127377273 all-about-abraham-s-sarah
-
Upload
glenn-pease -
Category
Spiritual
-
view
264 -
download
1
description
Transcript of 127377273 all-about-abraham-s-sarah
ALL ABOUT ABRAHAM'S SARAH
Written and edited by Glenn Pease
PREFACE
I have gathered together the studies of others, along with my own, on this
woman,wife and mother who, with Abraham, became the father and mother of the
great religions of history.
CONTENTS
1. BIBLE TEXTS ABOUT SARAH
2. SARAH BY GUSTAV GOTTHEIL.
3. SARAH By THOMAS E. MILLER, M.A.
4. SARAH By ALEXANDER WHYTE
5. SARAH THE PRINCESS By H. A. THOMPSON
6. SARAH THE STEADFAST BY George Matheson
7. SARAH:MOTHER OF NATIONS By GlennPease
8. SARAH AND REBEKAH BY Lyman Abbott
9. SARAH AND HAGAR by ASHTON
10. SARAH BY FRANCIS COX
11. THE ALLEGORIES OF SARAH AND HAGAR BY SPURGEON
12. SARAH. BY Frances Manwaring Caulkins
13. THE WIFE-SARAH. AMERICAN SUNDAY-SCHOOL UNION.
14. SARAH BY Phineas Camp Headley
15. SARAH BY Rev. Monsignor BERNARD O REILLY, D.D., L.D.
16. SARAH THE PRINCESS, BY HARRIET BEECHER STOWE.
17. SARAH, OBEDIENT WIFE BY W. MACKINTOSH MACKAY
1. BIBLE TEXTS ABOUT SARAH
GEN 11:29 Abram and Nahor both married. The name of Abram's wife was Sarai,
and the name of Nahor's wife was Milcah; she was the daughter of Haran, the
father of both Milcah and Iscah.
30 Now Sarai was barren; she had no children.
31 Terah took his son Abram, his grandson Lot son of Haran, and his
daughter-in-law Sarai, the wife of his son Abram, and together they set out from
Ur of the Chaldeans to go to Canaan. But when they came to Haran, they settled
there.
12:5 He took his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, all the possessions they had
accumulated and the people they had acquired in Haran, and they set out for the
land of Canaan, and they arrived there.
10 Now there was a famine in the land, and Abram went down to Egypt to live
there for a while because the famine was severe.
11 As he was about to enter Egypt, he said to his wife Sarai, "I know what a
beautiful woman you are.
12 When the Egyptians see you, they will say, 'This is his wife.' Then
they will kill me but will let you live.
13 Say you are my sister, so that I will be treated well for your sake and
my life will be spared because of you."
14 When Abram came to Egypt, the Egyptians saw that she was a very
beautiful woman.
15 And when Pharaoh's officials saw her, they praised her to Pharaoh, and she
was taken into his palace.
16 He treated Abram well for her sake, and Abram acquired sheep and
cattle, male and female donkeys, menservants and maidservants, and camels.
17 But the LORD inflicted serious diseases on Pharaoh and his household because
of Abram's wife Sarai.
18 So Pharaoh summoned Abram. "What have you done to me?" he said. "Why
didn't you tell me she was your wife?
19 Why did you say, 'She is my sister,' so that I took her to be my wife?
Now then, here is your wife. Take her and go!"
20 Then Pharaoh gave orders about Abram to his men, and they sent him on his
way, with his wife and everything he had.
16:1 Now Sarai, Abram's wife, had borne him no children. But she had an
Egyptian maidservant named Hagar;
2 so she said to Abram, "The LORD has kept me from having children. Go, sleep
with my maidservant; perhaps I can build a family through her." Abram agreed to
what Sarai said.
3 So after Abram had been living in Canaan ten years, Sarai his wife took her
Egyptian maidservant Hagar and gave her to her husband to be his wife.
4 He slept with Hagar, and she conceived. When she knew she was pregnant, she
began to despise her mistress.
5 Then Sarai said to Abram, "You are responsible for the wrong I am
suffering. I put my servant in your arms, and now that she knows she is
pregnant, she despises me. May the LORD judge between you and me."
6 "Your servant is in your hands," Abram said. "Do with her whatever you think
best." Then Sarai mistreated Hagar; so she fled from her.
17:15 God also said to Abraham, "As for Sarai your wife, you are no longer to call
her Sarai; her name will be Sarah.
16 I will bless her and will surely give you a son by her. I will bless
her so that she will be the mother of nations; kings of peoples will come
from her."
17 Abraham fell facedown; he laughed and said to himself, "Will a son be born to
a man a hundred years old? Will Sarah bear a child at the age of ninety?"
18 And Abraham said to God, "If only Ishmael might live under your
blessing!"
19 Then God said, "Yes, but your wife Sarah will bear you a son, and you will call
him Isaac. I will establish my covenant with him as an
everlasting covenant for his descendants after him.
20 And as for Ishmael, I have heard you: I will surely bless him; I will
make him fruitful and will greatly increase his numbers. He will be the
father of twelve rulers, and I will make him into a great nation.
21 But my covenant I will establish with Isaac, whom Sarah will bear to
you by this time next year."
18:9 "Where is your wife Sarah?" they asked him. "There, in the tent," he said.
10 Then the LORD said, "I will surely return to you about this time next
year, and Sarah your wife will have a son." Now Sarah was listening at the
entrance to the tent, which was behind him.
11 Abraham and Sarah were already old and well advanced in years, and Sarah
was past the age of childbearing.
12 So Sarah laughed to herself as she thought, "After I am worn out and my
master is old, will I now have this pleasure?"
13 Then the LORD said to Abraham, "Why did Sarah laugh and say, 'Will I really
have a child, now that I am old?'
14 Is anything too hard for the LORD? I will return to you at the
appointed time next year and Sarah will have a son."
15 Sarah was afraid, so she lied and said, "I did not laugh." But he said,
"Yes, you did laugh."
20:1 Now Abraham moved on from there into the region of the Negev and lived
between Kadesh and Shur. For a while he stayed in Gerar,
2 and there Abraham said of his wife Sarah, "She is my sister." Then
Abimelech king of Gerar sent for Sarah and took her.
3 But God came to Abimelech in a dream one night and said to him, "You are as
good as dead because of the woman you have taken; she is a married woman."
4 Now Abimelech had not gone near her, so he said, "Lord, will you destroy an
innocent nation?
5 Did he not say to me, 'She is my sister,' and didn't she also say, 'He
is my brother'? I have done this with a clear conscience and clean hands."
6 Then God said to him in the dream, "Yes, I know you did this with a
clear conscience, and so I have kept you from sinning against me. That is
why I did not let you touch her.
7 Now return the man's wife, for he is a prophet, and he will pray for you and you
will live. But if you do not return her, you may be sure that you and all yours will
die."
8 Early the next morning Abimelech summoned all his officials, and when he told
them all that had happened, they were very much afraid.
9 Then Abimelech called Abraham in and said, "What have you done to us? How
have I wronged you that you have brought such great guilt upon me and my
kingdom? You have done things to me that should not be done."
10 And Abimelech asked Abraham, "What was your reason for doing this?"
11 Abraham replied, "I said to myself, 'There is surely no fear of God in this place,
and they will kill me because of my wife.'
12 Besides, she really is my sister, the daughter of my father though not
of my mother; and she became my wife.
13 And when God had me wander from my father's household, I said to her, 'This
is how you can show your love to me: Everywhere we go, say of me, "He is my
brother."'"
14 Then Abimelech brought sheep and cattle and male and female slaves and gave
them to Abraham, and he returned Sarah his wife to him.
15 And Abimelech said, "My land is before you; live wherever you like."
16 To Sarah he said, "I am giving your brother a thousand shekels of
silver. This is to cover the offense against you before all who are with
you; you are completely vindicated."
21:1 Now the LORD was gracious to Sarah as he had said, and the LORD did for
Sarah what he had promised.
2 Sarah became pregnant and bore a son to Abraham in his old age, at the very
time God had promised him.
3 Abraham gave the name Isaac to the son Sarah bore him.
6 Sarah said, "God has brought me laughter, and everyone who hears about this
will laugh with me."
7 And she added, "Who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse
children? Yet I have borne him a son in his old age."
8 The child grew and was weaned, and on the day Isaac was weaned Abraham
held a great feast.
9 But Sarah saw that the son whom Hagar the Egyptian had borne to Abraham
was mocking,
10 and she said to Abraham, "Get rid of that slave woman and her son, for that
slave woman's son will never share in the inheritance with my son Isaac."
11 The matter distressed Abraham greatly because it concerned his son.
12 But God said to him, "Do not be so distressed about the boy and your
maidservant. Listen to whatever Sarah tells you, because it is through
Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.
13 I will make the son of the maidservant into a nation also, because he
is your offspring."
14 Early the next morning Abraham took some food and a skin of water and gave
them to Hagar. He set them on her shoulders and then sent her off with the boy.
She went on her way and wandered in the desert of Beersheba.
23:1 Sarah lived to be a hundred and twenty-seven years old.
2 She died at Kiriath Arba (that is, Hebron) in the land of Canaan, and
Abraham went to mourn for Sarah and to weep over her.
19 Afterward Abraham buried his wife Sarah in the cave in the field of
Machpelah near Mamre (which is at Hebron) in the land of Canaan.
25:10 the field Abraham had bought from the Hittites. There Abraham was buried
with his wife Sarah.
HEB 11:11 By faith Abraham, even though he was past age--and Sarah herself was
barren--was enabled to become a father because he considered him faithful who
had made the promise.
1PE 3:5 For this is the way the holy women of the past who put their hope in God
used to make themselves beautiful. They were submissive to their own husbands,
2. SARAH BY GUSTAV GOTTHEIL
AS it is written " Sarah means princess.
If that name was given the First-
mother of the Hebrews in childhood
for her temperament, it was veritable prophecy.
All we know of her shows her a woman of
a strong, determined, and self - asserting will.
Originally the name was not spelled that way,
but Sarai. The change did not happen acci-
dentally, or from a whim of the bearer, but at
the bidding of God Himself, and for the pur-
pose of being a sign —
" That God will bless her and give Abraham a son of
her . . . that she shall be a mother of many nations,
kings of the peoples shall be of her."
In what manner the substitution of the one
letter for the other could become, as it were, a
seal of the covenant — this is still one of the
problems of the commentators. There exists
21
WOMEN OF THE BIBLE
among the Jews a sort of cabalistic tradition
that the Hebrew letter yod signifies the creative
power of God in nature, while the letter hay
symbolizes the might of God in the state of
grace — ^that state into which Sarah had entered
after receiving the covenanted promises. For
corroboration of this view its propounders point
to the fact that the name of Sarah's husband
underwent a similar modification by the addi-
tion of the identical letter, with a like signifi-
cance. Abram became Abraham because God
had said to him,
** A father of many nations have I made thee, and I
will make thee exceeding fruitful, and I will make
nations of thee, and kings shall come out of thee." —
Geti,^ xvii.
However this may be, the change of form in
no wise aflFects its root meaning, which is, to
rule. It fits the personality of the bearer so
well that those antiquarians who look upon the
ancient tales ^ relics merely and fragments of
defunct Semitic mythologies rely upon the co-
incidence of name and character as to one of
the supports of their hypothesis. They deny the
SARAH
historical character of the patriotic stories. But
even on their showing, the ancient^ or, if I may
use the term, the aboriginal, Hebrews show, in
this process transformation^ thb opposite ten-
dency to all the surrounding tribeSi The latter
invariably elevated their ancestors to the rank
of deities, seated them among the gods, and
instituted special rites of Worship to every one
of them. But if the mythologists are right, the
Hebrews dethroned their idols, called them by
human names, and told of their doings and their
mifedoings, their favor and their disfavor in the
eyes of Jehovah, with a coolness that proves that
the narrator, at all events, thought of no other
beings than ancestors of flesh and blood.
This is evidenced so clearly by their astonish**
ing power of characterization and individual-
i2ation. Why, right here before us we have a
picture which could not be drawn more distinct*-
ly by the hand of an accomplished artist of to-
day. By the side of Sarah, with her domineer-
ing, unsparing, and unyielding ways— ^Abraham,
a pattern of gentleness, kindness, forbtarancri, a
man possessed of that quality which the Germans
>3
WOMEN OF THE BIBLE
call Menschenfreundlichkeit This character is
so uniformly shown by the patriarch that one is
forced to the conclusion that the long peace in
the matrimonial tent was much more due to the
male than the female side, unless, indeed, we be-
lieve in Shiller's statement :
"Denn wo das Strenge mit dem Weichen
Sich vereint zum guten Zeichen,
Da giebt es einen guten Klang."
But, to be just, let us not forget that Sarah
wielded a sceptre by the magic of which she
could lord it over men's hearts after her own
will, even bring kings to her feet. If she came
into the world with a will of her own as her
dowry, nature further assisted her in developing
it by the great beauty of her face and the grace
of her stature. By these gifts she made her wish
a command and disarmed opposition. The
Scripture repeatedly calls her beautiful — so
beautiful, indeed, that she sometimes imperilled
the life of her husband. Hebrew folk-lore,
echoes of which reach our ear in the rabbinical
glosses to the sacred text, have kept alive some
SARAH
of the stories that were told of Sarah's beauty in
the tents of her descendants. Her rank, it was
said, was, in that respect, second only to Eve,
" the mother of all living," The latter, being the
direct creation of God, needs must be the high-
est ideal of female perfection (so the people's
mind reasoned), and therefore the special object
of hatred of Satan. With her at her post and
unshaken in her obedience, his chances of ruin-
ing the first home on earth, his chances of mis-
chief-making, would be poor ; but he also knew
that the only allurement that could tempt Eve
would be the vision of a higher degree of exist-
ence, and he laid his plan accordingly. "Ye
shall be like unto God, knowing good and evil."
The tempter succeeded only too well with Eve ;
Adam's fall followed as a matter of course — how
can it be otherwise with any man whose home
has been broken up f Too well, I said, but not
quite as he intended. For the wise men of to-
day assure us that, in a Paradise of God's own
planting, sinners can only " fall upwards." It is
a pretty long time since mankind has been fall-
ing in that direction — are we any nearer the goal
WOMEN OF THE BIBLE
of •* knowing good and evil " ? Who is right,
England or the Boers ? The answer will not be
rendered until the last shot in this war has been
fired, and ten thousand graves filled that did not
rightfully belong to death, and ten thousand
homes devasted where, but for that discussion,
happiness and peace might still reign! And
what a solution it will be^^Das sich Gott
erbarm I
But this is aside from our purpose— we were
speaking of what the Palestinian legend told of
Sarah '4 beauty. It was of that nature over which
time has no power— nay, that grows more attract
tive with accumulating years. Of the things that
are unfavorable to the preservation of beauty, the
Orientals count travel as one that is most bane-
ful, even fatal to it Yet when Sarah arrived,
after a long journey through dusty deserts and
under a scorching sun, at the frontiers of Egypt,
she was more beautiful than ever, and this ex^
plains the curious speech of Abraham to his wife
at that juncture : *< Now I know that thou art a
woman beautiful to look at." Did he not know
that before ? Not so convincingly, explain the
96
SARAH
rabbles, as after he had seen that even travel
had left no trace on her countenance. But that
which under different conditions would have
filled his heart with joy now made him tremble
for' his own safety. Aliens had no rights what-
ever in those days. The Egyptians, he feared,
on seeing Sarah, would make short^work of him;
they would kill the husband and appropriate his
wife. In his anxiety he fell upon a curious de*
vice (so the legend tells). He made a box of
common wood, and placed Sarah in it Arrived
at the city gate, the tax-gatherer demanded the
king's impost.
** I am willing to pay it," said Abraham.
" Then tell me what thou carriest in the box ;
is it lamb-skins dyed violet ?"
*• I will pay for lamb-skins."
" Perhaps it is silken garments ?"
•* I will pay for silken garments."
" Perhaps it is pearls thou hidest there ?"
" I will pay for pearls."
" If thou dost not tell, we must open the box ";
and as they did so, a ray of light flashed over the
city, which excited the curiosity of the courtiers.
37
WOMEN OF THE BIBLE
Thus it was that the news of the arrival of the
world-renowned woman reached the king's ears.
Forthwith he commanded that she be brought
before him. Once seen, he would not let her de-
part again, and it needed Divine intervention to
restore her to her husband.
