to the King of Israel, who was sick and wounded, when the\nrebellion of Jehu broke out. It came upon the house of Ahab like a\nhurricane: in the midst of security and of apparently profound peace,\nthe storm swept over and destroyed them.\n\nWhile the kings were in the palace of Israel, the rapid approach of a\nmessenger awoke the curiosity rather than the apprehension of the King\nof Israel. With the rashness of a doomed man, he rushed upon his own\ndestruction. As the messengers, whom he had sent to meet the approaching\nfoes, returned not, the two kings hastened to meet the advancing troop.\nAnd they met Jehu by the vineyard of Naboth, and there the King of\nIsrael was slain, while the King of Judah fled, mortally wounded, to\nMegiddo, where he died. All that belonged to the house of Ahab in Israel\nperished in this hour of vengeance and righteous retribution. Jehu\nmurdered those of the descendants of Jehoram who fell in his way; and\nAthaliah hastened to complete the fulfilment of the prophetic doom of\nher house by herself instigating the murder of all who remained of the\nroyal family of Judah, although they were her own descendants! In her\nruthless ambition she destroyed her grandchildren, that she might\nherself ascend the throne of Judah. She seems to have exulted in the\nblood and carnage which opened her way to royal power. Unmoved by the\nfate of her mother, with her sons and her brothers scarce cold in their\nuntimely graves, by her cruel treachery she consummated the destruction\nof her family; and, stained with blood and polluted by crimes, she\nseated herself upon the throne of David, and usurped the inheritance of\nher children!\n\nFor eight years Athaliah held this usurped position. No compunctious\nvisitings of conscience seem to have haunted her. She felt neither pity\nnor remorse. She may have well sustained her ill-gotten power while she\nresided amidst the pomp and pageantry of royalty. Her resolute despotism\nseems to have held her subjects in awe, and to have quelled them all\ninto subjection. She had herself wrought the fulfilment of the doom of\nher race. As the last of Ahab's children, the sword of divine vengeance\nwas suspended over her head, and in the time appointed it fell. She was\nto die the death of her house--a death of blood.\n\nWhen the kings of Judah apostatized, while the individuals were\npunished, the race was spared. God still remembered his covenant with\nDavid; and, amid all the sin and desolation of Judah, the line of\nhereditary descent was unbroken. The root remained, and some scion\nworthy of the stock sprang from it.\n\nWhen Athaliah was ingrafted on the stock of royal Judah, she so debased\nit, that it seemed needful to purify it by cutting off all the branches\nto the very root. Yet one was saved. And, as if to display his own power\nand grace, God is at times pleased to select from the families the most\napostate and unholy, the instrument of his work and the trophy of his\ngrace. So he made the daughter of Athaliah the nurse and the\ninstructress of him who was to reform the kingdom of Judah.\nJehoshabeath, wife of the high-priest of the Lord, seems to have escaped\nthe character and the doom of her family. Her's was a task most\ndifficult. She was called to oppose the depravity of her mother and to\nthwart her bloody policy, and yet not to appear as her accuser and as\nhastening the execution of the Divine vengeance. Hard is it to the\nvirtuous child to reprobate the character and course of the unholy\nparent, and yet preserve the reverence due to the relation. Jehoshabeath\nappears before us in a light which leaves a most favourable impression.\nThe saviour of the infant heir of Judah, the son of her brother, she\ncherished, instructed and guarded him. At the proper time the\nhigh-priest communicated the secret of the existence of the child to the\nprinces of the land, and the son of Ahaziah was proclaimed king. No\nassault was made upon Athaliah. She rushed, like others of her family,\nupon her doom, as if she were infatuated. The tumult of the people, the\ntriumphant strains of sacred and martial music, the clashing of the\nshields of the soldiers as they bore their king aloft, brought the first\ntidings of the existence of the last of her race to Athaliah.\n\nThe daughter of Jezebel was not easily daunted. Her courage rose in the\nhour of danger. She had purchased the throne at a price too great\nreadily to relinquish the possession of it. She forced her way through\nthe crowds who surrounded the Temple, and through the bands of soldiers\nwho guarded the young king, until she confronted the child whose brow\nalready bore the crown of Judah--a heavy weight for the infant king. In\nvain she rent her royal robes, and in vain she cried, \"Treason!\nTreason!\" None adhered to her--none followed her--none perished with\nher. She died by the sword,\n\n        \"And left a name to other times\n    Link'd with no virtue, but a thousand crimes.\"\n\nThe history of modern nations is not without examples of similar evils\nentailed upon those who, professing themselves the heads of a purified\nchurch and a reformed faith, choose (from motives of pride or policy) to\nseek an alliance with the adherents of a dark, cruel, and persecuting\nsuperstition. Such a marriage precipitated the Stuarts from the throne\nof England, cost one king his life, and the family a kingdom; and the\nmarriages of policy among princes, contravening the rules of God's word,\nare often followed by most disastrous results, and hasten the evils they\nare contracted to prevent.\n\nIn private life, also, the marriage of those who have renounced this\nworld for a higher portion, with the worldly and the ungodly, is\ngenerally a source of sin or of sorrow. There can be little congenial\nfeeling between the spiritual and the earthly; and the servant of God\nwho chooses a wife from the daughters of sin and the devotees of\npleasure, places himself in a position of peculiar trial.\n\nThe spirit of the wife pervades the household. The husband may rule, but\nthe wife influences. His voice is obeyed, but the wishes of the wife are\nconsulted. Her friends are the welcome guests. His associates gather\naround his board and claim his leisure hour, but her voice whispers to\nhim in his retirement. She comes between God and his soul. The strongest\nof men was shorn of his might by the companion of his bosom; the wisest\nwas led into foolishness and idolatry by the influence of a corrupt\nwoman.\n\nWe are prone to think of the period to which we have been referring as\none of barbarism, and of the nations of Israel and Judah as ignorant and\nuncivilized. Does it not seem as if the very heavens must have been\nshrouded and the course of nature changed during the perpetration of\nsuch bloody crimes? Does it not seem as if a natural darkness must have\noverspread the land? And yet it was not so. The sun shone in his\nbrightness, the skies were as serene, the rain and the dew descended,\nthe vine and the olive ripened, and the flowers shed forth their\nsweetness, and all the bustle and show of life went on, as at other\ntimes. The people were oppressed, but the courts of Israel and Judah\nwere splendid and luxurious; and they doubtless boasted of their\nadvancing refinement, even when they were sinking into corruption and\ndepravity. It has ever been the policy of the monarchs who are guilty of\nthe most atrocious crimes, who shrink from no acts of cruelty, to\npromote that despotism which may banish the remembrance of their\nenormities, and to dazzle and blind the eyes of their people by the\nglare and splendour which surrounds their court. And thus these guilty\nmonarchs, by the patronage of the licentious festivals of heathen\nworship and the alluring rites of a corrupt religion, compelled their\npeople to sin. They drowned the voice of conscience and prevented all\nreflection.\n\nAll history has shown us that, as nations have been verging to their\nruin, they have yielded themselves to criminal excess and sensual\nindulgence; and the boasted periods of splendour and high refinement\nhave been but the preludes to long seasons of national calamity or\nentire overthrow. Thus we may suppose it to have been with the ancient\ndescendants of Israel. The courts were splendid and all the arts were\npatronized, while the thin veil of refinement was thrown over deeply\ncorrupt manners. The people, departing from a holy faith, were sinking\ninto a sullen debasement, or giving themselves to sensual indulgence\nand brutal ferocity.\n\nModern nations have followed in the footsteps of the ancient world. The\nsame idols are still worshipped under other names--the same passions\nrule the unholy heart.\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nESTHER.