The legend reads, better than the Bible story,
so far as the characters of the dramatis personce
are concerned. In the Bible we find Abraham
resorting to a falsehood to save his life, Sarah
consenting willingly. He said to her :
" It shall come to pass, when the Egyptians shall see
thee, that they shall say. This is his wife : and they
will kill me, but they will save thee alive. Say, I pray
thee, thou art my sister : that it may be w.ell with me
for thy sake, and my soul shall live because of thee."
Considering that a question of life and death
is as severe a test as a man's conscience can be
subjecte<5 to, it is not fair to condemn him out-
right if he seeks to save himself by a subter-
fuge ; for the pretence was not a lie outright, a
half-truth only, since Sarah was his half-sister;
they were children of the same father, but not of
the same mother ; moreover, it was not fear for
23
SARAH
his own life alone by which he was actuated —
but anxiety for Sarah*s fate also. For what
would become of her if she remained unpro-
tected in the hands of her captor ? She would
be cast out again as she was brought in, or be-
come one of the handmaidens of the royal
household.
And so we see Sarah play her proud part
even unto the end, and hear not a word in miti-
gation of her conduct. Yet this might have
been easily done. For that queenly woman,
that held her surroundings in undisputed sub-
jection, was not a happy woman ; far from it ;
nay, carried death in her heart. The one recog-
nized token of heavenly favor was denied her —
she bore no children. In motherhood these an-
cient Hebrews saw the crown of womanhood.
For its absence earth had no compensation, as
the stories of Rachel and Hannah show. No
doubt Sarah was made to feel her inferiority to
the poorest woman that came to her tent asking
for food and shelter with a babe in her arms.
How deeply Abraham shared this humiliation
we learn from the answer he made to God
29
WOMEN OF THE BIBLE
when, as it were, the Almighty Himself tried to
comfort him by His gracious promise :
" Fear not, Abram, I am with thee ; I am thy shield ;
thy reward shall be very great. And Abram said : Lord
God, what wilt Thou give me, seeing I go childless, and
the steward of my house is this Eliezer of Damascus ?"
To the latter, or his son, it seems, belonged
the right of succession, according to the law of
the time. In her despair, Sarah resorted to a
step which must have filled her cup of bitter-
ness to the brim. She gave Abram her own
handmaid Hagar for his secondary wife, making
her a rival in the love^ of her husband. Who
was that Hagar ? Legend knows her pedigree.
She was a daughter of Pharaoh, the king of
Egypt, the same who coveted the possession of
Sarah in vain. Such was the attachment of the
Egyptian princess to the Canaanite woman that
she declared to her royal father her determina-
tion to accompany the stranger when the latter
was returned to her husband. What! cried the
king; thou wilt be no more than a handmaid to
her ! Better to be a handmaid in the tents of
Abraham than a princess in this palace. And
30
SARAH
the reason for this heroic resolve ? Why, the
Jewish theologians knew that as well. Sarah
was an active missionary of the new faith
among women, as Abraham was among men.
Hagar would not stay behind and join again the
idolatrous rites of her home. But — and here
we take up the thread of the biblical narrative
again — human nature remains human nature,
even in converts. No sooner did the hope of
motherhood spring up in her heart than " her mis-
tress was despised in her eyes." Sarah laid the
blame for this upon her husband, because in her
complaint to him she cried, '* The Lord judge
between me and thee." The kind-hearted soul,
as he was, what could he do but let Sarah dis-
cipline her maid as she found proper? "And
when Sarah dealt hardly with Hagar," she fled
from her face. But whither was she to go?
Her good angel convinced her erelong that she
must " return to her mistress and submit herself
under her hands." For the child must be born
in the house of Abraham, if his rights of succes-
sion wete to be recognized at all. This hap-
pened, and, for a time, peace was restored;
31
WOMEN OF THE BIBLE
which, however, was not a long time. For that
which neither Sarah nor •'the Father of the
Faithful " dared to hope, in the face of repeated
promises of God, did occur — Sarah bore a son,
to whom the name of Isaac was given ; a name
which lends itself to various applications, be-
cause its root meaning is, to laugh ; and tlie
mother interpreted it in this wise: God has
made me a laughing-stock. She said this on
account of Hagar, who sneered at her mistress
for her vain hope to rob Ishmael of his rights as
the first-born of Abraham. The crisis was not
long in coming. Once upon a day Sarah over-
heard Ishmael taunting Isaac with his lower
rank in the household. This was more than
she could tolerate. Living together had become
impossible, and who should give way for the
other was not questionable to her. She de-
manded the sending away of the rival mother
with her son. But « the thing was grievous in
the sight of Abraham," and he flatly refused to
consent to so ruthless a measure ; we infer this
from the fact that it needed the reassuring
direction of God to make him yield :
32
SARAH
" And God said unto Abraham, Let it not be g^evous
in thy sight because of the lad, and because of thy
bondwoman ; in all that Sarah hath said unto thee,
hearken unto her voice : for in Isaac shall thy progeny
be called. And also of the son of the bondwoman will
I make a nation, because he is of thy progeny."
The pathetic story of Hagar's wanderings in
the desert has been carried to the ends of the
earth by both Bible and Koran, and still appeals
to the hearts of men, while Sarah's triumph is
accounted a disgrace to her. It is the last act
of her life which is told in Scripture; of her
death we hear no more than that it occurred at
Hebron at the age of one hundred and twenty,
and that Abraham came "to mourn for Sarah
and to weep for her." The expression he came
affords the clue to a legend which casts a tragic
light over her death-bed. It tells that Abraham
had left his home to go to Moriah secretly, as
he was afraid to let the mother know the terrible
purpose of that journey. But when she learned
that he had. taken Isaac with him, and likewise
wood and fire and a knife, the horrible suspicion
dawned on her that her son might be the sacri-
fice the father would offer, and the thought so
c 33
WOMEN OF THE BIBLE
terrified her that she died from the shock ! So
that Abraham came home only to " mourn and
to weep for Sarah," although her son was by his
side unharmed. Had she been alive she might
have received him back from the hands of God,
and heard with delight of the angel's voice that
restrained the hand of the over-devout father.
" Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do
thou anything unto him : for now I know that
thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld
thy son, thine only son, from me." But eye and
ear of the mother were closed forever to earthly
things, and the heart stilled forever beyond the
reach of the terrors to which human flesh, and es-
pecially mothers' hearts, are heir. Legends are
often of deeper significance than we see in them ;
they reflect thoughts and feelings which darkly
move the popular mind, but which it has not the
gift to clothe in words. Stories must serve as
mediums of expression. There ^Vas nothing in
the life of Sarah that appealed to the sympathy
of the people. She always carried her will with
a high hand, and no deed was recorded of her
that revealed tenderness of heart and self-renun-
34
SARAH
ciation. Even as a wife and a mother she did not
show the qualities that answer to the people's
intuitions. She was only venerated, but not
loved ; and this want a poet supplied by the in-
vention of a tale which showed that that prince-
ly woman, that proud mother, that spoiled child
of fortune, died of a broken heart !
Sarah was neither saint nor heroine. She
was not high-minded or sympathetic, and her
love of truth was not deep nor overmastering.
For all that, she must have been a great woman,
else she could not have played the part she did,
nor held the affection and veneration of her con-
sort to the end as she did. This is evidenced
by the care he took to secure a burial-place for
her ashes worthy of her station in life. He ac-
quired of the children of Cheth "the cave
(Machpelah) with all the trees that were in the
field, that were ii? all the borders round about."
He purchased it at their own price. Altogether
the transaction as described in the Bible speaks
well for the politeness of both contracting par-
ties. It is not at all unlikely that the Chethites
were moved by the sight of the grief which the
35
WOMEN OF THE BIBLE
aged husband evinced at the loss of his wife.
Little, however, could they foresee the sacred
importance the transfer of the cave would as.
sume in the course of centuries ; that they were
surrendering a spot that would some day be
counted among the most famous on earth, and
be guarded from profanation with a sleepless
jealousy against the intrusion even of the eye of
the unbeliever! And by whom is this guard
kept? By those who recognize in the outcast
son of the handmaid, Ishmael, the God-chosen
son of Abraham, " the friend of God," while the
progeny of Sarah and Isaac are not allowed
even to approach the last resting-place of their
first parents I So little do we men know the
consequences of our actions, and whither they
shall lead after they have been caught up in
the currents of cause and effect — the same
which Emerson calls Fate.
3. SARAH By THOMAS E. MILLER, M.A.
" And God said unto Abraham, As for Sarai thy wife, thou shalt not call
her name Sarai, but Sarah shall her name be." GE ESIS, xvii. 15.
IT is well to remember that our character-sketch belongs to a period
some 4000 years before the birth of Christ ; and while human nature has
changed but little, there is considerable change in the manners and
customs as between those Old World Eastern people and ourselves. Then
we have another interesting fact regarding this period. Many in our day
have been asking the question, " Can we rely upon this as history ? Is it
genuine biography that we are dealing with in these early chapters of the
Bible ? " Strangely enough witnesses are coming to light in our own day
to attest its accuracy, and we are finding Abraham s name and incidents
in his life confirmed on the cuneiform inscriptions that are being
unearthed to-day in the work of Egyptian exploration. Then, too, their
burying-place the sepulchre of Abraham and Sarah and their son Isaac
and their daughter-in-law Rebekah is still with us, the interesting
historic spot near Hebron jealously guarded by the Mussulman. There is
a wall built round it fifty-eight feet high, and no Christian is permitted to
enter. It was only by
Sarah 2 1 special permission that our late King, in the year 1862, when
Prince of Wales, was allowed to enter and ascend the stair and look upon
this interesting grave. ow, of course, in our minds, and in the Scrip ture
narrative itself, it is Abraham who fills the largest space in these
chapters. Sarah is hardly visible in the shadow of her distinguished
husband.
It is something akin to the relation between the Forth and Tay Bridges.
Visitors to this country make a pilgrimage to the Forth Bridge and gaze
upon the wonderful structure, and will tell you how many tons of steel
went to the building of it and the number of bolts there are holding it
together, but they do not go to see the Tay Bridge. They have never seen
it, and they have no great desire to make the pilgrimage. And yet the Tay
Bridge is as useful, in its way, as the Forth Bridge, and spans a wider
estuary than the estuary of the Forth. And we may say this much about
Sarah, and surely it is no small tribute, that she was a true helpmeet to
her great and gifted husband. Well, then, who was Sarah ? We know
nothing about her beyond the fact that she was a native of the same place
and belonged to the same family as her husband. In the twentieth
chapter Abraham declares, in his own defence, that she was his half-
sister, that they were the children of the same father but not the same
mother. According to Josephus (and this was the Jewish tradition),
Sarah was the sister of Lot and there-
22 Women of the Bible fore Abraham s niece. These facts remind us that
we are dealing with a time to which our modern standards do not apply.
But we are on more solid and certain ground when we come to the
personality and character of Sarah. If we merely study the individual
features the results are not so pleasing ; there are episodes where Sarah
does not show to ad vantage ; but that is not how we judge a portrait or a
character : we piece it together, we look at it as a whole, and when we do
so in this case the character of Sarah is not only interesting, it is noble
and good. The first thing we note about Sarah is that she was beautiful :
she had the dower of physical beauty. Was this one of the things that
attracted
young Abraham to this maiden-relative of his ? It shows how human he
was, and we do not think any the less or worse of him for it. Beauty is
one of God s good gifts, and its possession one of the desires He has
planted deep down in every maiden s heart. It is not everything, but it is
something, and no doubt it played its part in casting its spell over the
heart of young Abraham. And yet it is often a perilous gift ; it proved so
in Sarah s case. So fair was she to look upon that whenever they went
into another state it might be down into Egypt or the neighbouring
country of Gerar they were exposed to danger, and Abraham had
recourse to subterfuge to save himself from what jealous princes might
do to him on account of Sarah s beauty. The meanest
Sarah 23 things that Abraham did in his long life were those attempts to
shield himself from what might happen through the exceptional beauty
of Sarah. One has also to say this, that while it is an enviable possession
this dower of beauty it has its risks and temptations. Dante speaks of the
fatal dower of Constantine, when he bestowed on the Christian Church
his patronage and gifts of gold; and in the light of history, from fair
Helen of Troy to Mary Queen of Scots, we may speak of the fatal dower
of physical beauty. But we may speak of Sarah not only as the Beautiful
but as the Devoted. It was brave on her part, and showed where her
heart lay when she agreed to share her lot with this dreamer of dreams
and seer of visions. One feels sure that Abraham was no ordinary lad
even in those early days ; and while Romance and Poetry and Visions are
all very fine, they are not much good for paying household expenses and
keeping the house going. Genius, like beauty, is an enviable gift, but like
beauty it has its dangers, especially for those who happen to be the wives
of great men, of men of genius. " Oor Tarn is gie ill to live wi " that was
the verdict of
Carlyle s mother, and many a great man s bio graphy confirms it. Let us
bear in mind that when the duty was laid upon Abraham to go out from
kith and kin and country, it meant that Sarah had to go forth also, and
just because she was differently con stituted, it needed greater courage
on her part
24 Women of the Bible to leave home and kindred. In these matters
women are more conservative than men, they cling more to the past, they
would rather " bear those ills they have than fly to others that they know
not of " ; and one has the feeling that vSarah was opposed to this new
venture just because of its uncertainty and indefiniteness, but her wifely
devotion came in and she said, " Where thou goest I will go." It looked
as if Sarah was to be the true prophet, for when they got to Canaan they
found themselves face to face with famine : instead of a land of plenty it
was a land of want ; and Abraham had to think of again removing his
tent, as there were others besides himself to care for his wife, his nephew
Lot and his servants and he cast his eyes and his thoughts towards
Egypt, the land of plenty, the fertile country where corn abounded even
when other places were stricken with famine. And so they went down to
Egypt, and it was in approaching this land that Abraham suggested, with
a view to saving himself, that he and his wife should pass as brother and
sister, and it is a rare tribute to the devotion of Sarah that she consented
to this deception. o thanks to her husband that she came through the
ordeal scatheless. One thing connected with this sojourn in Egypt has to
be noted, because of its bearing on the home life of the patriarch and his
wife. Sarah brought back with her an Egyptian slave-girl, by name
Hagar. Brooding over things when they
Sarah 25 had finally settled in what was really their per manent home by
the Oaks of Mamre, near Hebron, his heroic wife wondered how the
promise made to her husband was to be fulfilled. God had said to him, "
I will make of thee a great nation." Ten years had passed and no child
was born. Abraham was rich and increased with goods : things had gone
well with them from a worldly point of view since their return from
Egypt ; Abraham was a great man, but then the promise was, " I will
make of thee a great nation," and of this there was no sign ; and
brooding over these things Sarah came to the sorrowful conclusion that
the promise was to be fulfilled not through her but through another. And
the Hagar incident was her scheme, her suggestion : that the slave should
become Abraham s second wife, and, because of her position, secondary,
so that a child born of this union would belong to Sarah more than to
Hagar. Are we ready to condemn Sarah for this line of conduct ? To say
all manner of harsh things about her ? That it betrays a want of faith in
God, an attempt to play the part of Providence herself ? Let us withhold
our criticism as we certainly would if we knew what she herself suffered,
what it cost her, in agony of soul, to make this sacrifice. The narrative
says that she " thought to be builded " by Hagar, but she had reckoned
without her host ; she was fashioning a sword that would pierce her own
heart ; it certainly brought discord into the home, for the slave-girl, as
the wife of her master and the mother
26 Women of the Bible of his heir, turned upon her mistress with
provoca tion and scorn. " Her mistress," we read, " was despised in her
eyes." It was more than Sarah could bear, and it was so like a jealous
wife to turn upon her husband and blame him for it all, and then in the
succeeding days to make poor Hagar s life a constant misery until the
maid ran away from the face of her mistress and sought shelter
in the wilderness. It is all so true to life. Perhaps Sarah is seen at her
worst in this domestic quarrel, not only in her jealousy but in the way in
which it finds expression, first towards her- husband and then towards
Hagar ; and yet we would not have it otherwise ; she is a true pioneer of
woman s right in the right place. She will be mistress in her own home
and reign there without a rival. It is a scriptural condemnation of
polygamy in any form. But we must not forget that Sarah had been
instrumental in bringing the trouble into the home, and God sent Hagar
back to be under Sarah s care ; and it was like a princess (for that is the
meaning of Sarah) to receive her back and to make the best of the
situation. And so years pass and we know next to nothing of the
happenings in the home, when a strange thing takes place. Abraham is
seated in the door of his tent, seeking a place of shade from the heat of
the midday sun, when three strangers approach. Perhaps it was only the
instinct of hospitality, or something in the bearing of the visitors, that led
Abraham to invite the strangers
Sarah 27 to share in the shelter of his tent and to set food and drink
before them. Then follows the story so exquisitely told in that eighteenth
chapter of Genesis. The announcement that Sarah herself would be the
mother of the Child of Promise ; and Sarah heard it, for though in the
inner part of the tent, we may be quite sure her ear was close to the
canvas (for she was a woman) , and she heard it and she laughed not a
mocking laugh altogether but the laugh of incredulity ; yet before the
interview was ended the laugh was turned into a strange fear, and, like
her husband, Sarah believed God, and it was counted unto her for
righteousness. That chapter is a great turning-point not only in Sarah s
life-history but in her own character. And the Child of Promise is born,
and he is
called Isaac, i.e. laughter, for, said the proud mother, every one that
heareth will laugh with me : she forgot in her joy that there might be
those who would laugh at her. And this is what actually happened. o
doubt he was a puny child, but not the less dear to the mother on that
account : a striking contrast to the strong, lusty Ishmael, the child of
Hagar. And so it happened on little Isaac s feast-day, the day when he
was weaned, and his father made a great feast, that the son of Hagar was
discovered by the quick eye of Sarah making a mock of her child. It
wakened the tiger within her, and she stood up in her majesty before her
husband princess-like and said with an emphasis that
28 Women of the Bible could not be mistaken, " Cast out this bond
woman and her son, for the son of this bond woman shall not be heir
with my son, even with Isaac." And every right thinking wife and
mother will take the side of Sarah. Scripture itself does ; God does ; for
although the matter was grievous to Abraham on account of his son, God
said, " In all that Sarah saith unto thee hearken unto her voice ; for in
Isaac shall thy seed be called." Sarah the Beautiful, Sarah the Devoted,
Sarah the Jealous, Sarah, finally, as Queen of the Heart and Home. We
speak, and we think, of the trial of Abraham in the offering up of Isaac,
when the command seemed to be laid upon him by God to lay this son of
his, the Child of Promise, the hope for the future, upon the Altar of
Sacrifice. And we have journeyed with him in thought to Mount Moriah
and climbed its ascent, and felt how terrible the ordeal must have been ;
but how many of us have thought of what it meant to the Mother-heart
by the Oaks of Mamre, near Hebron ? Abraham s sacrifice ! Was it not
in a yet greater degree Sarah s sacrifice ? For who was Isaac ? The child
of her old age, the apple of her eye, the joy of her heart, the light of her
home : Isaac the clinging, affectionate, stay-at-home, for he
was never a robust child. But all this added to the greatness of the
wrench and of the sacrifice ; and there may be truth in the Jewish
tradition, although Scripture does not confirm it, that when father and
son returned from Mount Moriah,
Sarah 29 the faithful wife and loving mother had already passed within
the veil. The suspense of the thing, the strain of it, had been too great for
her. She was lovingly laid to rest in the cave of the field of Machpelah,
before Mamre, in the land of Canaan ; and Abraham does not withhold
his tribute to her sterling worth, her steadfastness, her devotion, her high
conception of wifely duty. We think of her as a " woman nobly planned,
to warn, to comfort, and command." " A creature not too good for
human nature s daily food." With her faults and failings and frailties for
she was a true woman ; yet with it all worthy of the name of princess not
Sarai, which means strife, vanity, but Sarah, Princess, Queen of the
Heart and Home. There is just one other ray of light upon her character
worthy of mention. We read at the end of chapter xxiv. that Isaac
brought Rebekah into his mother Sarah s tent, and she became his wife
and lie loved her " and Isaac was com forted after his mother s death." It
is that last sentence that is significant significant of the relation between
mother and son of the love of the mother for the son, of the son for the
mother. It suggests that, up till now, Isaac refused to be comforted. And
here, too, Sarah comes before us as the first of that great and noble
company of mothers whose love has been and is one of the great
redeeming forces of the world. Strong men may not care to reveal it or to
speak about it, but it is there, an abiding influence, restraining from evil,
constraining to good. The American Evangelists, Messrs Torrey and
Alexander, declared that the Hymn, " Tell mother I ll be there," had
been instrumental in breaking down thousands of careless men. There is
not
very much poetry in the Hymn and not much music in the tune, but it
touched this chord, it awakened memories, it put its finger on the
tenderest part that beats in the heart of every man. And to-day we lay
our tribute on the grave at Machpelah in memory of a devoted wife and
mother.