\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\nWhen Isaiah wrote, Babylon sat a queen among the nations, in the pride\nof pomp and power, in the full security of strength; yet he graphically\ndepicted her desolation and foretold her present state, while he\npronounced her doom--a perpetual desolation. She shall never be rebuilt!\nHer towers are fallen and her site marked by ruins.\n\nThe decline of Babylon had begun. It was certain, although slow. Years\nwere to pass before the sentence should be fully executed. At the\nperiod, when the transactions recorded in the book of Esther took place,\nShushan was the royal city of Persia. We are told that in this--the City\nof Lilies--the king Ahasuerus held a great feast, probably in\ncelebration of some recent success, or in commemoration of some great\nnational event. He assembled all the princes and nobles of his vast\nempire, extending from Egypt to India, and gave a feast or succession of\nfestivities, which continued for more than the third of a year.\n\nAll that oriental splendour and magnificence could contribute, all the\nexpedients that eastern luxury could desire, to multiply the resources\nand to heighten the enjoyment of pleasure, were brought to aid the\ndesigns of the monarch and to add to the festivities of his court.\n\nYet motives of policy may have combined with the designs of pleasure. In\nall ages the despot has sought to blind and dazzle the people by a\ndisplay of power and magnificence; and the princes and nobles around,\nfrom distant provinces, have swelled the retinue of their attendants.\n\nThe amusements of monarchs and of courts have, through all varieties of\nmanners and degrees of refinement, been much the same. The ancient\nSyrian or Persian, like the modern British or French monarch, had his\nroyal parks and forests for hunting.\n\nAll nations have patronized the various trials of skill and strength,\nand the mimic fight has ever been an amusement where war was the great\nbusiness of life. And the royal pageantry was doubtless intermingled\nwith the religious ceremonies which allowed a license to criminal\nindulgence and at the same time offered a supposed expiation for crime.\n\nWhile these employed the day, the games of chance, the wine, the music,\nthe movements of the degraded dancing-girl, and the tricks of the\nbuffoon and the jester, amused the late hours and varied the festive\nscenes of the night.\n\nThe feast was drawing to a close, and, at the termination of this long\nseason of hilarity, Ahasuerus extended the pleasures of the occasion to\nall classes of his subjects at Shushan.\n\nHe threw open his palaces and pleasure-grounds, his parks and\ngardens--always of vast extent around eastern palaces--and admitted all\nthe citizens to a feast prepared for them. Tents had been erected within\nthe precincts of the palace for the tables--and these tents were\nfurnished with all the luxurious appendages of the east--with white and\ngreen and blue hangings, fastened with cords of fine linen and purple to\nsilver rings and marble pillars; while the beds--the couches around the\ntables, against which the ancients reclined--were of gold and silver,\nupon a pavement of red and blue, and black and white marble; while they\ngave them to drink in vessels of gold. Until these last days the princes\nand nobles alone had participated in the festive scenes; but now, as we\nhave said, all ranks were allowed to share, and the citizens of Shushan,\nsubjects of Ahasuerus, thronged the palace and trod the royal gardens,\nand, entering the tents, enjoyed all that royalty could offer in ancient\nPersia--far surpassing in costly splendour and elegance the\nentertainments of modern courts. And surely the monarch must have had\nstrong confidence in the security of his government and the loyalty of\nhis people, as he thus from day to day, for successive days, flung open\nto them the recesses of his palace.\n\nWhile the king thus feasted the men in the gardens and parks of the\npalace, Vashti, the queen, held a festival for the women within the\nsecluded apartments appropriated to the female part of the royal\nhousehold. She made them a feast within the house of Ahasuerus; and this\nqueenly entertainment was conducted with all that regard for retirement\nand decorum which accords with Eastern manners. But whatever the\namusements of the queen and her train of attendants, no rumours passed\nthe carefully guarded bounds of the women's apartments. At length the\nlong season of pleasure came to a harmonious close. No outbreak of the\npeople of Shushan, no rising of distant provinces, no plotting of\nhigh-born traitors had marred the festal pomp. Yet the season of\npleasure is always a period of trial, and the seeds of remorse and\nrepentance are almost invariably sown in the hours of gayety. Amid all\nthis brightness, a dark cloud hung over Ahasuerus. On the seventh and\nlast day, when the heart of the king was merry--when he had forgotten\nroyalty dignity and personal decorum, by sitting too long at the festive\nboard--excited by pride and vanity, and stimulated by wine, he resolved\nto dazzle the eyes of the people by presenting to their admiration a\ngem, brighter and more lovely than any which sparkled in the royal\ncrown. To verify his loud boasts of her matchless charms, he sent his\nchamberlain to bid the queen array herself in that royal attire which\nbefitted her state while it displayed her beauty and proclaimed her\nrank, and thus present herself, that the assembled multitudes might\nadmire her loveliness and confess his happiness.\n\nIn Western lands, and in modern days, this command would convey no idea\nof shame or impropriety. The royal consort and her train of fair\nattendants have often graced the presence and shared the honours of the\nmonarch and his court, and added refinement to luxury. But no offer\ncould be more opposed to all ideas of Eastern delicacy and\npropriety--more degrading to the woman, or more offensive to the queen.\n\nBy thus unveiling herself before the crowd, she would sink herself to\nthe level of the most unworthy of her sex--while the violation of an\nestablished usage, in the time of such excitement and excess, might lead\nto the wildest disorder, and the queen might be exposed to every insult\nfrom crowds maddened by wine and ripe for disorder; while the monarch\nhimself might not be able to protect her in a position so strange and\nunfitting.\n\nThe modesty of the woman and the dignity of the queen alike forbade\ncompliance with the strange order--and Vashti might well presume that,\nin the hour of reflection, when his senses had returned, the monarch\nwould thank her for a prudence which probably alone preserved her\ndignity and his honour.\n\nBut the passions of the king were inflamed. His reason was blinded, and\nartful courtiers, from motives of intrigue or pique, stimulated his\nanger. There are ever those who stand ready to administer to unholy\npassions, and who are watching for the fall of such as are high in place\nor favour. And still under the influence of wine, the rash monarch, by\nhis own act, placed an inseparable barrier between himself and her whose\ncharms had so lately been his proudest boast, and whose conduct had\nproved that she well deserved all honour and all affection. Vashti was\nseparated from the king's favour; and flattering sycophants extolled the\nact of folly, as a measure which gave peace and security to every\nhousehold in the realm. \"All the wives shall give to their husbands\nhonour, both to great and small.\" And thus the day closed by an edict\nthat brought sorrow to many hearts, and desolation even to the gates of\nthe palace.\n\nThe excitement was past. The hour of reflection arrived, and \"the king\nremembered Vashti.\" His resentment was appeased. \"He remembered what she\nhad done, and what was decreed against her.\" That which had been\nmagnified into a crime and had given such deep offence, was now seen to\nbe an act of wisdom and prudence--the result of true modesty, and that\ndeep affection which sought alone the love of her husband, which shrank\nfrom the admiration of the crowd, and which ventured to disobey rather\nthan forfeit self-respect and womanly pride--preferring to lose his love\nrather than expose his honour. An immutable decree--his own--separated\nhim from one lately so beloved, and so truly worthy of high honour.\n\nThe darkened and saddened aspect of the monarch declared his late\nrepentance; and those who had precipitated the fall of the queen, to\nscreen themselves, were prompt to devise methods of banishing the\nremembrance of the divorced Vashti. They would replace her by a new\nfavourite. Yet, so surpassing was her loveliness, and so rare her\nbeauty, that the courtiers could with difficulty find one whose charms\nmight banish from memory the repudiated consort, until they sought\nthrough all the provinces of that vast empire for the fairest of the\ndaughters of men.\n\nHadassah, a daughter of Israel, a descendant of Benjamin, of the house\nof Kish, the family of Saul, first king of Israel, won the monarch's\nfavour, and was promoted to the place of the disobedient but high-minded\nVashti. Esther was an orphan, but she had been carefully guarded and\ninstructed by her kinsman Mordecai; and while we are told that the\nmaiden was exceeding fair, we may believe that her beauty was of a high\norder, stamped too by intellect and feeling, and that the soul which\noften sustained and impelled her in her trying exigencies, breathed\nthrough her features and animated her form. Yet Ahasuerus merely bowed\nto the fair shrine. He sought not to awaken the response of the soul\nthat dwelt within.\n\nWhen the daughter of Israel was placed upon the throne of Persia, and\nanother royal feast proclaimed the triumph of Esther and the happiness\nof Ahasuerus, the king displayed his royal magnificence by the bestowal\nof gifts upon his favourites; and the name of Esther was blended with\nother and higher associations, as, upon her elevation, the taxes of the\nburdened provinces were remitted and pardons granted to the condemned.\n\nMordecai, the relative who had supplied the place of parents to Esther,\nwas, as we have said, of the house of Kish. Mordecai was the Jew rather\nthan the Benjamite. His heart was devoted to his country. When the child\nof his adoption was taken to the palace, Mordecai displayed his wise\nforethought in cautioning her against making her parentage and kindred\nknown. He had been as a father to her, and a deep interest in the orphan\nof his care led him, day by day, to watch the gate of the palace--to\nmingle with the attendants, that he might catch a view of her train or\ngather tidings of her welfare. And thus, unknown as the relative of the\nfair queen, or as especially interested in the king, Mordecai was\nenabled to detect and reveal a plot for the assassination of Ahasuerus.\nEsther being informed of the plot, disclosed it to the king--the\ncriminals were defeated and punished--but no reward was conferred upon\nMordecai.\n\nThe passion of Ahasuerus for his fair bride seems to have soon declined.\nThe fickle voluptuary sought new pleasures, and the bride so lately\nexalted to a throne was no longer an object of envy. Many bitter tears\nhave been shed by the victims of family pride or state policy, when thus\nallied to greatness and splendour. The sacred rite has often been\nprostituted to purposes of ambition and selfishness, and has thus become\na source of guilt and misery. Esther, in her elevation, may have shed as\nbitter tears as fell from Vashti in her banishment and disgrace.\n\nThus each state has its own trials and its own griefs--and it has its\npeculiar alleviations too. Perhaps the progress of the narrative will\nshow us the source of that influence which seems early to have\nestranged Ahasuerus from his bride.\n\nAmong the courtiers of the king there was the descendant of a race long\nat variance with the Jews. The Amalekites had been the enemies of the\nIsraelites from the infancy of the nation. When the tribes came up from\nEgypt, faint and weary in the desert, the Amalekites had fallen upon\nthem and attempted to destroy them; and during a series of ages there\nhad been a war of extermination between the races. Nor had Amalek been\nsubjected until Saul was raised to the throne and Israel had become a\nkingdom.\n\nWhen Israel and Judah had been destroyed or carried captive by the hosts\nof the Assyrians, the remaining Amalekites seem likewise to have been\ncarried into the east, either as prisoners or allies. And now, from\namong all his courtiers, Ahasuerus had chosen, as his chief favourite\nand counsellor, Haman, the son of Hammedatha, a descendant of Agag--that\nking of Amalek who, as the prisoner of Saul, was condemned to death by\nSamuel, the judge of Israel. The descendant of a royal line and of an\nancient race, Haman was as crafty as he was unprincipled and malignant,\nand his evil influence seems to have first drawn the king's favour from\nEsther. He did not know her lineage, but by plunging the king in every\nexcess, by keeping all safe counsellors at a distance, he intended to\nincrease his own influence and perpetuate his own power, while he was\naccumulating great wealth from the prodigality of his master and from\nthe presents offered as bribes to obtain his favour.\n\nAs he did not know the lineage of Esther, he did not persecute her; but\nas he feared an influence that might compete with his own, he strove to\nalienate the heart of Ahasuerus from her. Haman was advanced to honours\nfar above all the native princes of the kingdom; even to the first seat\nin counsel, to the highest honours in the realm, and to constant\ncompanionship of the monarch.\n\nAs, with trains of slaves and flatterers, he was hastening to the\naudience of the monarch, or returning loaded with marks of royal favour,\nhe passed Mordecai the Jew, seated alone--unknown, unheeded, without\nrank or wealth--by the gate of the palace. \"Yet Mordecai bowed not,\nneither did reverence to Haman.\" The two men seemed to represent to each\nother their respective nations; as if all the hate and malice of the\nrace, and of long ages of national bitterness, were concentrated in an\nindividual. They met as the Israelite and the Amalekite; and the\nmemories of centuries of aggression and injuries, of shame and defeat,\nwere crowded into the present moment. Mordecai saw in Haman, not only\nthe foe to his race, but the crafty, unprincipled, unholy counsellor,\nwho had already alienated the heart of the monarch from his youthful\nbride, and whose pernicious influence was spreading blight and\ncorruption, misery and destruction--through an empire.\n\nEvery feeling of the Jew, every principle of an upright, sincere heart\nforbade Mordecai to pay the homage demanded of him by Haman. Every\nsentiment of national pride, of family honour, of personal dignity, of\nself-respect, arose to deter the descendant of Israel from showing\nhonour to the hereditary foe of his people and the persecutor of his\nfaith.\n\nHaman, at the same time, saw in Mordecai the descendant of those who had\ntriumphed over his nation and destroyed his ancestors. The descendant of\nAgag, the captive of Saul, he might naturally vent his indignation upon\nthe tribe that humbled his house and subjected his nation and destroyed\nhis ancestors. The contempt with which Mordecai regarded him roused all\nthe ancient malignity of the Amalekite, and his hot blood called for\nvengeance.\n\nYet he thought it a foul shame to lay hands on Mordecai alone. The ruin\nof one man would not heal his wounded pride. He meditated a deeper and\nmore deadly revenge. He resolves to sweep the remnant of the Jews from\nthe face of the earth!\n\nThe proposed plan displays at once all his cruelty and malignity, and\nall his crafty influence over Ahasuerus, while it proves the king too\nmuch immersed in pleasure, or too much subjected to his artful\nfavourite, to regard the welfare of his subjects or the interests of his\nkingdom.\n\nSuperstitious and idolatrous, Haman cast lots day after day, for\nsuccessive days, that a fortunate one might decide the day to be chosen\nfor the work of death on which he was bent. And this accomplished, he\nhastened to secure the edict from the king. Surely the monarch must have\nbeen sunk in wine and debauchery who could thus unhesitatingly accede to\nthe proposition to murder, in cold blood, thousands of unresisting\nsubjects, when the worst allegation preferred by their enemy was \"that\ntheir laws were diverse from all people.\" Yet here was the very\nprinciple of religious persecution; and as sanguinary edicts as these,\nenacted against God's ancient people, have been too often issued in more\nmodern days, and no Mordecai has sat at the gate of the palace, mutely\nto plead for mercy--no Esther has staked her life upon the attempt to\navert the doom!\n\nBy the offer of an enormous bribe, to be collected from the plunder of\nthose doomed to death, Haman sought the acquiescence of the king in his\nscheme. And though he refused the bribe, yet he bade Haman do with the\npeople and their possessions as seemed best to him; giving him his\nsignet ring, he seems to have divested himself of all care and\nresponsibility, and Haman having issued the edict and commanded the\ncouriers to distribute the royal mandate, they both returned to their\npleasures. \"The king and his counsellor sat down to drink.\"\n\nNo elaborate essay upon the character of Ahasuerus, no analysis of the\narts of Haman, could so display the indolent, luxurious, self-indulgent,\nvoluptuous monarch, or so illustrate the secret of the favourite's\npower. The companion of his pleasures, he was careful to minister to all\nthe sensual indulgence that could lead him to forget his duty and the\nobligations of right and justice incumbent upon the ruler of a great\npeople.