4. SARAH By ALEXANDER WHYTE
BUT SARAH WAS BARREN , SHE HAD NO CHILD
WHICH things are an allegory,' says the Apostle when he brings in
Sarah and Hagar her handmaid into the fourth chapter of his Epistle to
the Galatians. And no doubt, his first readers must have understood the
Apostle'^s mystical argument and must have got the good they needed in
their day out of his spiritual exposition. But if Paul had only been led to
take up our text of to-night, and to treat Sarah and her childlessness as
an allegory, what an evangelical argument, and what a fruitful and far-
reaching application both the Galatian Church and all the churches ever
after would have got! For, out of this little, parenthetical, Mdden-away
verse the whole of the succeeding eleven epoch-making chapters of
Genesis immediately spring. Chaldea, and Canaan, and Egypt ; Hagar
and Ishmael ; the promise of Isaac, and then the birth, the circumcision,
the sacrifice, and the deliverance of Isaac; all the trials and all the
triumphs of his father's and his mother'^s faith; all their falls; all their
victories ; all God's promises, and all His wonderful and adorable
providences in their so exercised lives ; all their attainments in truth and
in obedience; and then, to crown all, the complete fulfilment of Grod's so
long delayed promise — all that, and much more that has not been told
— it all arose out of this, that Sarah had no diild. * It is an allegory,' says
Bengel, ^ when anything is said and another thing more excellent is
signified.' And I cannot get it out of my heart that my text to-ni^t,
biographical reality, real historicity, and all, is somehow an allegory also.
It will persist in my heart that Abraham is my faith in God's promise to
me of the fruit of the Spirit in me ; while childless Sarah, Abraham's
married wife, is my still unfruitful heart. For I have some faith, but I
have no love. I have not enough faith to make my love fruitful. My heart
is as much without a spiritual seed as was Sarah's silent tent. I laugh at
the idea, like Sarah behind her tent door. I say to myself, half in faith,
half in fear, half in mockery at myself. Shall I ever have pleasure ? Shall
Christ ever be formed in me ? Till I am sometimes, like poor Sarah in
her sterile tent, driven desperate. Driven desperate, and reckless, and
wild. like Sarah, I fall into sore temptations between the Divine promise
on the one hand, and my own evil heart on the other hand. Like her,
also, I am driven to dangerous, and, sometimes, I fear, to positively sinful
expedients, in my desolation and desperation. And, like Sarah, I involve
and f&tally injure other people also in my desperation. But still the great
promise holds on its course, and is repeated, and enlarged, and enriched,
and sealed; and still it is with me as it has been firom the beginning. TiU,
as I believe, and am determined to go on believing — Gk)d help my
unbelief! — God's promise to me also shall, in Grod'^s way and at God's
time, be all fulfilled. And my heart also, like Abraham and Sarah, shall
see of her travail and shall be satisfied. Yes. Had Paul, or even Fhilo ;
had Behmen, or Bunyan but taken up this text, and said, ^ Which things
are an allegory,' we would have had doctrine, and depth, and beauty,
and assurance, and comfort to our heart's content. But to come back to
solid ground, and to speak no more about parables. As time went on, and
as the hope of any possibility of her ever becoming a mother died out of
Sarah's heart, she became absolutely desperate. Had meekness, and
humility, and
resignation, and the blotting-out of herself, but grown apace with her
disappointment, that would have hid Sarah from all her temptations,
and it would at the same time have hastened the lifting oi^ of her cross.
But her terrible cross had but inflamed and intensified her pride ; it had
but determined her to find some wild and wilful way for herself out of
Grod's way and God's wilL It was intolerable to Sarah to live on any
longer such an embarrassment to her husband, such an evident obstacle
to the prosperity of his house, and such an eye-sore and jest, to all the
camp and to all the coimtiy around. And in the wildness of her pride
Sarah determined to as good as slay herself, and to make it impossible
for Abraham in his heart of hearts any longer to despise her. And thus it
was that what looked like a perfect miracle of humility in Sarah, was
really an act of exasperated pride. Sarah sacrificed herself on the
cruellest altar on which any woman ever laid herself down ; but the
cords of the sacrifice were all the time the cords of a suicidal pride ; till
the sacrifice was both a great sin in the sight of Grod, a fatal uijury to
herself, to her husband, and to innocent generations yet unborn. What
looks to all men'^s eyes like a martyr^s devotion may all the time be but
impatience, and petulance, and pride, and revenge. The outward act may
sound heroic, while all the time cowardice and selfishness and
exasperated pride may be at the bottom of it. To sacrifice yourself,
therefore, is not enough. Your mind, your motive, your spirit, and your
temper in making the sacrifice, that is everything. Sarab sacrificed
herself to the last drop of a woman^s blood ; but all the time her heart
was as high as heaven and as hot as hell both against Grod and against
her husband also. ^ Behold, now, the Lord hath restrained me ; but
there is my maid ! ^ You are a truly humble man when you are truly
despised in your own eyes. But your humility
has not stood its very last test till you are despised in our eyes also every
day. The truest humility is attained; the truest humility is ascertained,
and certified, and sealed only by humiliations being heaped upon it from
without; from above, from
beneath, and from all around. And, had Sarah^s humility been a true
and a genuine humility ; had her ostentatious sacrifice of herself not had
its secret roots in a deep and a cruel pride ; she would have opened her
heart to all Hagar's contempt. Hagar^s scorn would have been an
excellent oil to Sarah'^s head, and she would thus have seciu^ and
hastened her own fruitfulness and motherhood. But Sarah of herself had
run herself into a temptation too terrible for her to bear. Her
humiliating diildlessness was honour, and rest, and peace, and love
compared with her uttermost and incessant misery now. ^ My wrong be
upon thee,^ she assailed her husband, ^ for I am despised in the eyes of
my own maid ! ' My brethren, you must make up your mind to bear with
what has sprung upon you out of your own past misdeeds. It is the least
you can do to hold your peace, and to bear with meekness the hand of
God. Your life all your days may henceforth be made bitter to you
because of your past. But what would you have? Would you have a
peaceful, a free, an untrammelled, and a happy after-life out of a past life
like yours? You cannot have it. Life is not built on that plan. Grod does
not live in heaven and rule on earth on that principle. Or, if He does, the
worse it will be for you in the long-run. Put it in words and look at it.
Would you run yourself and other people into sin and guilt as suits you,
and then would you wipe your mouth and walk off as a guileless and an
innocent man? You cannot do it. And you need not try. Kiss the rod
rather. Kiss the rod, and the hand that holds it. Say,
It is the Lord. Say that though He should slay you, yet you will not
complain. Say this; say it with Micah when he was in some such distress,
say, ^I will bear the indignation of the Lord, because I have sinned
against Him, until He plead my cause and execute judgment for me.^
Cast out the bondwoman and her son I o, Sarah, you cannot do it. You
may tiy to do it, but the angel of the Lord will bring Hagar and Ishmael
back again upon you. You surely know Hagar, Sarah ! She is your own
handmaiden. But for you, you must remember, Hagar would have still
been a pure, modest, obedient child. And if she and her unlawful son are
thorns in your eyes, they are both thorns of your own planting. You
bought Hagar in Egypt. You bribed her to leave her mother^s house.
You engaged to be a mother to her. You took her, and made her your
tool ; you debauched her, and then you would cast her out. And you did,
and would do all this, in spite both of God and man. And now you would
like to get back to where you were before your terrible trespass. You
would fain have Hagar and her fatherless boy back in Egypt, and your
tent in Canaan the abode of peace and love and honour it was at the
beginning. o, Sarah, mother of so much mischief, you cannot have it. It
cannot be. Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right ? Hagar had not
come fix»m Ur of the Chaldees with the immigration, neither had she
been bought by Abraham in Canaan. Hagar, originally, was an Egyptian
child. When Sarah was down in Egypt witli her husband Abraham,
young Hagar had been recommended to Sarah for a lady'^s maid. And
Sarah had made trial of the girl in the place, and had been glad to find
that she had all the talent and all the character she had been certificated
to have. And though it looked a wild proposal that Hagar should leave
her mother^s house, and all the religion and civilisation of Egypt, to go
to the
savage land of the Philistines, yet, what a princess like Sarah had once
set her heart upon, poor people like Hagar's parents could not oppose.
Sarah was rich, and she had the imperious temper of riches. And,
besides, Sarah, the sister of Abraham, was a favourite in Fharaoh'^s
palace. Hagar^s expatriation and banishment so far from home made
her all the better a maid to Sarah. Hagar had no choice. She must please
her mistress. She had no temptation or opportunity to do anything else.
She was so far from home now that Sarah became both mistress and
mother to the poor Egyptian girl. All went well, only too well, indeed,
with Sarah and Hagar till Sarah^s sin began to find her out. And when
Sarah dealt hardly with Hagar she fled from the face of her mistress.
Poor Hagar ! Mother of so many miserable women in all lands and in all
ages ever since. Hundreds of miles, weeks of wilderness, and of tears, and
of bleeding feet, and of a bleeding heart from her mother's door. Afraid
to face her mother. Terrified at the thought of her father. Spat upon and
cast out of doors by her sisters and their husbands. Shall she kill her
child? Shall she kill herself? Oh, why was I bom? Oh, why did I ever
come to this cursed land? Why did I ever take the wages of that wicked
woman? Let the night perish on which she took me and led me up into
her bed ! Let darkness and the shadow of death stain it ; let a cloud
dwell upon it ; let the gross darkness terrify it ! Till she awakened and
found herself with a well of water close beside her. * Return to thy
mistress. Submit thyself to thy mistress. ot only to the good and gentle,
but also to the firoward,^ said the angel at the well. And as she drank of
the well she said, Beer-lahai-roi. Thou God seest me ! Behold, that well
still springs up in the wilderness of Shur ; it is to be found on the road
between Eadesh and Bered. Beeb-lahai-roi. Thou God seest me ! Hagar,
by reason of the extremity of her sorrow ; by reason of the utter
desolateness and brokenness of her heart ;
and by reason of the sovereign grace and abounding mercy of God —
Hagar, I say, stands out before us in the very foremost rank of faith, and
trust, and experience, and assurance. Hagar, to me, stands out among
God's very electest saints. Hagar has only one or two who can stand
beside her in her discovery of God, in her nearness to God, in her faceto-
face fellowship with God, in the instructiveness, in the comfort, and in
the hopefulness of her so close communion with God. ot Adam before his
fall ; not Enoch, who so pleased God ; not Abraham at his call, or after
offering his son ; not Jacob at Bethel, nor Israel at the Jabbok ; not
Moses on the mount and in the cleft rock; not Isaiah in the temple, and
not John in the spirit — ^not the best and the most blessed of them all
was more blessed or better blessed than was Hagar the polluted outcast
on her weeping way to Shur. The pure in heart shall see God. And, what
impurity Hagar had contracted of Sarah and Abraham she had washed
away, her head waters and her eyes a fountain of tears, all the way firom
Abraham^s tent door to that well in the wilderness. She had washed her
polluted body and her scornful and revengeful heart with her penitential
tears, till, by the time she came to the well, she was counted clean enough
to see God. And she saw God at that wilderness-well with a deamess, and
with an assurance, and with a rapture, and with a submission, and with
an immediate obedience that all combine to lift up Hagar and to set
Hagar beside, and even before, both her master and her mistress in the
favour and in the fellowship of God. For, firom that day on the way to
Shur, all the days of Hagar'^s pilgrimage on earth, we still see Sarah and
Abraham entreating Hagar with hardness till she drinks again and again
of the well of Grod, and again and again has Almighty God given to her
and to him as the heavenly Father of her fatherless son. In Thee, O God,
the fatherless have always found mercy.
ow, in Grod's mercy, is there any Hagar here ? Is there any outcast
here? Is there any soul of man or woman ready to perish here ? Who can
tell who is here? Where would such be found if not here? Is not this the
house of God? Does this house not stand on the wayside to Shur ? Has
this house not been Beer-lahai*ioi to many who were in far greater
straits, and under fax greater guilt, than ever Hagar wasp Many have
said of this house, Thou God seest me ! Many have come up to this house
with a secret burden. Many have gone home from this house to take up
their cast-off cross, and to endure to the end. Is there a motherless
woman-child here P Is there a deceived, injured, cast-out sinner here P
My sister, thy God is here. Thou hast been led of His angel in coming
here. His well is here. He has dug that well for thee. Spring up, O well !