\n\nOf all the cruel and bloody mandates issued by despotic monarchs, and\ndesigned to answer either the purposes of private malice or unholy\npolicy, few, if any, have exceeded this which was directed against the\nancient people of Jehovah. The Jews who had returned to their own land\nwere included in this proscription, for Judea was at this time a\ntributary of the Persian empire.\n\n\"Then were the king's scribes called, the thirteenth day of the first\nmonth, and there was written according to all that Haman had commanded,\nunto the king's lieutenants, and to the governors that were over every\nprovince, and to the rulers of every people of every province, according\nto the writing thereof; and to every people after their language, in the\nname of King Ahasuerus, was it written, and sealed with the king's ring.\nAnd the letters were sent by posts into the king's provinces, to\ndestroy, to kill, and to cause to perish, all Jews--both young and old,\nlittle children and women, in one day, even upon the thirteenth day of\nthe twelfth month.\"\n\nThus we see all the machinery of this powerful government put in motion\nto crush the Jews--a people widely dispersed and weak from their recent\ncaptivity and overthrow. As no crime was specified, so there was no\noffer of pardon or exemption on any terms; while to make it more\ndistinctly understood, the terms which indicated their fate were\nsingularly multiplied. \"To _destroy_, to _kill_, to _cause_ to\n_perish_.\" And while the murder of a nation was thus made a legal\nexecution, the mode was left to the option of the executioners; and\nevery torment that malignity could devise might be inflicted, while all\nwere stimulated by the promise of the plunder of their victims--\"and to\ntake the spoil of them for a prey.\"\n\nWhat scenes of horror, of suffering, would have followed the execution\nof this barbarous edict! The whole empire had probably been deluged in\nblood--for man, like the inferior animals, seems maddened by the taste\nof blood--and one cruelty is but the prelude and provocation of another;\nand in the time of strife, while all were made executioners of the law,\nprivate malice would confound others with the proscribed, and few could\nbe safe in the hour of commotion.\n\nWhen this edict was published, and while Ahasuerus and Haman sat down to\nindulge in the pleasures of the table, all the city of Shushan was\nperplexed, confounded, and troubled--wondering what motives, what state\npolicy, what strange conspiracy, had led to this sanguinary enactment\nagainst a people long dwelling among them--a nation who had furnished\ncounsellors and ministers to their wisest monarchs.\n\nWhen Mordecai saw what was done, he rent his clothes and put on\nsackcloth with ashes, and went out into the midst of the city and cried\nwith a loud and bitter cry. He published--he could not conceal--his\ngrief and terror; and his crafty foe perhaps exulted in his misery. The\nlong struggle between the Amalekite and the Israelite seemed now to be\nconcluded. The fall of the Jews seemed to be sealed. All the power of\nthe Persian empire was arrayed against them. They were prisoners in her\ndifferent provinces, appointed to execution! All human power and\nauthority and presumption of success was on the side of Haman, and\nagainst his intended victims.\n\nMordecai had no hope on earth. His trust was alone in the God of his\nfathers--the God of Abraham and of Isaac and of Jacob--the God often\ndefied by Amalek. In his distress he presented himself, clothed in\nsackcloth, at the gate of the royal palace; but no one arrayed in the\ngarb of sorrow might enter the haunts devoted to luxurious pleasure. Yet\nthe sight of his distress and the tones of his deep grief arrested the\nattention of the attendants of the queen, and her chamberlain reported\nthe circumstances to her.\n\nNo tokens of sympathy, no expression of condolence, however grateful,\ncould assuage the grief of Mordecai in this hour of terror and alarm;\nand even though commanded by the queen, he declined to lay aside the\ntokens of wo, while he diligently sought to convey to the secluded\nEsther an account of all the machinations of Haman, and the assurance of\nthe imminent danger to which her nation was exposed, and in which she\nwas involved. He not only sent her a copy of the edict which condemned\nthe Jews, but he charged her to supplicate the king on their behalf.\n\nThe young queen must have felt like one awakened from a sleep to find\nherself upon the brink of a precipice. Her situation was full of danger.\nThe flush of royal favour was past. She was neglected and forgotten. Her\nsplendid palace was indeed but a prison, and her lordly consort might\nprove her executioner. For a long time she had not seen the king or\nreceived the least token of royal favour or remembrance, and a new\nfavourite might have succeeded her in the court of the capricious\nvoluptuary. Yet she was sternly charged by Mordecai to rouse herself,\nmeet the peril, and, if possible, save her people, while he taught her\nto recognise the designs of a wise Providence in her elevation.\n\n\"Then Mordecai commanded to answer Esther, Think not with thyself that\nthou shalt escape in the king's house, more than all the Jews. For if\nthou altogether holdest thy peace at this time, then shall there\nenlargement and deliverance arise to the Jews from another place; but\nthou and thy father's house shall be destroyed: and who knoweth whether\nthou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this?\"\n\nIn the appeals of Mordecai to Esther, we may recognise the principles\nupon which he had trained her. The sense of duty, the obligations of\nreligion, the call to self-sacrifice and exertion, had all been\ninstilled while Esther was in private life, and they bear their fruit on\nthe throne. Yet there must have been a conflict in the heart of Esther,\nbefore she could adopt the decision which might accelerate the doom of\nher people, while, if her appeal failed, her own fate was scaled with\ntheir's.\n\nSurrounded by all the splendour of the court, with all the pleasures\nthat pomp and power can command, with troops of menials treading marble\nhalls, with the more genial luxuries of fair flowers and pure fountains\nand soft music--Esther felt the insufficiency of all that earth can\nyield in the hour of sorrow and trial. We may almost fancy that we see\nher, with lofty brow and pale cheek, her dark soft eye fixed in thought,\nand the compressed lip telling of the firm resolve. She has decided! She\nwill venture the loss of royal favour, and life itself, to secure the\nsafety of her people. \"I WILL GO IN TO THE KING, AND IF I PERISH--I\nPERISH.\" Words more simple, yet sublime in their high meaning, have\nseldom been recorded. Strong purpose and high resolve call for but few\nwords.\n\nYet Esther relied upon a power higher than that of Ahasuerus. She may\nhave recalled the history of her nation; she may have remembered all the\ninterpositions of Divine mercy in past extremities; and doubtless she\nrelied upon those promises for the future which induced in Mordecai a\nconfident hope of deliverance. She remembered that Jehovah--the God of\nIsrael--hears the prayers of the humble and the contrite. She appointed\na solemn fast of three days, in which the Jews of Shushan should humble\nthemselves and remember her before the God of their fathers.\n\nA more eminent instance of simple dependence upon the Divine\ninterposition, or of entire reliance upon the voice of prayer, has\nseldom if ever, occurred. There was no resort to outward ceremonies to\nawaken a deeper feeling, or to atone for the want of it by a formal\nobservance. There was no altar, no sacrifice, no long procession, no\npromised offering, no resort to temple or priest, but there was the call\nupon God from the depth of the soul--the simple, unfailing trust of the\nheart, the personal humiliation, the individual prayer, the united\nofferings of supplication and confession from a whole people. There was\nthe simple faith that relies on the Divine power and pleads the Divine\npromises with submission to the Divine will. It was a strange contrast\nto the sensual, gross, superstitious, and unholy rites of the heathen,\nwhile from its deep spiritual meaning, and from the entire absence of\nall merely formal observance, it was both a precedent and a model for\nfuture ages, and for the holy spiritual worshipper of other days.\n\nIt was no heartless service, no formal act of worship rendered by the\nJews of Shushan, when Esther called upon them to pray and to fast with\nher and for her. While the queen and her maidens fasted in the recesses\nof the palace, in many a lowly home or quiet chamber were gathered the\nrace of Esther, to commit her and themselves to Jehovah, to beseech him\nto forgive the sins of his people and save them, for his mercy's sake,\nin this hour of their extremity. Mingled with their personal\napprehension and anxiety for their wives and their children would be\nthoughts of \"the daughter of their people\"--their beautiful queen--so\nyoung, so fair, so lately exalted to the pinnacle of honour and glory;\nadorned with gems and wreathed with flowers, the pride of a monarch and\nthe ornament of a court; now, neglected, abject, forsaken--included in\nthe doom of her race, prostrate in some secluded apartment of the\npalace--her royal apparel exchanged for sackcloth and ashes--still\ncleaving to the God of her fathers, and still identifying herself with\nher kindred and countrymen. Whether they regarded her royal state, her\ntender years, her bitter desolation, or her heroic resolution, all the\nsympathies of the heart, all the purest feelings of the nation, would be\ncalled forth in her behalf.\n\nOther feelings would find a place in the hearts of the Jews as they\ncontemplated their present state. The last deed of the Amalekite would\nbring to recollection the injuries of ages. This Haman, who now, in a\ntime of profound peace and full security--while both races were exiles\nfrom the land of their fathers--had plotted the ruin of their nation,\nthe total extermination of their race; who had doomed the feeble and\nhelpless, the little one and the aged, to perish with the strong man in\nhis might; this Haman was the son of those who fell upon the tribes,\nfaint and weary, in the wilderness; who had pursued them with inveterate\nhatred; who had ever joined with their foes or stood ready to attack\nthem in their defenceless state.\n\nWhen we recollect that the conspiracy of Haman but closed the long train\nof injuries inflicted on Israel by Amalek, we shall not so much wonder\nat the feelings sometimes expressed by the Jew. The character of the\ntribe was still the same--their course through all years was unaltered.\nAnd now, while Amalek has perished and the Jew survives, we can form no\njust estimate of that national feud. Haman was a type of his\nrace--artful, cruel, treacherous, and bloody; and what the Roman was to\nHannibal, what the ancient Persian was to Greece, what the Turk is to\nmodern Greece, what Russia is to the Pole, such was the Amalekite to the\nJew.\n\nWhile Esther had manifested her sense of dependence upon the eternal\nRuler of nations, and her faith and reliance upon the God of her\nfathers, by humbling herself before him and relying upon his protection\nand interposition in this hour of darkness, she showed, too, a knowledge\nof the human heart, not often acquired at her age; an instinctive\ninsight into the character and the motives of those around her, with the\npower of adapting herself to circumstances, that has seldom been\ndisplayed in one so young, combined with so many of the higher qualities\nof the woman.\n\nShe knew the weak point in the character of Ahasuerus, and she forgot\nnot the power of beauty, the influence of personal charms, as she\narrayed her fair form in the rich and splendid vestments that so well\nbecame her, and summoned all the aid of oriental art and elegance to her\ntoilette, that her presumption might be forgiven in her loveliness--that\nfavour won by her beauty might be extended to her nation; and if she\nfelt the hope of pleasing, as she surveyed herself in the polished\nmetallic mirror, decked with the magnificence of a royal bride and\nadorned with the gifts of him whose favour she would seek, her heart\nmight have sunk too at the remembrance of the favour she had once won\nand lost. In assuming the crown placed upon her brow by Ahasuerus,\nthere was a tacit claim to her royal rights; for that gemmed circlet was\nnot only a badge of rank, but a pledge of affection--a token of honour\nand royal favour, which elevated her above the throng of beauties who\nfilled the courts of the palace. Had she arrayed herself in sackcloth,\nhad she appeared as a mourner, an afflicted suppliant, she would\nprobably have found the royal voluptuary more anxious to banish one who\ndisturbed his pleasures, than to redress the grievances that appealed to\nhis justice.\n\nYet it must have been with trembling limbs and a beating heart that she\nstood before Ahasuerus; and, by entering his presence unbidden, she made\nher mute appeal to his mercy.\n\nAnd strange, at that unwonted place and hour, must have appeared the\nbeautiful vision to the king, while courtiers and attendants stood in\nsilent amazement. There was but one anxious moment before the sceptre\nwas extended; the trembling queen touched it, and thus was encouraged to\nprefer her petition for any favour that the royal hand could bestow. The\npresence of Esther seems to have revived at once the fondness of the\nmonarch, and all his coldness and indifference vanished like the mist\nbefore the rising sun. All the arts of Haman had been needed to wean him\nfrom her and to teach him to forget her. How rarely does a vile, unholy\ncounsellor or companion seek to corrupt a private man, or a prince, or a\nruler, without striving first to undermine the influence of the virtuous\nwife, mother, or sister!\n\nWarily does the royal suppliant present her request, still uncertain of\nthe degree of favour on which she might rely. She offered no petition\nthat could embarrass the king. She made no complaint of past neglects.\nShe uttered no word of upbraiding for forgotten vows; but delicately\nimplying that his presence was the source of her happiness, that this\nhad constrained her to break through all the formal observances of\ncourtly restraint and endanger life itself, she besought him to honour\nher by attending a banquet which she had prepared. Thus she avoided the\nawakening of the suspicions of Haman by even asking to see the monarch\nwithout his presence. Including him in her invitation, she allayed all\njealousy of a wish to exert an influence inimical to his, while she thus\noffered an additional inducement to Ahasuerus to honour her feast.\n\nBy a strong effort and great self-command, the young queen retained her\ncalmness and preserved her grace and gayety. And even when the banquet\nhad closed and the guests had retired, and the king again asked her to\nprefer her petition, she did not venture to prefer that which was\nnearest her heart. His favour was too uncertain and his favourite too\npowerful. She only besought his presence again as a guest, and again his\nfavourite was included in the invitation.\n\nThe Jews were still lying low before their God. When the feast in the\npalace was broken up, and the gates were shut, the high walls cast their\nshadows upon the moat. The sentinels still moved with measured tread.\nThe lights gradually disappeared, except those that told of some one\nwatching over the sick or dying, or some chance-beam betraying a late\ncarousal. In the palace, the soft footfall of the attendants in the\nantechambers, could not disturb the slumbers of the monarch, while\nstrains of sweetest music were ready to lull him to repose, as warder\nand sentinel kept watch over his safety. But still \"that night the king\ncould not sleep;\" and wakeful, restless, solitary, he commanded his\nattendants to bring him the archives of his kingdom, and read to him\nthe records of his reign. Strange request! How few monarchs would care\nthus to review the past, and force themselves to the judgment awaiting\nthem from a higher tribunal and from future ages!\n\nIt was not chance which held the eyes of the king waking. It was not\nchance which drew his attention to the conspiracy defeated by Mordecai,\nand to the investigation of the treatment he had received for so high a\nservice. No reward, no honour had been conferred upon one who had saved\nthe life of the sovereign. A strange forgetfulness or neglect of the\nprime minister of the realm! While Ahasuerus was devising some mode of\nrequiting the obligation due to one who had rendered the state important\nservice, he called for a counsellor, and was told that Haman was\nwithout, in the court.\n\nHaman left the banquet of Esther in all the assurance of royal favour.\nHe had attained to honours which distinguished him above all the\nsubjects of the Persian empire. He had received distinctions which\nelevated him above even the princes and nobles of the kingdom; and in\nhis pomp and power he passed, with his train of attendants, menials,\nflatterers, and followers, through the gates of the royal palace, \"the\nobserved of all observers;\" and as he came into the thronged\nthoroughfare that led from the royal abode, all did him homage and\nshowed him reverence--save one.\n\nMordecai, the Jew, still sat at the king's gate--probably, still wrapped\nin sackcloth. His eye met that of Haman, but it quailed not. It was a\nstern, reproving glance! And while all others did lowliest obeisance,\nMordecai neither bowed nor uncovered his head.