And that is He Himself, His true and very Self, Who is now laying His
hand on thy dishonoured and downcast houL That is His Holy Spirit
who is now bringing these tears to thine eyes. That is His voice in thy
heart, saying * Hagar, Sarah^s maid, whence comest thou, and whither
wilt thou go ? ^ Stoop down, Hagar, and drink and be refireshed and
revived. Fall down and weep. Lift up thy heart and pray. Behold, Hagar,
He is lifting thee up. He is washing thy feet. He is washing thy hands. He
is washing with water and with blood thy heart. Think, Hagar, think.
Believe, Hagar, believe. Admire, Hagar, and praise. For He is the same
wonderful, wonderful, most wonderful Gk)d who met the first Hagar on
her way back to her mother^s disgraced and angry door. Wonderful is
His name. He was in Egypt, He was in Canaan, He was in Mamre, and
He appeared at Shur. He was there when thou wert bom in thy mother^s
house in Scotland also. He swaddled thee. He girded thee. He called thee
by thy name. The foolishness of thy youth was not hid from Him. He
bore with thee, and still bore with thee. And
when thy lovers had hold of thy deceived heart, He pitied thee, and had
thoughts of love toward thee. And when thy lovers wearied of thee, and
had served themselves of thee, then His time of love began with thee.
When thou didst fall His hand held thee up. When thou hadst destroyed
thyself He redeemed thee. He made thy sin bitter to thee. He made thy
life a wilderness around thee. He made thy heart a wilderness within
thee. He made this whole world flint to thy feet, and dust to thy mouth,
and a very hell to thy cast-off heart. And when He had humbled thee,
and tried thee, and utterly broken and silenced thee. He came near at the
well of Shur to thee, and these, to His everlasting praise, were His words
to thee, 'Fear not, for thou shalt not be confounded. For thy Maker is thy
husband. For the Lord hath called thee as a woman forsaken and
grieved in spirit. For a small moment have I forsaken thee, but with
everlasting kindness will I have mercy upon thee, saith the Lord, thy
Redeemer. O thou afflicted, tossed with tempest, and not comforted ; no
weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper, and every tongue that
shall rise in judgment against thee shalt thou condemn. This is the
heritage of the servants of the Lord, and their righteousness is of Me,
saith the Lord.' 'Doubtless Thou art our Father, though Abraham be
ignorant of us, and Israel acknowledge us not. Thou, O Lord, art our
Father, our Redeemer. Thy name is from everlasting.'
5. SARAH THE PRINCESS By H. A. THOMPSON
SARAH was the wife of Abraham, the founder of the Jewish nation.
Abraham speaks of her as his sister, the daughter of the same father, but
not the daughter of the same mother. A [any suppose this simply means
that Ilaran, her father, was her half-brother, for in accordance with the
use of language among the Hebrews, he could call a niece a sister and a
granddaughter a daughter. Her history is in. part the history of
Abraham. God determines to lift Abraham out of the idolatry which is
all about him in Ur of the Chaldees, and through him build up a great
nation. In obedience to a divine call, this man and his childless wife set
out on a strange journey. They were seeking a land which was to be
shown them, but where it was they knew not. They carried with them all
they had, piled upon the camels backs, and a few servants probably to
care for their cattle. An orphan nephew was the only one of their family
who had the courage to ally himself with them. "As we dimly picture
them setting forth in the pale dawn of history, we seem to see the laden
camels pacing slowly, towering above the slow-footed sheep. \Ye hear the
drivers cries and the bleating of the sheep, broken by the wail of parting
women." It would not be strange if Sarah at that supreme hour bent
over her camel s neck with a bursting heart and with a longing to remain
with her own kindred. \Ye are not sure that she had any call from God,
and while Abraham is going forth in obedience to the voice of God,
which he ever afterward followed, she was going because loyal to her
husband. They came by way of Damascus, where, no doubt, they tarried
for a time. His first halt in the land of promise is at Shechem. about in
the center of Canaan. Here he reared his first altar to Jehovah. How
much or how little he knew of God at this time we do not know. God s
selection of men for important places never excludes some natural
phases in the person chosen. A writer says of him: "When he turned his
face to the dreaded desert which stretched wide and inhospitable
between him and the
24 Women of the Bible nearest seats of men, he gave his first evidence of
that trust in the unseen Eternal One, leading to unquestioning, heroic
obedience which even then had formed the basis of his character and of
which his later life was to furnish so many illustrious examples. By faith,
Abraham, when he w r as called to go out into a place
which he should afterwards receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he
went out not know-ing whither he went/ is the comment of the
Scripture." After a time there is a famine in the land of promise, which
would be a trial of the man s faith. In the fertile plains of Chaldea no
doubt he had had an abundance, but now he is made to suffer hunger as
do others. So far as known to us, this new emigrant does not seem to ask
divine counsel, but on his own discretion starts southward in search of
food for himself and cattle and finally lands in F.gypt. The religion of
this people was a superstitious worship of nature. He knew the weakness
of human nature in a lax state of society. He may have known something
of the character of the people which we do not know and which tended to
intensify his fears. In a sense the people were respectful to women, and
yet they were sensual. lie insinu ates plainly that they were even less
scrupulous about murder than adultery, and they would be willing to kill
him for the sake of securing possession of his handsome wife. The
Rabbinic traditions are valuable as showing how deep an impression this
man and his wife have made upon mankind. According to them,
Abraham rested some days by the River ile. He saw his wife s form
reflected there as they walked by the river, and he was afraid he would
be slain for her sake. He had her placed in a chest so he could cross the
river, and when the custom house officers should ask him, he would pay
whatever they asked if they would pass it then. Does it contain silks? ask
the officers. I wtll pay the tenth, as of silk/ he replied. Does it contain
silver ? they inquired. * I will pay for it as silver/ answered Abraham. "
ay, then it must contain gold/ *T will pay for it as gold/ 1 Maybe it
contains most costly jewels/ I will pay for it as jewels/ he persi^ed.
Sarah the Princess 25 "In the struggle the box was broken open and in it
was seated
a beautiful woman whose countenance allured all Egypt. The news
reached the ears of Pharaoh and he sent and took her." To call Sarah his
sister was a half truth, but it was intended to deceive. His conduct
showed distrust in the protection of God and fear for his own safety. "It
did a cruel wrong to his wife, for it exposed her to the most serious of all
hazards. Xo defense can be offered for a man who, merely through dread
of danger to himself, tells a lie, risks his wife s chastity, puts temptation
in the way of his neighbor, and betrays the charge to which the divine
favor has summoned him. Xot even the excuse can be offered of a sudden
impulse, for the scheme was prearranged between hus band and wife
before they entered Egypt. . . . Deceit in order to gain a point or avert a
disaster is to this day an inveterate habit with most Orientalists; in the
best times of Israel, many others of lofty character arc found
succumbing to this dastardly vice. The tendency evidently lay deep in the
race from its first appearance." The arrival of so large a company would
attract attention. All who see the princess are struck with her beauty.
This may in part have been due to the race from which she sprang, or
the skies under which she lived. "To-day the beautiful Circassian girls of
the adjacent mountain region are sold in Constantinople, and it is said
there are no cheeks so soft and creamy, no eyes so deep and lustrous, as
theirs, no form so sylph-like and willowy. Of all the nations of the earth,
none has ever equaled that from which Sarah sprang." These princes are
courteous, and, desiring to stand well with the king, they make haste to
tell him of the remarkable woman who has just arrived. The purpose of
all this would be to supplant some other favored one and thus work their
way into court favor and secure court honors. Just what Abraham
expected to do to avert trouble, we are not quite sure. If, attracted by her
beauty and desirous of marry ing her, some one should make a
proposition, as her brother, he might delay matters by differing as to
dower or such things, until the famine would be over. lie most likely did
not dream of any interest CHI the part of the king. The king would not
have dared to take the wife of a distinguished visitor, but a sister he
might take and no one could object. He takes steps to add her to his
26 Women of the Bible household as a new wife. He adds many tokens of
respect and confers many favors upon Abraham. Before his plans were
fully consummated, "the Lord plagued Pharaoh and his house," and he
learns that he has been deceived and that Sarah was a wife and not a
sister. "The king took back none of the rich presents which he had made
to the presumed brother, probably as the purchase money for a wife, nor
did he offer to strip the shepherd chief of the increased wealth which had
accrued to him in the fertile graz ing grounds of Goshen, where hi?
descendants in the third genera tion were to be quartered. Still less,
though the sheik was wholly in the monarch s power, did he show him
the slightest violence. With nothing worse than a reproach, which is
severe just because it is so gently expressed, he bade him take back his
wife and begone." How many of us have speculated as to what would be
the result from this or that course of action, and how often have we been
disappointed ! We may have plans, but God also has plans. If ours agree
with his, he may bless them ; but if not, he may over rule them so as to
promote his own, or may blast them for our good. "The evil which
Abraham apprehended with respect to Sarah did indeed happen, but it
was brought about by the very measure he had taken to avert it ; and
there is every reason to sup pose that, had he from the first boldly
declared that she was his wife, relying on the protection of God, nothing
of the kind would have taken place ; as it was, this very desire of passing
her off for his sister, which was designed to secure his safe sojourn amid
the plenty of Egypt, became the very instrument of compelling his return
to the land of Canaan. How long Abraham and his wife remained in
Egypt we do not know ; but when sent away, they returned to the old
camping ground near Bethel. In Egypt he laid the foundation of the
family wealth, which must afterward have become enormous. Owing to
trouble among the herdsmen, he found it necessary for him and Lot to
separate. Lot chose Sodom because well watered and fertile. Soon after
this he moved to Mamre, near Hebron, where he dwelt for some time.
Before he came hence the Lord again cheered him by a repetition of the
promise that he should po^ess Canaan by a numerous posterity.
Sarah the Princess 27 Abraham had now been ten years in the land of
promise, and, although growing oM, was not impatient for the
fulfillment of the promise. He was to have a child and through him a
numerous posterity, but it had not been declared who the mother should
be. Sarah, concerned for her husband s glory and happiness, and seeing
but little hope at her advanced age that she should give birth to a child,
concluded that the promise, if fulfilled, must be
through the person of another ; so she offered to Abraham for a
secondary wife Hngar, her maid, a servant who had probably been given
to her in Egypt. There was nothing in this arrangement which seemed
wrong to Abraham at the time, although it carries an unpleasant look to
us. It would have seemed better for him to have waited by faith for the
fulfillment of the promise. "For a misti ess to seek by means of a female
slave and favorite attend ant what Providence had denied to herself, was
regarded as neither immoral nor revolting. It was not even held to be
any real departure from the law of monogamy or any infraction of
conjugal fidelity." What might have been expected as a natural result
now hap pens. When the young mistress saw that she was about to give
birth to a child, she is elated with the honor, and no doubt becomes a
little vain if not insolent. The vast possessions of Abraham will now be
entailed upon her posterity. It would be entirely natural for Sarah to
have some feelings of jealousy also when she saw that this woman, her
slave, would soon enjoy the advantage thus far denied her of becoming
the happy mother of a child. She now blames her husband for that which
she herself had planned and suggested. When she is now reaping the
fruits of her own suggestions, she begins to repent of her rashness.
Instead, how ever, of confession and condemning her own conduct, she
turns against her husband and could not have used more severe
language if he had purposely planned to injure her. Her conduct is that
of a peevish, disappointed woman, who had made a serious blunder, and
yet she appeals to God in a case where she was clearly in the wrong.
Hitherto the woman was Sarah s slave and she had the exclusive right to
control her ; but now, having in a sense become the wife of Abraham, it
is not likely she can be disposed of with out the consent of Abraham. He
does not seem to know much of the ill feeling that is going on in the
woman s tent until he is
28 Women of the Bible informed of it by Sarah. lie is a gentleman, with
no taste for domestic quarrels, and without upbraiding Sarah for what
had been done he simply resigns all control and tells her, "Behold, thy
maid is in thy hand." The record tells us that Sarah "dealt harshly with
her." This may mean by verbal reproaches, but more likely by some
personal mistreatment. The treatment was so severe that Hagar flees
from her home, but she cannot flee from the face of God. She is the
mother of Abraham s child, and has an interest in the protec tion of the
Almighty. An angel finds her and inquires whither
she is going and sends her back again with instruction to "submit thyself
under her hands." For her encouragement he tells her that her child
shall be the father of a great nation. The whole transaction shows Sarah
in a not very enviable light. She is the eager, impulsive, hot-headed
woman who is accustomed to be indulged, who is impatient in her
troubles, and who is positive that she is in the right. She is amazed and
angry because her husband does not bring this slave woman to terms. If
she again gets possession of her, she will teach her a lesson how to
conduct herself toward her superiors. "A more magnanimous woman
might have spared the sister whom she had herself thrown into a
position of difficulty ; but this Chaldean princess was not above showing
unhandsome spite when her woman s pride had been touched to the
quick. She made the girl s life so bitter that at the last Hagar fairly ran
away from her master s encampment and fled toward her native land of
Egypt." From his birth, Hagar s son, Ishmael, was regarded by his
father as his promised heir, in whom the nations of the earth should be
blessed. For thirteen years he was the hope and joy of his parents and
the master of that household. When Abraham was ninety and nine years
old, the silence from heaven was once more broken, the covenant is
renewed with him, and the rite of circumcision is established. At the
same time he tells him that, old as his wife is, yet she shall bear a son and
"kings of the people shall be of her." This was confirmed some time
later. As he sat at his tent door, in accordance with the etiquette of the
times to receive any guests who might come, three strangers approach. "
otice the beautiful hospitality of the reception. The emir rushes himself
to his herd to choose the fattest calf and com-
Sarah the Princess 29 mands the princess to make ready the meal and
knead the cakes. Then comes the report. The account of the promised
blessing at which Sarah laughs in incredulous surprise, the grave rebuke
of the angels, and Sarah s white lie. with the angel s steady answer, are
all so many characteristic points of the story. Sarah in all these incidents
is, with a few touches, made as real flesh and blood as any woman in the
pages of Shakespeare; not a saint, but an average mortal with all the
follies, weaknesses, and variabilities that pertain to womanhood, and to
womanhood in an early age of imperfectly developed morals."
Abraham was one hundred years old when Isaac was born. At the age of
three years, as was the custom with Jewish women, her child was
weaned. Great preparations were made for this festive occasion. In the
gladness of her motherly heart she ex claims, "God hath made me to
laugh, so that all that hear will laugh with me. \Yho would have said
unto Abraham, that Sarah should have given children suck? for I have
born him a son in his old age." Up to this age, we find the son of the
bondwoman nur tured along with her son, Isaac, under the same roof.
Xo doubt when Ilagar returned she was reconciled t > her, and their
relations were fairly pleasant. Possibly she treated kindly the mother and
petted the boy until he began to be too unpleasant to be endured. The
story further tells us that Ishmael, who was now coming into manhood
and should have had more self control, jeered at the little child who was
so soon to displace him. This mocking started once again the hot blood of
Sarah. A wise woman would have excused him because of his youth, and
the hot blood of his mother, and trusted to the after years to secure his
acquiescence in the divine plans; but Sarah was no more thoughtful than
she had been years before, and could not brook any insult to him who
was to be the heir of the promise. It may be she had not forgotten their
previous encounter, and the memory of this only intensified the present.