\n\nThere was no word--there was no reproach--but there was a silent\ndefiance, that conveyed to the soul of Haman an assurance of disgrace\nand defeat, and that told him he was despised, amid all his honours and\nprosperity. He hastened to his home. He gathered his household around\nhim and told them of his riches, his honour, his prosperity, and the\nassurance his large family afforded him that his riches would descend in\nhis own line, and that his ancient lineage and royal race should thus be\nperpetuated. He told them of the high honour that day received at the\nroyal feast, and of a like honour in reserve for the morrow. But still\nhis pride was mortified by Mordecai's course. \"All this availeth me\nnothing,\" he said, \"so long as I see Mordecai, the Jew, sitting at the\nking's gate.\" Wretched, malignant man! What a picture of the power and\nforce of evil passions--of that selfishness which could find its\nhappiness in the misery and suffering of others!\n\nHis hatred of Mordecai seems the more insane, when we remember that\nHaman held his fate in his hands, or rather had actually sealed his\ndoom. He might well forego forms of reverence from the man he had doomed\nto death. Yet the desire for the humiliation of Mordecai, for some token\nof abasement and fear, seems to have absorbed all other feelings; and as\nthis was the only thing withheld, so it was the only thing desired. To\nsoothe the disgust and allay the indignation of Haman, the family\ncouncil decreed the immediate death of Mordecai, and they doomed him to\nthe gallows--a most ignominious death. While this instrument of his\ndestruction was in preparation upon the grounds of Haman, he sought\nAhasuerus, that the sentence might be ratified. He who had given him the\npower to murder a nation, would surely assent to forestalling the doom\nof an individual; and Mordecai's disobedience to the royal order, his\ndisrespect to the minister who represented the authority of the\nsovereign and the laws of the realm, seemed to offer a fitting pretext.\n\nWhile Haman was waiting in the antechamber for audience, Ahasuerus was\nresolving some mode of requiting Mordecai; and, ever prone to rely on\nfavourites and counsellors, he was unable to decide for himself; so he\nsought advice from his favourite courtier, who was so near at hand. To\nhim the question was submitted: \"What shall be done to the man whom the\nking delighteth to honour?\" Ever selfish, ever intent upon his own\npromotion, and constantly loaded with marks of royal favour, Haman very\nnaturally presumed that fresh honours were destined for him, and that he\nwas to be allowed to designate the very marks of favour which he most\ndesired.\n\n\"Now Haman thought in his heart, to whom would the king delight to do\nhonour more than to myself?\" And so he answered the king: \"To the man\nwhom the king delighteth to honour, let the royal apparel be brought\nwhich the king useth to wear, and the horse that the king rideth upon,\nand the royal crown which is set upon his head. And let this apparel and\nhorse be delivered to the hand of one of the king's most noble princes,\nthat they may array the man withal whom the king delighteth to honour,\nand bring him on horseback through the streets of the city, and proclaim\nbefore him, Thus shall it be done to the man whom the king delighteth to\nhonour.\"\n\nIf Haman intended this as a mere vain-glorious display--an impressive\npageant, designed to publish to the people the high dignity of royal\nfavour which he personally enjoyed--it would not be without meaning; but\nwe cannot but think that, according to Eastern usage, there was a deeper\nsignificance in the ceremony.\n\nThe customs of the East are almost immutable, and there was much\nsimilarity between those of Egypt, Assyria and Persia. When Joseph was\nexalted to be ruler of Egypt, he was clothed in royal vestments, and\npassed in triumphant procession through the city, while all were called\nupon to bow the knee before him. Daniel was clothed in scarlet and in\npurple (the badges of royalty) while his honours were announced. But\nJoseph rode in the second chariot of Pharaoh, and his distance from\nroyal state was clearly defined, while Daniel was declared third in the\nempire of the Medes and Persians.\n\nIn appropriating all the badges of royalty--the crown, the robes, the\nhorse, the princely attendance--Haman seems to have been preparing a\nclaim to higher honour than those of Joseph or Daniel; to be even\npreparing to ascend the throne. All the homage that could be shown the\nsubject had long been exacted. A nation was now under a dreadful doom\nbecause only one of their race withheld it; and now he would take to\nhimself all the appendages of royal state!\n\nA sudden tumult in the palace, a popular outbreak, so common with\ndespotic governments, might easily be accomplished, and Haman might\nascend the throne of Ahasuerus--for the lines of descent seem to have\nbeen not unfrequently changed in the Persian empire; and in the\nconvulsions of despotic states, even slaves have mounted the thrones of\ntheir masters.\n\nWhether, in his designs, he merely sought the gratification of a present\nvain-glorious ambition or was preparing for a higher destiny, the\nrevulsion must have been most overwhelming, the change and surprise\ninexpressible, when the announcement and command of the king fell upon\nhis ear.\n\n\"Make haste!\" said he, \"take the apparel, and the horse, as thou hast\nsaid, and do even so to Mordecai the Jew, who sitteth at the king's\ngate. Let nothing fail that thou hast spoken.\" You have devised the very\nhighest honour that I can render: now confer it on the man I designate.\n\nThe Eastern despots are arbitrary; and Haman, confounded and petrified,\nventured no remonstrance. He bowed and obeyed. He departed as the\nmessenger of honour to Mordecai the Jew. Whatever the malignant and\nbitter feelings of his heart, he dared not give expression to them. He\nwas compelled to serve the man he hated, to confer the highest honour on\nthe man he had doomed to the deepest obloquy, publicly to bow before one\nwhom he hoped to trample beneath his feet! With what contending\nfeelings must he have delivered the mandate of the king to Mordecai!\nWhat strong emotion must have convulsed his soul! Yet the most powerful\nfeelings are seldom displayed. The green sod covers the pent volcano,\nand a slight trembling alone denotes the action of the devouring\nelement. It is all repose and calmness on the surface while the billows\nof flame are raging beneath.\n\nThus the aspect of the courtier was calm, though sullen, while with his\nown hands he acted as chamberlain to the Jew and arrayed him in robes of\nroyalty and honour. We may imagine a group for a painter, in Haman,\ndark, malignant, and sullen--and Mordecai, calm, proud, unbending,\nreceiving service from his enemy. And after having with his own hands\narrayed the new object of royal favour, Haman was placed at the head of\nthe proud war-horse, as he slowly bore the Jew through the multitude,\nwho thronged the street \"to behold the man whom the king delighteth to\nhonour.\" We seem to see him--the proudest, the most arrogant of\nmen--with bowed head and averted eye, while Mordecai sits erect and\nfirm, in all the dignity of conscious worth.\n\nAs they slowly proceed through the thronged thoroughfare, obstructed by\ncrowds who came to gaze upon the pageant, many a significant sneer or\nhalf-uttered jest would convey to Haman a sense of his degradation in\nappearing as the groom of the despised Jew.\n\nWhen the ceremonies were over, Mordecai again appeared at the gates of\nthe palace. Nothing in the apparent condition of the two was changed,\nand the pageant may have seemed like a dream to Mordecai. He was only\nanxious to know the proceedings and fate of Esther. Yet he must have\ngathered hope for the future, as he still trusted and waited upon God.\n\nBut a dark cloud had fallen upon Haman. He foreboded his doom. He was\nhumbled, disappointed, degraded, disgraced. He had been paraded, before\nthe multitudes, the menial of the Jew. He had been forced to confer on\nthe man he hated the very honours his soul most coveted. \"And Haman\nhasted to his house mourning and having his head covered.\" And he told\nhis wife and the friends whom he had gathered to consult upon the fall\nof the Jew, all that had befallen him. And clear, far-sighted, daring,\nand unscrupulous, the wife who had counselled Mordecai's destruction,\nforetold to Haman his own doom. \"If Mordecai be of the Jews, before whom\nthou hast begun to fall, thou shalt not prevail against him, but shall\nsurely fall before him.\"\n\nAnd they were probably counselling some measures for his personal\nsafety; for when they were yet talking, came the king's chamberlain,\nand hasted to bring Haman to the feast Esther had prepared.\n\nAs the feast proceeded, the king entreated Esther to ask some gift that\nhe might bestow as a token of favour, or a pledge of affection. And then\nEsther, with a simple fervour, force, and dignity, and with the pathos\nof true feeling, offered her supplication for herself and her nation.\n\"And Esther answered the king and said, If I have found favour in thy\nsight, O king! and if it please the king, let my life be given me at my\npetition, and my people at my request. For we are sold--I and my\npeople--to be destroyed, to be slain, to perish.\" She quotes the words\nof Haman's edict, and then adds, \"But if we had been sold for bond-men\nand bond women, I had held my peace, although the enemy could not\ncountervail the king's damage,\" nor recompense the loss of so many of\nthe king's useful citizens and peaceful subjects. Nothing could be more\nsweet, gentle, submissive, and truly dignified than her appeal. And the\nimagination and astonishment of the king are graphically displayed in\nhis answer. Who is he? Where is he that hath presumed in his heart to do\nso? Who has dared to conspire against one so near my person, so exalted\nby my favour?\n\nConfounded, amazed--and probably for the first time suspecting the\nJewish extraction of the queen--Haman was still speechless when Esther\nmade her direct and firm reply: \"That adversary, that wicked man, is\nHaman,\" here in the royal presence--here in the full blaze of royal\nfavour.\n\nIn the conscious justice of her cause, she had desired to be confronted\nwith the man she accused, and he was present, that he might enjoy every\nopportunity of defence, if innocent; and if guilty, that he might\nreceive the just reward of his deeds. The king was filled with wrath at\nthis proof of the presumption and malice of his favourite, and he left\nthe banqueting-room and went into the palace-garden.\n\nHaman, quick to read the feelings of his master, \"saw that wrath was\ndetermined.\" Unable to escape the watchful attendants, and moved by\nterror, he approached the royal couch of Esther to beseech her, whom he\nhad greatly injured, to intercede for him. And while he was thus\nengaged, the king re-entered the banqueting-house. His wrath was\nrekindled. The imprudence of Haman hastened the doom his crimes had\nprovoked. The excited monarch, witnessing his apparent familiarity,\naccused him of designs of which his previous presumption might show him\ncapable. His sentence was pronounced--his doom was sealed. The\nattendants covered his face, (a most significant act, still retained in\nEastern courts,) and he was carried from the royal presence-chamber, and\nhung upon the very gallows he had erected for Mordecai. The flowers\nwhich were gathered for the feast and the wreaths entwined for his brow\nwere still fresh.\n\nThe succeeding interview of Ahasuerus with his still loved and more than\nbeautiful consort, must have been one of no slight interest. There was\nmuch to unfold and to explain; there was something to confess and to\nforgive; and as the character of Haman was now exposed and his acts were\nrevealed, the king may have regarded himself as the bird escaped from\nthe fowler. Esther revealed her lineage; while the rising favour of\nHaman, the dangers to be anticipated from his hatred to her nation, well\njustified the prudent caution of Mordecai. As the queen told the king in\nwhat relation Mordecai stood to her, Mordecai was brought before him;\nand the former honour proved but indeed the installation into the\nhighest offices of trust, while the vast possessions of Haman were\nconferred on Esther, and Mordecai was appointed her steward.\n\nYet, while the royal favour and protection was extended to these\nindividuals, the edict was still in force against the race, and again\nEsther besought the king to interpose his power and protection. The laws\nof the Medes and Persians, however impolitic and unjust, could not be\nrepealed. The king had no power over the statutes he had made. Like the\ndeeds of life, once passed, they were unchangeable. He might regret the\nact, he might deprecate the influence thus put in operation, but he\ncould neither recall nor cancel them; and one instance attempted might\nhave destroyed the royal power.\n\nAlthough Haman was removed, his family were numerous, and there was\ndoubtless a large class of his ancient tribe who viewed him as the\nlineal descendant of their monarchs and entitled to their allegiance.\nThey expected to share his triumphs, and, disappointed and exasperated,\nthey would be ready to avenge his death. Haman being recognised as the\nhighest officer of Ahasuerus and as his chief counsellor as well as\nfavourite, he had great power and influence, and doubtless had a large\nparty in his interests--either won by past favours or hope of future\nwealth and honour. At the same time all the discontented and turbulent\nof the land would be ready to join an outbreak which made the murder of\nany Jew lawful, where it could be accomplished, and which gave their\npossessions to those who were their destroyers.\n\nAll that Ahasuerus could do to avert the threatened extermination of the\nchildren of Israel, was to allow them to defend themselves if any dared\nto attack them. The whole empire was convulsed with the desperate\nstruggle between the Jews and the faction of Haman; and while the royal\nauthority aided the Jews in Shushan, so that they were entirely\nvictorious, seventy-five thousand of their assailants perished in the\nprovinces, where we are told the Jews gathered themselves together and\nstood for their lives; and it is recorded to their honour, that upon the\nspoil of their enemies they laid not their hands. And all this suffering\nand blood was the result of the policy of Haman. The Jews were not the\naggressors, although they came off victors.\n\nIt was the last conflict between the nations of Amalek and Israel, and\nthreatening and prophecy were thus fulfilled while both nations were\nstrangers and exiles from their own lands; and while the tribe of Amalek\nperished, the sons of Haman, who probably led the conflict in Shushan,\nwere condemned to the same ignominious death which their father had\nsuffered. We infer their actual guilt from the fact that they seem to be\nunmolested until the day appointed for the extermination of the Jews. As\nleaders of the tumult they deserved the doom they received.\n\nThe lot is from the Lord; and the day of vengeance thus deferred from\nHaman's regard to the casting of the lot, gave the Jews full time to\nprepare themselves to resist their foes, and defend themselves after the\nissuing of the second edict, by which they were empowered to act on\ntheir own defence, and to repel openly by armed resistance.\n\nThe book of Esther is one of the most beautiful and variously\ninstructive and interesting portions of the Old Testament. While it\nillustrates the providential care of Jehovah over all his people, and\nhis readiness to hear their prayers and interpose for their deliverance,\nit shows too that he ruleth over all the nations of the earth, and that\nall the arts of intriguing men in courts and cabinets, the various\nchanges which occur, either affecting nations or individuals, are all\nallowed to promote his infinite designs--all accomplishing his eternal\nplans. While his people, like Esther and Mordecai, gladly co-operate in\nthe designs of the Almighty, his enemies are made the unwitting and\nunwilling instruments of advancing the same designs, and are\naccomplishing his purposes for the re-generation of a corrupt world--for\nthe establishment of the kingdom of the redeemed, and the complete\nredemption of the children of God.\n\nAs we look at the book of Esther, through the long dark vista of\nintervening ages, we are presented with a beautiful picture of a past\nperiod. Nations have perished and left no memories; and while all the\nother portion of our world, at that day, is shrouded in darkness or\nburied in forgetfulness, the light of revelation falls upon the court\nof Ahasuerus, and we see it in all the gorgeous splendour of oriental\nmagnificence.\n\nThe prosperous monarch of a powerful empire--munificent, prodigal, not\ndeficient in capacity or heart, but indolent, and fond of luxury and\nfeasting, he yields himself to the influence of the favourite; and when\nready to rush into the seductions of pleasure, he still, at times,\nrouses himself and executes his own will, asserting his authority by\nsome act of despotic power, of justice or cruelty, as the impulse\nprompts--he is a type of a large class of those to whom the destinies of\nmore modern nations have been committed.