She peremptorily insists that the bondwoman and her son shall be cast
out, and that Ishmael shall not be an heir with Isaac. Abraham demurs
to this arrangement. Sarah s mind is fixed exclusively on Isaac, but
Abraham, as the father of both children, has an affection for each and he
cannot well be indifferent to Hagar with whom he lived as his wife. The
voice of the Lord, however, comes to his help and assures him that,
severe as the
30 Women of the Bible demand of Sarah may be, it was in keeping with
the divine plan and would be best in the end for both of them. Had they
remained and grown up together, no doubt much strife and danger
would have arisen between the children, if not indeed between their
mothers. As soon as he learned it was the divine will, he need no longer
hesitate. He arose in the morning, provided them with such things as
they would need on the journey, and sent them away. As to the
particular nature of the offense in the case of Ishmael, we have no
account, but a prominent writer makes a con jecture after this fashion:
-"In the common events of life all that is incomprehensible, is either
ridiculed, disbelieved, or made a
matter of scandal, and therefore in a case so uncommon as this, it is
more than probable reports very discreditable both to Sarah and
Abraham were propagated all around them. Hagar indeed and Ishmael
must have known differently, that it was the hand of God which worked
and therefore all things were possible; but it was to Ishmael s interest to
dispute or deny the legitimacy of Isaac, and therefore it was not in
human nature to neglect the opportunity. o other offense would have so
grated on Sarah. We are apt to think more poetically than justly of this
part of the Bible. In a mere superficial reading we acknowledge Sarah
does appear in rather an unfavorable light ; that this, however, is a
wrong judgment, is proved by the fact that the Eternal himself desires
Abraham to hearken to the voice of Sarah." The years following this
were in all human probability among the happiest of Abraham s life. ITe
is on friendly terms with his neighbors and therefore dwells at peace
among his flocks. The country about him is pleasant and his wealth is
abundant. The years pass quietly by and bring with them never-failing
plenty for his whole encampment. More than all else, his earthly home
has been blessed with the child of promise. "His \veary waitings
throughout a quarter of a century had been at last rewarded by a son of
his lawful wife, the gift of his covenant with God, to be in due time the
heir of his possessions and, better far, the heir also of that mysterious
blessing which in his seed was one day to bless all nations. And yet, after
many years of unbroken rest and satisfied desires, there burst on
Abraham, like a bolt out of a clear sky, the supreme crisis of his
discipline/
Sarah the Princess 31 There comes to Abraham the command to take
this son of his, this heir of the promise, and to offer him to the Lord as a
burnt offering. The loss of a beloved child at any time would be a great
affliction ; but in the present case, to sacrifice this child would in effect
extinguish the hope of the world. There is but one thing for him to do. He
has been schooled too well and too long not to know that the Lord s ways
are the best ways. He might have said many things, but with his heart
almost breaking he yet said nothing, tie obeys the command. He makes
careful preparation, so that nothing shall be wanted for the sacrifice.
And thus "early in the morning," he rises and saddles his ass for the
journey; and with this boy, now possibly nearly twenty years of age, and
attended by two servants, he starts on his sad journey. We hear nothing
of Sarah in all this transaction. Did she know of this remarkable call
which Abraham had heard, that her
child, the child of her old age, the progenitor of nations, was to be
carried away and put to death ? And was her confidence in God so
strong that she agreed with her husband that he who gave had also the
right to take away? Was she up early on that eventful morning to help
prepare this son for the great trial before him? As she went about the
work of the early morning preparing pro visions for this journey, did not
her heart almost break, and did not the big tears course down her cheeks
? Did not her motherly affection put her arms about his neck and with
breaking heart imprint the last kiss on his much loved cheek ? Or did
Abraham slip away that morning, taking that mother s boy away
without her knowledge, believing that if she knew of his purpose, her
motherlove would be so strong that he would have difficulty in obeying
the command? Did he not feel that that mother s faith was not as strong
as his own, and that her rebellious heart would surely say nay to his
further proceeding? Alas, we know not and can only conjecture. Surely,
that father could not, would not, take away that mother s darling
without at least a fond farewell. Says one, "That which he must do, he
will do ; he that hath learned not to regard the life of his son, hath
learned not to regard the sorrow of his wife." Another puts it after this
fashion : "The trial of faith in the sacrifice of his son was given to the
fatlier; but the mother was spared the consuming agony which must
have been her portion,
32 JVonien of the Bible even had her faith continued strong. God had
compassion on the feebler, weaker nature of his female servant. He
demanded not from her that which he knows the mother could not bear.
He spared her, in his immeasurable love, the suffering which it pained
him to inflict on the father the suffering and temptation not to satisfy the
Lord, for his omnipotence knew that his faithful servant would not fail,
but to prove to future ages the mighty power of spiritual faith and love,
even while in mortal clay." If Sarah knew for what purpose Isaac had
been taken from home, and had even in her tears consented that
Abraham should carry out the Lord s will as he understood it, how
rejoiced she is when he returned again, having been miraculously saved,
and thus the Lord has been obeyed and her child preserved to her. If she
did not know of it until it was all passed, how her brain would throb as
she listened to the great danger and the more wonderful deliverance.
Isaac had never been so precious had he not been recovered from death,
if he had not been as marvelously restored as given. The only way to find
comfort in an earthly thing is to
surrender it in a believing carelessness into the hands of God." After
that eventful scene at Moriah, there is no voice from heaven to break the
silence of his uneventful years. There may be no occasion, for his relation
to God is well assured. He goes back to Beersheba and he lives on, a
period of twenty-four years of which we have no mention. With our
rapid lives, living and enjoying in one year more than these people did in
five, with a multitude of things to engage our attention and divide our
inter ests, we can hardly realize how the members of such a family as
Abraham s would grow to need each other and how much one should be
missed. Through long periods they were constantly together and each
would seem necessary to the other. "Of society, except that of their own
slaves, there was little or none. The round of easy occupations which
made up their shepherd life left ample leisure for domestic converse. It
was inevitable that their lives should grow together as if kneaded into
one. Husband and wife, parent and child, must have molded one another
s character to an extent hardly possible in other states of society. From
such a clo^e circle of relations the disappearance of one loved and
familiar face would leave a blank never to be filled and scarcely ever to
be forgotten."
Sarah the Princess 33 It was a sad event in this family when death made
the first breach, and, at the age of one hundred and twenty-seven years,
Sarah, the princess, the wife and mother, fell asleep. It made a sad,
desolate life for Abraham. She was the only one who linked him to the
memories of the past and brought back the incidents of his youth. Of
those who had started out on that strange pilgrimage sixty-two years
before, she was the only one left. She was ten years his junior and her
removal reminded him that there was another journey before him, and it
was not far distant, which was even more venturous than the one he had
already taken. What their convictions of th other life were, we cannot
now tell. The departed were believed to have some kind of conscious exis
tence, but the land whither they went was still a dumb land a land full of
questions without answers. There is no doubt but that the dim light
which Abraham brought with him from his childhood was confirmed
and maybe made more definite as he meditated on what God had
revealed to him. The wife of his early years, the one who had been with
him in all his wanderings, who had shared his trials, and whom he loved
to the last, now leaves him. The account of the sacred writer is tender
and touching: "And Sarah was an hundred and
seven and twenty years old: these were the years of the life of Sarah. And
Sarah died in Kirjath-arba; the same is Hebron in the land of Canaan :
and Abraham came to mourn for Sarah, and to weep for her/ The noisy
wailing, which custom requires should be arranged for the funeral of a
princess, was no doubt going on outside ; but Abraham sits alone, most
likely in Sarah s tent beside his dead, his heart almost benumbed and
scarcely able to think at all, and if thinking, full of sad. bitter thoughts.
Old man as he is, and having led an eventful life, the experiences of
thirty years have not extinguished in his heart emotions which such an
event should awaken. Mourning for the dead is a tribute to the memory
of their living worth. There is nothing opposed to true wisdom or the
manly virtues in a proper lamentation for our departed friends. But he
cannot delay long. The climate is too warm and he must bury his dead
out of his sight. Although heir of the promise, he has no sepulcher in
which to place his dead. He has been here for possibly sixty years, and
yet has not a foot of soil he can call
34 Women of the Bible his own. His home has been his shifting tent, and
his domain the wide desert. He must have some place for his dead which
will be a pledge to his posterity of his faith in God s promise. When he
chose his burial place in Canaan, he removed all connection with the
past. He probably was familiar with caves for burial in the land of Ur
(Mugheir), from which he came. When he comes to the children of Heth
to secure a burial place he tells them, "I am a stranger and a sojourner
with you." ever does the impression of this great truth come upon us
with such force, never do we feel the ties that bind us to the earth so
loosened, so nearly rent asunder, as when we stand by the grave of those
we love. Would that we could carry this abiding conviction along with us
in the daily business of life. How little influence would its trials and
disappointments have over us." In accordance with the customs of the
times, he buys the cave of Machpelah and pays for it with silver. He
obtained not only the cave itself but "the field and all the trees that were
in the field and that were in the borders round about." He not only
secured a burial place, but by this transaction he helped to keep alive
among his descendants the expectation of sometime possessing this land.
Without some such reminder they might, during their Egyptian
bondage, forget their future destiny. It had the de signed effect. Here
were buried Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, and Jacob and
Leah, although Jacob died in Egypt. And
Joseph gave commandment that he also should be carried back with
them and buried in the land of promise. Here in this cave near Hebron
he buried Sarah. "The piety of some unknown age, probably Jewish,
erected round the spot massive walls of noble masonry which still exist.
Inside these walls the devotion of early Christians consecrated a church,
and over the church the devotion of the Mussulmans, a mosque. The
gates of that mosque, the famous Haran of Hebron, had been closed
against Western unbelievers for six centuries, when with extreme
difficulty access to it was procured for the Prince of Wales in 1862.
Railed off, each one within its separate chapel, there lie the coffin-like,
shrines to which are attached the venerable names of Sarah and
Abraham, of Isaac and Rebekah, of Leah and Jacob. These, however,
are only empty monuments. The real tombs, if they exist at all, must be
sought beneath the
Sarah the Princess 35 floor of the building in the rocky cavern
underground. To this vault a trapdoor in the pavement promises to give
access ; but as yet its darkness remains unvisited and unviolated. So far
as could be ascertained through such a brief and partial inspection of the
mosque, it is clear that the contents of that sacred place answer exactly
to the requirements of the Scriptural narrative. Unfortunately more than
this cannot be said. It is reserved for some explorer more fortunate than
even the Prince of Wales to disclose the well-kept secret of the tombs of
the patriarchs." While Sarah is human, with human frailties and human
am bitions, her character is in the main a very commendable one. Peter
(I. Peter 3:1, 6) commends her for her loyalty to her husband. "Likewise
ye wives, be in subjection to your own hus bands ; that, if any obey not
the word, they also may without the word be won by the conversation of
the wives ; . . even as Sara obeyed Abraham, calling him lord : whose
daughters ye are, as long as ye do well, and are not afraid with any
amazement." She retained the love of her husband to the very last. She
was his faithful helpmeet going with him, sharing his good or bad for
tunes, caring for his interests, and exhibiting toward him the most loving
respect. So far as we know, she never deceived him. When she wanted
Hagar sent away, she may have shown a little temper, but she was open
and frank in her plans. Then she is to be commended for her care of her
son and her anxiety that he should be surrounded with proper
influences. This was her only child, the child of her old age, and for this
reason very dear to her. But in addition to this she knew he was to be the
heir of the promises, and through him the nations of the earth should be
blessed. She saw Ishmael, "mocking/ He was thirteen years older than
Isaac and a wild and rude bo\ She had reason to believe that this reckless
boy would corrupt hei own and therefore she sought their separation. It
seemed a little severe to send this mother and child away, but it met the
divine approval. It was better that Isaac should grow up under different
influences, and the mother s foresight saw such a result, and her strong
mother-love went to work at any cost to preserve her boy. How much her
son, Isaac, was influenced by her home train ing we do not know. He
does not have the vigor of his father. Says a writer : "He makes no stir in
the world, no noise, he excites
no emotion. Ye only catch a glimpse of him now and then, suf ficient to
enable us to recognize him as a dutiful son to his father, a loving son to
his mother, an affectionate, uxorious husband, a partial father, and a
pious but weak old man. He seldom speaks. Me wants force of character;
and soon subsides into an instru ment in the hands of others, who use
him for their own purposes. So we never meet with Isaac in positive and
decisive action, but commonly find him. in some instrumental position or
other."
6. SARAH THE STEADFAST BY George Matheson
I AM told in the Book of Genesis that before God said, *'Let there be
Hght," ''Let there be a firmament," "Let there be dry land," He
"created the heavens and the earth;" in other words, He began, not with
the parts, but with the whole. I believe that in the study of any subject
the order of thought must follow God's order of creation; it must begin
with the whole. In the study of a moral portrait our starting point should
be the general impression — not the isolated features. That is the only
fair and legitimate means of stamping a picture with its distinctive and
representative quality. Begin with the completed view, and work
downwards. Begin, not with the analysis of eye or ear or hand, but with
the survey of that combined effect where the details are lost in the
consummation and the eccentricities of feature are overshadowed in a
common harmony.
I have found the truth of this in a study of the portrait of Sarah. If I had
taken special days of her existence I should have been perplexed what
epithet to give her. In the light of one day I might have called her "Sarah
the Imperious," in the light of another "Sarah the Sceptical," in the light
of a third "Sarah the Cruel." But all these are accidental days; they are
but the variations in a single air, and that air is the tune of a whole life. It
would be unfair to judge the tune by its variations. We must look at the
deep
sea beneath the waves. And what is this sea? What is that quality in the
mind of Sarah which lies below all other qualities, and which subsists
when others change? (It may be expressed in one word — steadfastness.
The abiding secret of this woman's greatness is the fact of her own
abidingness. J Others are great by their brilliancy, by their talent, by
their beauty. Sarah has all the qualities; but none of them is made her
crown. She has the sparkle which wins love; but not on that rests her
epitaph. She has the physical lovehness which commands admiration;
but not on that reposes her glory. She has the mental
SARAH THE STEADFAST 53 power which sways masses; but not on
that does her empire stand to-day. /The one quality by which she lives in
our memory is the steadfastness of her conjugal devotion, j From morn
to eve, in storm and in calm, in shadow and in sunshine, in the flush of
youth and amid the faUing leaves of autumn, she is ever by her husband
Abraham's side. Prosperity does not divorce them; adversity does not
divide them; time only deepens the intensity of their union. There is one
point in this which in relation to the Bible Gallery is to my mind highly
significant. It is the fact that the Bible's first dehneation of female
steadfastness is in the sphere of the conjugal. We should have expected it
to be in the sphere of the lover. When a modern novelist wishes to
illustrate this quahty he generally depicts it before marriage. He takes
for granted that the reader will appreciate most a steadfast devotion
between two Hves which have not yet been joined by the wedding ring.
The Bible places in the front ground a post-nuptial steadfastness. And I
must say that in this I agree
with the act of the Hebrew Galleiy. I think the
54 SARAH THE STEADFAST continued devotion of married lives is
more to be emphasized than that of lovers. Pre-nuptial love is an age of
romance, and romance courts the opposition of fortune. What amorous
youth does not figure in his soul a thousand adventures of danger in
which he will be the hero; what amorous maiden does not picture in her
heart a thousand trials of fortitude in which she will prove her loyalty!
But nuptial love grows practical. It settles down. It seeks no posts of
danger. It is not, like its predecessor, tempted to manifest its devotion by
casting itself from the pinnacle of the temple. Its prayer is rather that of
the psalmist, ''Lead me in a plain path because of my enemies." Dangers
are barriers. Difficulties are hindrances. Obstacles are' impediments to
the wings. The result is that married love, where it persists, is the highest
test of steadfastness. It may not require to submit to more sacrifices than
romantic love; but it feels the real pain of the sacrifices it is submitting
to. Romantic love sees Hfe's battle from a hill; the wearer of the nuptial
ring beholds it from the plain. Let me illustrate what I mean from the
picture.
SARAH THE STEADFAST 55 Here is a young man — Abraham. He is
living in Ur of the Chaldees — a seat of ancient civiHzation. He is
himself a youth of high poetic instincts and not without a dash of that
dreaminess which belongs to these instincts. He has had long waking
dreams under the stars. There has risen within him an impulse which
now would
be called missionary, which then would be held visionary. He will go out
from his country and from his kindred and from his father's house to
seek a new country and build a new house. He will go forth to plant a
colony in some region as yet to him unknown. He will go where God
leads him. He will make no preUminary plan; he will map out no
geographical course; he will be led by the Divine hand blindfold. To his
contemporaries, to his fellow-countrymen, it seems a wild delusion, the
insanity of genius. But that is not the worst. He is not asking his
countrymen to join him; he can afford to discard their opinion. But there
remains to be dealt with something of a far more serious
naturesomething which disputes the message of the stars and
complicates the spirit of his dream.