\n\nIn Haman we see the courtier--crafty, proud, vain, ambitious,\naspiring--intent upon personal aggrandizement, and the acquisition of\nwealth; gaining his influence over the mind of the monarch by\nministering to his pleasures, and maintaining it by banishing all pure\ninfluences and crushing all nobler feelings. The history of Haman is\nreplete, too, with instruction, in displaying the absorbing power of the\nselfish and malignant passions, and their fatal influence upon character\nand happiness.\n\nOne unsatisfied desire will embitter all the most coveted possessions.\nThere will ever be something to be achieved--some enemy to humble, some\nhigher elevation to attain, some Mordecai in the gate, whose reverence\nwithheld is more desirable than all the homage of the multitude\nbestowed.\n\nHe who cherishes in his heart a hatred of a class or an individual, is\nnursing a scorpion which will poison every kind feeling. We must love,\nnot only to make others happy, but that we may be happy ourselves. We\nmay withhold all marks of approbation from the unworthy, and still\nregard them with the benevolence required by the law of love.\n\nThus while Mordecai saw in Haman the same persecuting spirit that had\nmarked all his race; while he saw him, unholy, unprincipled, securing by\nhis acts an influence over his master, which he abused; prostituting the\nroyal authority to the ruin of the kingdom, making it subserve the\npurpose of his own unhallowed ambition; alienating the monarch from the\nqueen, and inducing the disregard of the duties of private life as of\nsovereign power--Mordecai, as an upright, honourable, high-minded man,\nrefused to render one, whose course he deprecated, whose character he\nabhorred, the honour accorded even by royal favour. He neither bowed nor\ndid him reverence. But he did not assail him. He did not form any dark\nand treacherous plots against him. He did not revile him. All that he\nsought was to lead the blinded monarch to a calm investigation into the\nproceedings of his treacherous counsellor. And Haman had every\nopportunity of repelling accusation and justifying himself, as he was\never allowed to be present when Esther made her charges against him.\nThere is a world-wide difference between the firm, indignant\ndisapprobation with which a virtuous mind regards an evil man, working\nill to all, and that malignant hatred which arises from selfishness and\nenvy, and which pursues with bitterness and cruelty all that does not\nminister to its indulgence.\n\nIf it should seem strange to us that the national antipathy should so\nlong be cherished, we may remember that it is quite as strange that\nnational character should be thus faithfully transmitted through so many\ngenerations; and those who so confidently predict a change of character\nfrom the mere change of the circumstances of a people, may do well to\nponder the facts presented by the past history of the races of the\nearth.\n\nThere are other contrasts between the characters of Mordecai and Haman.\nHaman was superstitious, yet not religious. He was artful, selfish,\ntreacherous, bloodthirsty, corrupt himself and corrupting others,\nambitious and vain-glorious. Mordecai was pious, upright, conscientious;\nfulfilling every duty, yet seeking no selfish aggrandizement, no wealth,\nno personal honour--even when placed in circumstances where he might\nclaim them as a just reward--and never exerting an influence for selfish\npurposes; still ready to forego and sacrifice all that was demanded at\nthe call of duty.\n\nWhile we see in Mordecai the devoted worshipper of the true God, the\nhigh-minded patriot, the man of inflexible integrity--an integrity that\nscorned the bad acts that would minister to the pride of false\ngreatness--and a nobleness that rose above the desire for court\nfavours, the strong features of his character are softened into beauty\nby his love for the orphan relative, his watchfulness over her\nchildhood, and the interest displayed by his daily inquiries for her\nwelfare. His affections were kind and tender, while his principles were\nunbending; and we feel that we love the man, though we are constrained\nto render a deeper homage to the patriot.\n\nEsther is one of the most beautiful characters in the gallery of\nScripture portraits. Her character is peculiarly feminine; and while her\npath is marked by events of moment, it appeals to our hearts in each\nvicissitude of her lot. Youth and beauty always throw a charm around the\npossessor. Faint, perishing, transient as they are, they awaken all the\nsympathies of our nature; a deep compassion, a foreboding of the future;\nwhile the knowledge of the sorrows and trials which await those to whom\nthe present is so bright, heightens our interest. Thus in each stage of\nthe narrative, Esther comes to us with all that can awaken sympathy and\nexcite interest.\n\nThe fair flower is transplanted from Judea to the lands of the East--a\nscion of a stock soon removed--sheltered, watched, nourished by the pure\ndews of Divine truth; taken from seclusion and loneliness, where but one\neye beheld its opening beauty, to the gardens of royalty; and there,\namong gayer and gaudier flowers, like the pure lily of the valley,\nwinning royal favour by purity, sweetness, and graceful loveliness.\n\nWe follow her from her lonely home to the palace, and think how many\nfears and alarms mingled with the triumph of her beauty, the\nconsciousness of her power, when an empire blessed her name and\ncelebrated her beauty. And a deeper feeling is roused for the royal\nbride, lately so flattered, caressed, and honoured, now suddenly\nforgotten, neglected--left to the loneliness of her apartments or the\ncompanionship of her formal attendants, while her lord pursued his\ncareer of pleasure, apparently unmindful of her existence.\n\nA bitter lot it is to the young, to be loved and then forgotten. And sad\nthe contrast to the royal Esther, between her late elevation and all the\nincense of homage and affection then offered, and her present\ndesolation. Yet it was a season of needful humiliation. It awoke her\nfrom the dream of splendour and gayety, and brought her back to the\nsober realities of life and its stern duties; and it was also a season\nof preparation for the trials that awaited her. It brought her to seek a\nhappiness higher than could be found in palaces or courts, a favour more\ndesirable than that of an earthly monarch, a love that is unfailing, a\nfaithfulness that should be enduring--and thus, when the day of trial\ncame, she was prepared. She could cast herself upon the arm that never\nfalters, she could seek the interposition of the God of her nation, and\nof each individual who trusteth in him and relieth upon his mercy.\n\nThere was something beautiful in the blending of her conscious\nhelplessness, her sense of loss of the favour of her royal lord and of\nthe love and courtly honour she deserved, of her entire dependence upon\nthe protection and interposition of Heaven, and her resolution to\nventure all for her people.\n\nIF I PERISH--I PERISH! If we can recall the recollections of our\nchildhood, we shall remember the breathless interest with which we\nattended her, in fancy, to the presence-chamber and awaited the extended\nsceptre. All the excitement of romance is concentrated in the story of\nEsther. And as we follow the narrative of her final triumph, her\nrestoration to the love of her husband, the salvation of her people, and\nthe exaltation of her family, we cannot but pursue the train of thought\nand feeling, and fondly hope that the influence of Esther and Mordecai\nmight redeem Ahasuerus from the vices of youth, inspire him with higher\nmotives, elevate him to a loftier standard, and rouse one, not deficient\nin natural kindness or nobleness of capacity, from a selfish voluptuary\nto an enlightened, able, and just ruler of a great people.\n\nThe Jews still commemorate the feast of Purim, and celebrate their\ndeliverance from Haman; and in all the climes and lands to which the\nrace have been transported, they have carried the remembrance of the\ndaughter of their people--the beautiful queen of ancient Persia, who\nventured her life to ransom her race.\n\nWe would learn from the whole history lessons of sobriety, of\ncontentment with an humble lot, of the duty of cherishing the spirit of\nlove, of kindness, of benevolence, of repressing the first germ of\nselfishness, of malignity, of envy; of dependence upon an over-ruling\nProvidence; of encouragement to prayer, to trusting and waiting upon\nGod.\n\n\"Call upon me in the day of trouble, and I will answer thee,\" is said to\neach contrite heart now, as truly as to Israel of old; and none who have\nthus truly sought the Lord in lowliness and penitence, ever sought him\nin vain. His care and protection are still around his people; and\nalthough the enemies of his church may try her, they shall never triumph\nover her.\n\n[Illustration]","title":"Notable Women of Olden Time","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":44116}