56 SARAH THE STEADFAST He has formed an attachment to a
maiden of extreme beauty — a native of his own land and connected
with himself by blood. She is called Sarah, and her name denotes
elevated rank. Will this damsel join her fate to his in an enterprise so
hazardous? Will she leave father and mother, sister and brother, the
friends and comrades of her youth, to follow the fortunes of a visionary
young man who has not a possession in the world and who has no
prospect but his dreams? Will she go out like himself without knowing
whither she is bound, and trusting merely to what men would call the
chances of life? That is what Abraham asks himself, that is what impedes
the current of his great missionary resolve. Doubtless he would have left
Ur of the Chaldees years before but for the haunting dread of parting
with Sarah. At last, one day — of which indeed there is no
record — he takes his courage in his hands and opens out his soul to
Sarah. I feel sure he makes a clean breast of it. I know he never would
ask her to be his wife without telling her of the precipice along which
their united lives were to lie—
SARAH THE STEADFAST 57 without inquiring, in the spirit of an old
Scottish song, '' Canst thou forget the courtly scene where thou wert
fairest of the fair!" And we all know what in Abraham's case the answer
was — Yes. This beautiful woman makes a great surrender. She gives up
home, friends, country, for the love of one man. She gives up certainty
for uncertainty, possession for chance, acquaintances for strangers,
civilization for unculturedness, the amenities of the city for the hardships
of the desert. One is disposed to say, ''The steadfastness of love can go no
farther than this." But that is not my opinion, and it is not the opinion of
the artist. Sarah is yet only in the romantic stage, and it is her romance
that makes the choice. It is a choice perfectly sincere, but it is hardly
sacrificial. It is exactly the kind of thing which romance longs for, craves
for. In its first young dream love cries out for manifestation, and it
courts manifestation in what the world would call a path of sacrifice. Its
watchword is self-abandonment and the revelation of selfabandonment.
Sarah accepted the sacrificial robe as her most becoming dress. It is for
ro-
58 SARAH THE STEADFAST mance ever the most becoming dress. But
just on that account it is not the test of love's tenacity.
The test of love's tenacity is the power to accept an w^ibecoming dress
— a dress whose soiledness may threaten to mar the beauty, and whose
many rents and tears are more suggestive of friction than of freedom.
That is the test which is the culminating evidence of the steadfastness of
a woman's love; and it came to Sarah, not in the romantic choice of her
youthful years, but in the weighted struggles incidental to the marriage
ring. The glory of these struggles is that Sarah's love surmounted them
all, although they were all of an unromantic cast and all threatened to
assail the citadel of her heart. I wish to follow Sarah through the
struggles and the victory of her married Hfe; we shall see that it is there
she has left her abiding monument. When the scene first opens on the
married hfe of Abraham and Sarah, they are having an experience
which their romance had not bargained for — the poverty of the land.
They have passed from Ur into Haran and from Haran into Canaan. In
Canaan there has arisen a great famine. Per-
SARAH THE STEADFAST 59 sonal poverty may create a stimulus to
work; but the poverty of the land kills all stimulus. For a married pair I
can imagine no duller experience than poverty of the land. It means a
famine of everything. ational scarcity involves a national stagnation — a
stagnation of public amusements, a stagnation of private festivities, a
stagnation even of social intercourse; it is the last set of circumstances
one would choose for a honeymoon. We should have thought this was the
time for the missionary zeal of Abraham — the time when the world
looked dark, and there was no temptation to Hfe's vanities. We should
have expected that he would have made this the day
and hour for the inauguration of his great scheme of human
amelioration — that like his descendant Joseph he would have bestirred
himself for the relief of humanity. On the contrary, his only feeling seems
to have been a chafing under personal discomfort and a desire to get
away. Before his eyes there swims the glory of the land of Egypt — a
land of riches, a land of plenty, a land where man can forget his cares.
One asks with surprise, almost with dismay, "Is this the Abra-
6o SARAH THE STEADFAST ham who on the plains of Chaldea had
devoted himself to a life for God!" But you forget, the man Abraham is
not yet complete — he is only in the making. Do you think the father of
the faithful could have been created in a day! o; he was at first the child
of a holy imagination, of a lofty poetry. When imagination comes into
contact with cold reality there is always a shock and sometimes a fall. I
think this must have been Sarah's first real sorrow — not the famine in
the land but the famine in Abraham's soul. She sees her ideal husband in
a new Hght. She had seen himin Ur of the Chaldees flaming with the
poetic impulse to abandon himself for the sake of humanity. She beholds
him in the land of Canaan with his fire cooled down, with his poetry
extinguished under the heel of prosaic fact. Remember, poetic natures
are far more apt to be thus unmanned than cold, phlegmatic natures; it
is they alone who experience the collision between the spirit and the
flesh. Sarah remembers it. She has her first sorrow; but it breaks not the
chord of her first love. The man whom she sees is still
SARAH THE STEADFAST 6i the man of Ur— the man of her girUsh
dreams, the man of bold and buoyant confidence. True, he is under a
cloud and the cloud distresses her; but her eye looks beyond the cloud to
the normal shining of her husband's soul. She says in her heart, "The
sun will rise to-morrow." She has need of all her hope; for meantime the
gloom deepens. The complaint which has come to Abraham is one which
seems occasionally to beset high-strung natures— a reaction of the
nerves producing extreme timidity. It came more than once to Elijah; it
came often to Simon Peter; it came now to Abraham. There has broken
upon him a timidity approaching to abject fear; in obedience to its
impulse he is flying from the famine into Eg^pt. But as he nears Egypt
his terror increases; it passes from abject fear into cowardly selfishness.
He says to Sarah: "We are going into a country where I shall suffer by
your beauty. Men will envy me the possession of you; they will lament
that you are wedded, bound; they will seek to kill me that you may be
free. You can save me if you will. Pretend that you are already free.
Conceal the
62 SARAH THE STEADFAST fact of our nuptial bond. Represent your
relation to me as something which does not involve inalienable
possession — something which will not interfere with the passions of
other men. Affect a less stringent tie; say you are my sister." It would be
difficult to imagine a deeper sinking of a lofty soul. Let us understand
where it lies. It is not in the eclipse of faith — sad as that un-
doubtedly was. It is not in the stooping to a falsehood — pitiful as was
the moral descent. It is not even in the attempt to make his wife partaker
in the lie — dark as the deed must seem. There is something more
lowering and more distressing than any of these; it is the eclipse in
Abraham's heart of the wifely relation itself. His request is nothing less
than that Sarah should take upon herself an infinitely greater peril in
order to save him from the danger of losing Hfe. A more terrible strain
upon a woman's conjugal love is not to be conceived. Yet this noble
woman stood the strain. She surrendered herself to the solacing of her
husband's despair. To bring him peace of mind she acceded to his desire.
She consented to a deception; but it
SARAH THE STEADFAST 63 was a deception that led right down into
a deep vault of self-sacrifice. She put her trust in God and threw herself
into the breach of danger. Her whole aim was that the weapon should
miss her husband's breast. If it came to the worst she could die — die by
her own hand; but he would Uve on and his life would yet be glorious.
For, never mistake what it was that kept alive this woman's love. It was
the certainty that the present Abraham was not the real Abraham. She
saw the man of the past; she saw the man of the future. The man of the
present was only under a cloud. That cloud was, after all, the shadow of
God — a temporary inaction imposed by the Almighty. It would pass by
and by, and the day would dawn and the birds would sing. I do not think
this woman Sarah has ever got justice. She is one of the finest specimens
of tenacious married love whom it has been my
privilege to meet. Her trials are all unromantic — things that bring no
stimulus with them. Hitherto she has encountered commonplace famine,
the ecHpse of a husband's energy, and the
64 SARAH THE STEADFAST seeming decline of a husband's care; yet
she has remained undaunted in her first devotion. But to her, as to Job,
new trials are coming. Let us follow her down the stream. By and by the
cloud clears from Canaan, and Abraham and Sarah return. But before
leaving Egypt Sarah makes a purchase which transforms an accidental
visit into a turning-point of life; she buys a beautiful Egyptian slave
named Hagar and carries her into Canaan. Years pass, and for
Abraham prosperity dawns. His energy revives; his zeal comes back; his
flocks multiply; his riches grow. But side by side with the prosperity,
beat for beat with the pulse of Abraham's joy, there throbs in Sarah's
heart a pulse of pain. It is a purely impersonal pain. There is not a trace
of selfishness about it; it is all for her husband, and it grows with her
husband's good fortune. There is as yet no heir. Has he given her his love
only that she may wreck his prospects — nay, wreck God's mission for
his life! What need to build a kingdom when he has no inheritor; what
use to plant a colony when his name must die! He has asked her to share
his fortunes, and
SARAH THE STEADFAST 65 she has spoiled them; he has asked her to
share his ambition, and she has marred it. In the secret of her soul Sarah
wrings her hands in sadness. Outwardly she is gay; she is dispensing
hospitality; she is entertaining her husband's guests. But the world
knows not, he himself knows not, the unselfish bitterness of the heroic
spirit by his side. owhere to me is this woman so grand as in the festive
hour with the heavy heart. Suddenly, a thought comes to Sarah. It is her
own suggestion — not Abraham's. She is the real sufferer, and it is all
for him. She says to her husband, "Take my slave Hagar as a second
wife." Why does she propose her slave? Because she says to herself, "If
an heir should come through Hagar he will still be my son, not hers;
Hagar has no personality apart from me; she is a bit of myself; she will
be my slave even after maternity; the motherhood will all be mine." She
does not want her husband to be really a bigamist; she loves him too
much for that. She offers him one too lowly to be a rival. I understand
her, I sympathize with her, I shake hands
66 SARAH THE STEADFAST with her across the years. I can read the
line of subtle thought which made her act as she did, and I appreciate
both her and the artist. But Sarah has miscalculated something. She has
said that even maternity will not make Hagar less her slave. In body
perhaps not; but in spirit it will break her bonds. It proves so. Ishmael's
Hfe begins to dawn, and in an instant Hagar feels free. Sarah is more
eager than ever to emphasize the slavery; we always emphasize what we
are not quite sure about. The commands are more imperative; the
burdens are more heavy; the work is more arduous. Friction arises in
the home. Abraham looks on easily ; lions in the path are often lambs in
the house-
hold. For the first time in the records of this family there is a domestic
explosion. Sarah upbraids Abraham, not on the ground of infidelity —
for there is none, but on the ground of supineness — of tamely standing
by while her household authority is being ignored by a menial. It is the
earliest assertion in the world of the rights of woman, and, whether you
place it on canvas or in history, it is a thought before its time.
SARAH THE STEADFAST 67 There she stands — this champion of the
woman at home! There she stands with blazing cheek and flaming eye,
proclaiming to her house and to all houses that she is mistress of her own
abode, that by her fireside she will have no competitor! It is essential to
her peace that Hagar should be, not a person, but a thing. She will not
recognize her as Abraham's helpmeet. She will have no polygamy in her
dwelling. Her husband will be hers alone — hers even in Hagar' s
maternity. Hagar shall be her instrument, but not her rival; in her own
domain Sarah will be despotic queen. Even so, brave Sarah, fight on !
You are fighting our battle — civilization's battle, the battle of
womanhood! We recognize you as our pioneer; we admire and honour
you ! The combat ends in favour of Sarah. One day, Hagar is missing;
she has fled into the desert. The next, or the next but one, she is back
again; the angel of prudence has advised her to return. She comes back
in humility, and her generous mistress receives her on the old terms.
There is another lapse of time; and then the unexpected happens. When
nearly all hope had been aban-
68 SARAH THE STEADFAST doned, a real heir is born to Sarah. His
advent is greeted with jubilation. He is the child of laughter; there is
merriment at hearth and board. But the laughter is not all joy; the jeer
of scorn mingles with it. Hagar is there and her boy Ishmael; they sneer
at the puny child Isaac. I have always felt he must have been a dehcate
child; the events of his after-life indicate it. We can imagine the sore
heart of Hagar contrasting the fragile look of Isaac with the magnificent
physique of her son Ishmael, and we can hear the laugh of derision with
which she would say, "And this is Abraham's heir!" It is too much for
Sarah. Woman can stand much; but when you touch her in her
motherhood the tiger wakes within her. Sarah has at last reached her
Umit of endurance. o longer can she suffer beneath her roof the presence
of this Egyptian and her boy. They must go out from her; they must find
their way to their own kith and kin. Short and summary is the warning.
Mother and son are sent out into the desert to breast the bleak world,
alone. Ye who think Sarah was harsh in her method, remember that
even her act of dismission was an
SARAH THE STEADFAST 69 act of concession: it set the Egyptian free.
She had no need any more to run away. Imperial Sarah cries, " I make
you a present of your Hberty ; leave my house for evermore!" For my
part I say Amen. I admire and honour the deed of this woman. She has
purified her home. She has washed clean her household hearth. She has
relighted her nuptial fire. She has swept her rooms of the least taint of
polygamy. She has obtained over her husband a drastic and final
dominion in the sphere of the dwelling-
place. There we shall leave her — empress and dictator of the home! She
has bound her husband with a cord of love which will not be loosed even
when he lays her down in the Cave of Machpelah. For us she rests, not in
Machpelah, but in the secret of her own tent. There we shall ever see her
— the champion of the rights of woman, the advocate of female liberty!
There we shall ever hear her — proclaiming the sanctity of the hearth
and the inviolable clasp of the marriage bond! The influence of many
empires may be forgotten ; but the portrait of Sarah in the Old Bible
Gallery should be to the
70 SARAH THE STEADFAST latest civilizations a thing of beauty and a
joy for ever ! I bless Thee for this portrait, O my God. I am glad that at
the opening of the Gallery Thou hast placed a picture of fair womanhood
wearing no bonds. I am grateful for the primitive vision of a mistress of
the home. May the world never outgrow this picture; may it be the
guiding-star for all time! May the hearth of Sarah ever be brightened by
her own hand! May the nuptial torch be trimmed by herself alone! Keep
unsulHed her marriage ring! Let no Hagar break the unity of her family
circle; may her husband's love be steadfast to the end ! May her own
love be steadfast — steadfast in the most trying things, the commonplace
things! When the romantic has given place to the practical, may love not
be killed thereby! May it not be damped by the rain, scorched by the
heat, exhausted by the burdens of the day. If Abraham sometimes seems
to lose his glow, may Sarah not lose hers! May she remember that man
has more toil than woman and is subject
to more weariness of the soul! Let her make allowance for the clouds in
the masculine sky I Let her beheve that her first impression was the true
one! Let her hold fast to the ideal of her youth! May her devotion be
undimmed by the desert! May her fondness not faint in the famine! May
her care not corrode in the conflict! Cherish her by chastity; protect her
by purity; defend her by fidelity; keep her by constancy of heart! Then
shall her evening and her morning be one cloudless day!
7. SARAH:MOTHER OF NATIONS By GlennPease
Based on Gen. 17:15-22
An Indian chief's daughter by the name of Shell Flowers came to appreciate the
ways of the white man. She learned English, and then took for herself the Christian
name of Sarah. She was fortunate to come under the influence of General Howard,
the commanding officer of Fort Lynn, for he loved minorities and fought for their
rights. He was a hero of the Civil War who had fought for the rights of blacks, and
now he was trying to be a peacemaker between the Indians and the whites. When
the Indians of Idaho went on the warpath, Sarah risked her own life by finding
their camp and rescuing 75 of her own people. Then she rode on horseback for 223
miles in three days to get General Howard. He was able, because of her
information, to put down the uprising and prevent widespread blood shed. General
Howard wrote a book titled Famous Indian Chiefs I have known. In this book he
wrote this of Sarah Winnemucca: "If I could tell you but a tenth part of all she
willingly did to help the white settlers and her own people to live peaceably
together, you would think as I do that the name of Sarah should have a place beside
the name of Pocahontas in the history of our country." Most people are not aware
of this Sarah who played a major role in part of our countries history, nor are they
aware of the thousands of Sarah's all over the world who have made this an
honorable name by their achievements. We have such women as Sarah Caldwell,
the only woman who has ever conducted at the Metropolitan Opera in New York.
Many are the famous and ordinary people who proudly wear the name Sarah. It
has been a popular name all through history because of the first woman to ever
wear that name, which was Sarah the wife of Abraham. She is the only woman I
am aware of who had her name changed by God, like many of the famous men in
the Bible. The name Sarah means princess, and it was given to her directly by God.
Sarah could not imagine that her name would become so famous for all the rest of
human history. After all, she was 89 years old and barren, so the future looked very
bleak as far as posterity goes, and any chance of making her name of any
significance in history. Yet, out of these extremely limiting circumstances Sarah
became one of the most famous mothers in all of history. It is hard to find anyone
who can come close to matching Sarah in the fame she achieved in a world
notorious for putting women down. As Abraham is the father of Judaism, so Sarah
is the mother of Judaism. These two were Gentiles who married each other in the
pagan culture of Ur of the Chaldees, and they became the first two Jews in history.
What a paradox that Judaism started with Ma and Pa Gentile. No wonder God
says of Sarah in verse 16, "I will bless her so that she will be the mother of nations;
kings of peoples will come from her." No other mother in history has been so
honored by so many nations.
The Jewish nation, the Christian nations, the Mohammedan nations, all trace the
origin of their faith to father Abraham and mother Sarah. They are the only couple
in the Bible who are both referred to in the great faith chapter of Heb. 11. They are
the only parents in the Old Testament who are promised by God that their seed
would be a blessing to every family on earth. They are the only couple in biblical
history whose tomb is still a place of honor in the world today. The only burial of a
woman recorded in the Bible is that of Sarah. She is the only woman in the Bible
whose age at the time of death is recorded. She was 127 years old. She and
Abraham had over a 100 years of married life together, and she had 37 years of
being a mother in spite of her late start at age 90. Sarah is the first woman in the
Bible to have the journey of her life recorded. More is recorded about Abraham
and Sarah than all of the human race up to their time. Certainly God intended us
to learn something about motherhood from this most unique of all mothers. The
first thing the record compels us to examine isI. HER MISSED MOTHERHOOD.
There are few people who know both sides of the story like Sarah. She knew by
experience the full impact of non-motherhood. It seemed strange, but the most
famous mother in history is also the leading authority of what it is like not to be
able to be a mother. Many have gone years before they could conceive a child, and
many have never been able to conceive, but there is no record of anyone ever living
90 years with near 70 of them in trying to conceive. This most successful mother of
nations holds the record for failure to become a mother. Most of the non-mothers
of history have not lived motherless as long as Sarah did. She knew what it was like
to spend her entire youthful state of life listening to other mothers talk about
babies, and not have one of her own to talk about. She experienced all of the social
and culture agony of having no fruit of the womb. She could have written the book
on the misery of denied motherhood. Even though she finally conceived, the fact is,
she lived the entire period of her child bearing years barren and childless. She is
the only mother we know of who experienced so completely the life of missed
motherhood. This is not without great significance, for it reveals that Sarah could
live a life pleasing to God as a good wife and godly person without motherhood. If
she had not been a good wife to Abraham, and a woman faithful to God through all
of those years of barrenness, God never would have chosen her to be the mother of
nations. But if God had never chosen her, her life would still have been one
pleasing to Him. The point is, her life as a non-mother was a beautiful life and
worthy of honor. Motherhood is not what made Sarah a beautiful person. She was
beautiful as a nonmother, and is thus, a great example to the non-mothers of
history. She was a faithful loving wife for near 70 years before she bore Abraham a
son. She proved you can have a satisfying and fulfilling married life even without a
child.
Most of the Bible couples were parents, and their lives revolved around their
children, but Abraham and Sarah were husband and wife, and their lives revolved
around each other. They developed a high esteem for each other as mates. Sarah
was so deeply loved by Abraham that had she never bore him a child there is not
the slightest hint that he would have left her for a woman who could. We need to
remember that Hagar was Sarah's idea and not Abraham's. She was more to him
than a baby maker. Sarah was first of all a good wife, and that is the primary
responsibility who wants to be a good mother. Next we seeII. HER MIRACULOUS
MOTHERHOOD. Her story puts the typical change of life baby story into the
shadows by comparison. I have known women who have conceived in their 50's,
but to give birth at age 90 is beyond anyone's experience. This is like having a
delivery room at the nursing home. It is obvious that by this miraculous conception
God is calling attention to the fact that He is doing a special work in history
through this mother. There is no history at all without mothers. Had Eve not
become a mother history would have ended with the first couple. Motherhood is
God's means of making any history at all. But God's plan is for a history within
history that fulfills His purpose, and it is to be carried out by means of miraculous
motherhood. The final fulfillment of this plan was the virgin birth of Jesus Christ,
but the start of this chain of events was the miraculous motherhood of Sarah. Her
womb was dead, but out of that dead womb God brought forth life, and Sarah
became the first biblical illustration of the resurrection and God's power to bring
life out of death. She produced history's first miracle baby. Next we want to
considerIII. HER MINI MOTHERHOOD. Sarah did not raise a number of
children, but only one. Isaac was her only child, and that would certainly be
enough for a woman her age. The point is, you do not have to have a large family to
be a great mother. Sarah became a mother of nations, and her single experience of
giving birth was all it took for her to start the chain of events that changed all of
history, and led to the Messiah, who changed all of eternity as well. Never put down
or minimize an only child, for that is how God started the most important family
that ever lived, for by means of it every family on earth has been blest. With God
one is always adequate to achieve His purpose for all. He only has one Son Himself,
and He was adequate to redeem the world. Being a good mother to one child is in
God's eye's a marvelous achievement, and no one has ever been more honored for
doing it than Sarah. She was a good wife to one man, and a good mother to one
child. Her only son Isaac was not one of the most exciting characters of the Bible,
but he is one of the best. He had his flaws, but there is no major sin in his life that is
recorded. The record reveals that he was just a good and godly man. Men like
Isaac often trace their goodness back to the influence of their mother. Edward
Everett Hail, the distinguished Boston pastor and author of The Man Without A
Country, tells of bringing his report card home from school. It should he was 9th in
a class of 15. He was depressed about it and felt ashamed. His mother could see
this, and so with tenderness and understanding she said, "Never mind, Edward, I
notice that in your report you are first in good behavior, and son, that means more
to me than to have you the head of the class and not behave well." Hail wrote in his
dairy: "That was one of the most stirring and heartening experiences of my life.
My mother's understanding and sympathy, making me see that behavior was more
important than high grades, gave me a courage such as nothing else on earth ever
gave me. I might never become a great scholar, but I could always be a good boy
and a good man. That was within the reach of my abilities, and I thereupon
resolved that, what ever else I might become, I would always see to it that my
behavior record was high." He was good and godly because of his mother's
influence. A mini-mother gets only one chance with only one child, but that is all
they need for success. Sarah became the greatest mother in history as a mini-
mother with one good and godly child. God works from quality to quantity, and
from this one good child all the families of the earth were blest, and Sarah by her
mini-motherhood became the mother of nations. Next we look atIV. HER
MEMORABLE MOTHERHOOD. There is not a great deal said about this mother
of nations as far as her mothering goes, but the little hints we have tell us she was a
marvelous mother who left behind precious memories. Abraham so loved Sarah
that the entire 23rd chapter of Genesis is devoted to her loving concern for her
burial, and his purchase of a cave from the Hittites in which to bury her. There is
only verse that refers to Isaac's response to his mother's death. In Gen. 24:67 it
says that Isaac brought his new wife Rebekah into his mother's tent, and it closes
with-"and Isaac was comforted after his mother's death." A husband and son
deeply moved by the loss of this memorable mother. She did, of course, have this
advantage-she died before she became a mother-inlaw. Otherwise she may have left
other than pleasant memories. She did not have to past this test. Other Sarahs have
been so tested and failed. Sarah Delano, for example, the mother of Franklin
Delano Roosevelt, the man who spent more years as president of the United States
than other man. She was a very dominant mother, and Franklin was never out of
her sight for more than hour for the first 14 years of his life. Even when he was
asked to run for public office he said he would have to ask his mother first. She
postponed his wedding with Elenor for a year, and after they got married it was a
constant battle for who was to be in control. These two women could not be
in the same room for half an hour without an argument. Elenor forbid her children
to drive, and so grandma Sarah bought them each a car for their birthdays. She
left behind her many memories that her loved ones would wish to forget. Certainly
one of the goals of mothering is to leave your family with memories of good times in
sharing love and fun, and not times of tension and frustration. These come to all,
and are an inevitable part of life, but these will all fade from the memory if
mother's dominant characteristics are positive. Millions have stories like Dr.
Samuele Bacchiocchi, a professor of church history and theology at Andrews
University in Michigan. He is convinced that mothers are better equipped to instill
self confidence and self worth in children than are their fathers. He remembers
when he failed an exam in 5th grade in Italy. His father was ready to take him out
of academic studies and put him into vocational school. But his mother knew he
could make it, and she encouraged him, and she got him special help so that he did
make it. He writes, "Truly I would have never become a minister and a teacher
were it not for my mother's vision that saw in me what others failed to see and
instilled in me a sense of self worth and of mission." His memories of his mother
were a precious heritage. Rosemary Ruether is another contemporary professor of
history and theology at Garrett Evangelical Seminary in Chicago. She says that she
is what she is because of her mother who gave her a strong sense of self-esteem. She
taught her to care about her own rights as well as the rights of others. As she got
older and discovered that the God of the Bible was also concerned about the rights
of others, and that He was for the oppressed and against the oppressor, she wanted
to be a theologian and fight injustice with the Word of God. Her memory of her
mother is a precious heritage. There are many other testimonies that confirm the
picture of the ideal mother in Prov. 31 where verse 28 says, "Her children arise and
call her blessed." Such was the lot of Sarah, and such should be the goal of every
mother. The child may fail to follow the way a mother teaches, but that is not the
failure of her motherhood. The test is, does even a failing child look back and say,
my mother should me a better way? Some of the worse children had great mothers,
and they gave testimony to this fact by expressing the same positives as successful
children. Tom Bell robbed the first stagecoach in American history on August 11,
1856. A posse went after him, but he escaped. They went to the home of his girl
friend and waited for three days, and finally he came and was caught. He was
marched to a tree, and there at age 26 he was hanged. He was allowed to write a
letter to his mother first. This is what he wrote: "Dear Mother; I am about to make
my exist to another country. I take this opportunity to write you a few lines.
Probably you may never hear from me again. If not, I hope we may meet where
parting is no more. In my prodigal career in this country I have always recollected
your fond admonitions and, if I had lived up to them probably I would not be in my
present condition: But dear mother, though my fate has been a cruel one, yet I have
no one to blame but myself. Give my respects to all of old and youthful friends. Tell
them to beware of
bad associations and never to enter into any gambling saloon, for that has been my
ruin. I bit you farewell forever. Your only boy, Tom." His mother did not fail him.
She was a success, for she gave him an alternative, and he was free to choose it, but
did not. God did not fail Israel because she went astray. He gave them the wise
alternative, but they would not submit. A memorable mother is one which makes
children look back from their success or folly and say, mother pointed me in the
right direction. She gave me choices that were good, and whether I took them or
not they bare witness that she was a good mother. Sarah was such a mother, and
her son Isaac was a good and godly man who looked back at his mother's life with
precious memories. One of the memories everybody had of Sarah was of her
laughter. Abraham and Sarah are the only couple in the Bible who are both in
great chapter of faith of Heb. 11, and they are the only couple who are both
portrayed as laughing. It was a joke to both of them that they would have a child in
their old age, and they laughed at the very idea. It was so funny that their laughter
became a lasting memory, for they named their miracle baby Isaac, which means
laughter. Children are richer forever who have memories of a mother who could
laugh and enjoy the humorous side of life. Norman Vincent Peale loves to recall his
mother's sense of humor and laughter. He remembers once when he sat with her at
a funeral, and something the preacher said set her off. She was fighting desperately
to hold it back. She took his hand and whispered, "For heaven's sake, stop me from
laughing." Peale say, "I gave her a stern look which slowed her down somewhat
but I could still feel her shaking." He says he remembered that incident at her own
funeral, and the memory greatly comforted him. Her laughter made her memory
very positive. Ruth Graham, wife of Billy Graham, and mother of his children, is
remembered for her sense of humor. She was going to meet Billy once in a
Southern town that she told him was full of hill billys. She pulled down her long
dark hair and blocked out a tooth, and she took off her shoes and walked barefoot
to meet him. She had disguised herself so good that Billy went right past her and
didn't even notice it was her. She once felt the family did not give prayer attention
to the importance of Thanksgiving, and so she put shaving cream instead of
whipped cream on the pumpkin pie. She got their attention, and after that they
became more aware of the need to be grateful. She once served tadpole soup with
the tadpoles swimming around to a man who was forever boasting of himself and
bragging of his achievements. When he looked at the strange contents of his bowl
he remained silent the rest of the evening. She had a very unique way of using
humor to change situations, and she will be remembered for this sense of humor. It
is a good question for a mother to ask herself often-what will my children
remember? Is my motherhood memorable, or will they prefer to forget? Phyllis C.
Michael put it in poetry: What will my boys remember When they've grown old
and gray? The pants knees oft were full of holes? Or the trout we caught that day?
Just what will they remember most? Two little beds unmade? Or the fun they had
at hide-and-seek The days that Mother played? What matter if my ironing waits
While I smooth out their troubles Take time to kiss those briar-scratched hands,
And start them blowing bubbles? Will they remember mud-tracked floors When
they've grown old and gray? What care they if each room is dusted, If I'm too tired
to play? God chose only one mother to be the mother of nations, but every mother
is called to so live with and love their children that they will want to love Jesus and
know God's will for their life. This is a memory that none will forget, and so on
Mother's Day let us commit ourselves anew to be memorable mothers for the glory
of God.
8. SARAH AND REBEKAH BY Lyman Abbott
It is written " Sarah means princess. If that name was given the Firstmother of the
Hebrews in childhood for her temperament, it was veritable prophecy. All we know
of her shows her a woman of a strong, determined, and self - asserting will.
Originally the name was not spelled that way, but Sarai. The change did not
happen accidentally, or from a whim of the bearer, but at the bidding of God
Himself, and for the purpose of being a sign — " That God will bless her and give
Abraham a son of her . . . that she shall be a mother of many nations, kings of the
peoples shall be of her." In what manner the substitution of the one letter for the
other could become, as it were, a seal of the covenant — this is still one of the
problems of the commentators. There exists 21
WOME OF THE BIBLE among the Jews a sort of cabalistic tradition
that the Hebrew letter yod signifies the creative power of God in nature, while the
letter hay symbolizes the might of God in the state of grace — ^that state into
which Sarah had entered after receiving the covenanted promises. For
corroboration of this view its propounders point to the fact that the name of
Sarah's husband underwent a similar modification by the addition of the identical
letter, with a like significance. Abram became Abraham because God had said to
him, ** A father of many nations have I made thee, and I will make thee exceeding
fruitful, and I will make nations of thee, and kings shall come out of thee." —
Geti,^ xvii. However this may be, the change of form in no wise aflFects its root
meaning, which is, to rule. It fits the personality of the bearer so well that those
antiquarians who look upon the ancient tales ^ relics merely and fragments of
defunct Semitic mythologies rely upon the coincidence of name and character as to
one of the supports of their hypothesis. They deny the
SARAH historical character of the patriotic stories. But even on their showing, the
ancient^ or, if I may use the term, the aboriginal, Hebrews show, in this process
transformation^ thb opposite tendency to all the surrounding tribeSi The latter
invariably elevated their ancestors to the rank of deities, seated them among the
gods, and instituted special rites of Worship to every one of them. But if the
mythologists are right, the Hebrews dethroned their idols, called them by human
names, and told of their doings and their mifedoings, their favor and their disfavor
in the eyes of Jehovah, with a coolness that proves that the narrator, at all events,
thought of no other beings than ancestors of flesh and blood. This is evidenced so
clearly by their astonish** ing power of characterization and individuali2ation.
Why, right here before us we have a picture which could not be drawn more
distinct*ly by the hand of an accomplished artist of today. By the side of Sarah,
with her domineering, unsparing, and unyielding ways— ^Abraham, a pattern of
gentleness, kindness, forbtarancri, a man possessed of that quality which the
Germans >3
WOME OF THE BIBLE call Menschenfreundlichkeit This character is so
uniformly shown by the patriarch that one is forced to the conclusion that the long
peace in the matrimonial tent was much more due to the male than the female side,
unless, indeed, we believe in Shiller's statement :
"Denn wo das Strenge mit dem Weichen Sich vereint zum guten Zeichen, Da giebt
es einen guten Klang." But, to be just, let us not forget that Sarah wielded a sceptre
by the magic of which she could lord it over men's hearts after her own will, even
bring kings to her feet. If she came into the world with a will of her own as her
dowry, nature further assisted her in developing it by the great beauty of her face
and the grace of her stature. By these gifts she made her wish a command and
disarmed opposition. The Scripture repeatedly calls her beautiful — so beautiful,
indeed, that she sometimes imperilled the life of her husband. Hebrew folk-lore,
echoes of which reach our ear in the rabbinical glosses to the sacred text, have kept
alive some
SARAH of the stories that were told ofy a pagan woman from the Canaanites,
among whom the patriarch has his home. Race and religious feeling combine to
make such a marriage abhorrent to him. So he calls to him his faithful servant
Eliezer and bids him go back to the land from which Abraham has migrated, and
there from Abraham's country find a wife for his son. Eliezer starts with
unmistakable misgivings on this delicate mission of vicarious 41
WOME OF THE BIBLE courtship, taking with him presents to serve both as a
pledge of his good faith and as a means of invitation to the maiden whom he may
select. As he draws near to the city of ahor, where his errand is to be consummated,
his perplexity increases. He hits upon an ingenious expedient to serve as a test of
woman's character. In the Orient it was the function of women to come out from
the city to the well, draw the water for domestic purposes, and bear it back to the
city upon their heads. Eliezer resolves that as these maidens come out in the
evening from the city to perform this service he will ask for a drink of water. Any
maiden would readily grant such a request. But if any maiden does more, and of
her own free will draws for his camels also, she shall be his choice. The camel is a
great drinker. To draw for ten is no easy task. She who would undertake it must
needs have good health as well as boundless good-nature. He submits this test to the
God of Abraham in a very simple prayer. " Let it come to pass," he says, " that the
damsel to whom I shall say. Let down thy pitcher, I pray 42
REBEKAH thee, that I may drink ; and she shall say, Drink, and I will give thy
camels drink also: let the same be her that thou hast appointed for thy servant
Isaac; and thereby shall I know that thou hast shewed kindness unto my master."
Even while he is offering his prayer Rebekah comes out, goes down the hewn steps
to the well or cistern, fills her pitcher, and comes up again. She is fair to look upon,
and Eliezer goes forward and prefers his request for a drink of water. She answers
in almost the very terms of his petition. " Drink," she said, " and I will draw water
for thy camels also, until they have done drinking." How he followed the clew thus
put into his hands, asked for the hospitality of her home, was welconied to it, came
under her father's roof, but refused even to eat a meal until he had disclosed his
errand, narrated the test which he had framed in his own mind, and the manner in
which Rebekah had met it, and fulfilled his commission by offering the hand of his
master's son in marriage, need not be narrated here in greater detail. To the father
and mother the whole matter 43
WOME OF THE BIBLE seems clearly to have proceeded from Jehovah.
They give their consent, but they will not determine the issue of this maiden's life
for herself. " We cannot," they say, " speak unto thee bad or good. Behold,
Rebekah is before thee, take her, and go, and let her be thy master's son's wife, as
Jehovah hath spoken." He brings out the jewels of silver and jewels of gold, and the
bridal raiment, to plead for him and for his master's son. His mission is so
successful that Rebekah, overruling the urgency of the parents that she wait at least
ten days before she leaves her home forever, declares her decision to go at once,
and starts immediately upon her homeward journey. Her meeting with the
husband who has thus been chosen for her cannot be so well told as in the simple
narrative of Scripture : ** And Isaac went out to meditate in the field at the
eventide : and he lifted up his eyes, and saw, and behold, the camels were coming.
And Rebekah lifted up her eyes, and when she saw Isaac, she lighted off the camel.
For she had said unto the servant, What man is this that walketh in the field to
meet us ? And the servant had said, It is my master : therefore she took a vail and
covered herself. And the servant told Isaac all the things that he had done. And
Isaac 44
REBEKAH brought her into his mother Sarah's tent, and took Rebekah, and she
became his wife; and he loved her:
and Isaac was comforted after his mother's death." In this first scene the best
qualities of Rebekah show themselves. She is full of eager life; glad to render
service to an utter stranger; joyously goes beyond his request in a serviqe which
involves no inconsiderable toil ; welcome;5 him with pleasurable hospitality,
though she is wholly ignorant of his purpose; is captivated by the frank, simple,
and sincere spirit of her unknown lover's representative, not less than by the
generous gifts which in that lover's name he bestows upon her; is led with that
trusting disposition, which is one of the most captivating characteristics of the true
woman, to put her future destiny in the keeping of one of whom she knows nothing
save what his ambassador has told her; and when the time of meeting with her
future husband comes, modestly veils her beauty from his gaze until she has come
into the tent of his mother — become as it were a part of the new household, and so
may decorously unveil herself. This life is full of promise; 45
WOME OF THE BIBLE and if the appeal to her ambition, made by the bracelets
and the ear-rings, the jewels of silver and the jewels of gold, is not without its
influence, yet it would be unjust to affirm that in this incident there is anything
derogatory to the
simplicity and the beauty of her character. The next incident in her married life is
the birth of the twins, Esau and Jacob, thirty years after the courtship and
marriage. But during those thirty years, anxious as was the patriarch of olden time
not to die childless, accustomed as he was to think that the childless wife was under
some curse of the Almighty, Isaac's love for his wife and his confidence in her never
seem to have lessened. In an age of almost universal polygamy, he took no second
wife; and if this speaks much for him, it certainly also speaks much for her. Little
as there is told of Isaac's domestic life, there is enough to indicate that husband and
wife lived bound together by the bonds of a mutual affection, which did not lessen
with advancing years. Happy the husband and wife who know how to grow old
together with a love which is immortally young! 46
J
REBEKAH The Scripture phrase "the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob " is
more significant than the casual reader is apt to think it. Jehovah was the God of
Abraham, the mystic man of
visions, who left his country and his kinsfolk to find freedom to worship an
unknown God in some purer and better form than any known in the land of his
nativity. He was the God of Isaac, the commonplace man, who never had a vision,
who fought no great battles, who wrought no great achievements, the whole history
of whose life is that he was an honest farmer, living in friendly and peaceable
relations with neighbors with whom to live peaceably was a difficult art, and
faithful to one wife in an age when a moderate harem was the wellnigh universal
rule. And he was the God of Jacob, who began his life by a hard bargain with his
brother, followed it up by cheating his blind old father, made his first prayer a
contract with Jehovah to serve him for good wages, and only through the discipline
of great sorrow — sorrow through children that were unfaithful to him, sorrow
through poverty, which was very hard for such 47
WOME OF THE BIBLE a one as he to bear, and sorrow through exile from his
native land — came to sainthood. The third scene in Rebekah's life is the one which
indicates the defect in her character. By
the custom of the patriarchal age the elder comes into the rights and prerogatives
of the father. He is the priest and the king of the little household empire. But this
birthright is not absolute nor inalienable; for good reason the father may transfer
it to a younger son. When the twins were born it was intimated to Rebekah that
Jacob, the younger born, should become the head of the household. Perhaps his
quieter and less stormy character, perhaps this presage of his destiny, attached her
more strongly to Jacob than to Esau. Perhaps Esau's marriage to daughters who
wearied her life may have operated, as similar marriages have often operated, to
alienate her ajffections from him. It is certain that she was a partial mother. When
the impulsive Esau sold his birthright
because he was too impatient in his hunger to wait the little time necessary to
prepare a meal, we may well believe that the mother applauded 48
REBEKAH the bargaining shrewdness of her favorite son in seizing the
opportunity afforded to him, and winning the consent of the careless Esau that the
father should take from him the headship of the family and give it to Jacob. either,
however, the prophecy of Jehovah nor the bargaining of Jacob satisfied her eager
ambition. She resolved to help Providence to accomplish his purpose. But if Jacob
was Rebekah's favorite son, it is not difficult to read between the lines the fact that
Esau was Isaac's favorite son. Isaac has grown old, feeble, and blind. He calls Esau,
and intimates that the time has come to give to him, officially, that blessing which
carries with it the recognition of his headship, the ratification of his birthright. In
the Orient a meal taken together is a common symbol of a sacred pledge. Isaac bids
Esau take his bow and arrow, go out into the fields, hunt for game, bring in the
result of his hunting, and make a savory meal. Of this the two will partake
together,
and in this hour of sacred fellowship the father will bestow upon the son his rank
and place. D 49
WOME OF THE BIBLE The mother overhears. Jacob's bargain, then, is to be set
aside ; Jehovah's pledge is not to be fulfilled; her hopes are to be dashed to the
ground ; her favorite son is to be displaced ; and this impetuous hunter, not fitted
to be the head of the household, is to be made so despite the prophecy by what she
regards as her husband's wilful favoritism. She will thwart her husband's purpose
by her cunning. While Esau goes out to hunt, she bids Jacob go to the neighboring
flock, fetch two kids, which she will so dress that they will pass with her husband
for venison. Then he, not Esau, shall share with the father in this pledge-giving
meal ; he, not Esau, shall receive the blessing and the birthright. Jacob has no
conscience against the deception, but he is cautious ; he lets " I dare not " wait
upon " I would." My father, he says, may be suspicious ; my brother is a hairy
man, and I a smooth one ; if he feels my hands and discovers the deception he will
curse me, not bless me. The mother will, take the risk of that ; her plans are all
prepared ; and the willing, but not strong, son follows the counsels of the braver 50
REBEKAH but treacherous mother. He brings in the kids, puts on enough of the
skin upon his hands and upon his neck to serve the purposes of deception, succeeds
in the device, and before Esau has gotten back from his hunt has shared in the
pledge-giving meal with his father, and received from his father the blessing which
serves in lieu of a will and makes him head of the household. It is not necessary
here to trace the results of this treachery — how it exiled Jacob from his home, and
how the penalty of the folly came in later life in the deceit, treachery, and cruelty of
his own sons. Suffice it here to point out the fact that if Rebekah hoped by this
device to secure for herself any advantage in making her favorite son head of the
household while she lived, she was wholly disappointed in her expectations.
Alarmed at the not unnatural threats of the angry Esau, and directed by both his
parents to seek a wife from their kindred, Jacob had hardly received his father's
blessing before he left his home, and apparently the mother never saw him again.
And here the fragmentary story of Rebekah 's life ends. Of 51
WOME OF THE BIBLE
her subsequent history, and even of her death, we know nothing; only from Jacob's
farewell address to his sons upon his death-bed we know that his mother was
buried in what I may call the family burying-ground, with Abraham and Sarah,
the father and mother in law, and with Isaac, her husband. I cannot but believe
that this last honor was paid to the too partial mother by the repentant son. " That
as Isaac and Rebekah lived faithfully together, so these persons may surely
perform and keep the vow and covenant betwixt them," These words from the
marriage service of the Book of Common Prayer are Rebekah's noblest
monuments- Despite her defects of character, despite her unjustifiable, yet not
wholly inexplicable, favoritism, and her treacherous, yet not wholly inexplicable,
intervention for her favorite son, this woman, so little heroine, has remained for
thirty -five centuries honored wherever the Bible is known, not for great
prophecies, great statesmanship, great military achievements, or great public
service of any kind; not because she was a saint, too high for temptation to attack
52
REBEKAH or too strong to succumb to it; but because in an age when the home, as
we understand it, was scarcely known she was a faithful wife, and, at least this we
may believe, in the main a faithful mother. By the side of Deborah the warrior,
Huldah the prophetess, Vashti the queen, is included in Hebrew literature the name
of Rebekah the wife.
9. SARAH AND HAGAR by ASHTON
In pursuance of the plan which he had devised for the redemption of the race of
man, God appeared to Abraham, the son of Terah, in a city called TJr, in Chaldea,
and directed him to leave his country, and dwell in the land of Canaan. Among the
nations, perhaps the Chaldeans had departed less from the simplicity of a true faith
and worship than many others ; but they were still idolaters, and Ur, as appears
from recent discoveries, was their sacred city. It is not necessary that we should
dwell upon the familiar details of Abraham's separation from his country and
kindred. Suf&ce it, that the object of his being thus separated by God was, that
through his faith and obedience, through his instructions to his family, and through
the seed afterward promised, the knowledge and worship of the only true God
should be gradually disseminated. Abraham obeyed the command of Jehovah, and
was accompanied in his wanderings by the wife
32 THE MOTHERS OF THE BIBLE of his youth ; henceforth the partner of his
exile^ and a helpmeet in his cares. They had spent hardly a year in Canaan, when a
famine compelled them to repair to Egypt, where they remained three months.
Sarah was a very beautiful woman, and Abraham knew that she would be
peculiarly attractive to the Egyptians, because so much more fair than their
swarthy countrywomen ; and the account of his deception in calling her his sister,
with the consequent trouble, stands on the sacred page, a beacon against the folly of
distrust-
ing God, and resorting to prevarication. The beauty of the fair Chaldean was soon
in every mouth, and Sarah was taken from her supposed brother to the king's
household, to go through the preliminary ceremonies and purifications which were
requisite to her becoming his wife, and which usually occupied about a month.
What Abraham suffered during this interval, and what were her own trials, we can
only imagine. of\\ing is said of the prayers which the patriarch must have offered to
God ; nothing recorded of the anguish and tears of the wife, who had taken, as she
believed, a final leave of her hursband, and was
SARAH A D HAGAR. 33 destined to the honor of being a favorite of Egypt's
monarch. The trial was severe. God, however, interposed to save them from their
fears. His judgments caused Pharaoh to inquire into the truth, and to restore Sarah
before the month of preparation was ended. He dismissed them from his dominions
without injury, but not without severe rebuke, and they returned to Canaan. Ten
years passed away, during which time Sarah's name is not mentioned. They had no
chikh^en, but it must not be inferred that, because she had not a mother's cares,
she was therefore unoccupied. It is recorded that at one time Abraham went out to
fight against the Assyrian king with more than three hundred trained servants.
These were all born in his house, the sacred v>^riter informs us, and were capable
of bearing arms. If we add to these those who must have remained in charge of the
flocks and herds, and the women and children, we may, perhaps, form some idea of
the family over which Sarah
presided as mistress. The phrase '' trained servants" signifies catechised, or
mstructed. We know that wherever Abraham pitched his tent, as
M THE MOTHERS OF THE BIBLE. he removed from place to place, lie erected
an altar, and in the midst of his assembled family offered sacrifices to God. "I
know him," said the Lord, "that he will command his children and his household
after him, and they shall keep the way of the Lord." That Sarah was a faithful wife,
a prudent and discreet housekeeper, and willing to aid her husband in this
important work of training his household to serve God, we have no reason to
doubt. That she " labored, working with her own hands," or strictly superintended
the labor of her servants, we infer from the fact that when strangers were to be
entertained Abraham calls upon her to prepare the needed food. We think of her as
the energetic, active head of a large and well-ordered family, and God doubtless
aided and qualified her for the station she occupied. Soon after their return from
Egypt, God had appeared again to Abraham, and renewed his covenant with him,
assuring him that the land of Canaan should be given to his posterity, who should
be as the sands of the sea-shore, innumerable. But the years rolled by, and there
was no
SARAH A D HAGAR. 3o sign of the fulfilment of this promise. Sarah, who seems
not to have possessed the unshaken
faith which characterized her husband, despairing of herself becoming a mother,
resorted at length to an expedient which is revolting to us, and which proved
disastrous to the peace of all concerned in it. The laws and customs of the land
countenanced polygamy, and Abraham, in compliance with Sarah's wishes, took
Hagar, her bond- woman, 'for a secondary wife, in hope of gaining the long-desired
blessing. Hagar was an Egyptian, and had probably become one of their family
during their sojourn in her native land. She seems to have been a favorite servant,
and was certainly honored in being selected as the object of her master's regards.
The desired end was obtained. Hagar soon had the prospect of becoming a mother.
But the happiness which Sarah anticipated did not follow. As might have been
foreseen, her own jealous feelings were roused, and Hagar soon manifested the
vanity and insolence which her situation, now so superior to that of her mistress,.
naturally called forth. She manifested her contempt in a manner so
36 THE MOTHERS OF THE BIBLE. marked that Sarah's indignation could not
be controlled ; but, instead of blaming only herself, she reproached her husband.
She insinuated that liagar stood too high in his estimation, and called upon God to
witness that she was wronged. The most serious unhappiness now reigned in this
hitherto quiet family. Abraham might have re monstrated with Sarah, or
reproached her in turn , he might have claimed the right to protect Hagar as his
wife ; but the dignity and 'excellence of his character appear in his answer : " Thy
maid is in thine hand ; do to her as it pleaseth thee." '* Sarah affhcted her."
Whether it is intended
that she inflicted personal chastisement upon her, as some commentators affirm, or
whether the affliction consisted of bitter wordSj which to a sensitive spirit are
worse than blows, w^e cannot decide. Whatever was done was sufficient to drive
Hagar, in desperation, from her presence. She fled hastily to go to Egypt, her native
land, but sunk exhausted, friendless, and ready to perish, by a fountain in the
wilderness of Shur. Most beautifal is the description which follows the account of
her flight, and wonderfully does it
BARAII A D HAGAR. 37 show the tender mercy of God toward those who are in
trouble. An angel of the Lord seeks her in her woe. He, without whose notice the
sparrow cannot fall, is not unmindful of helpless, suffering woman. "And he said,
Hagar, Sarai's maid, whence camest thou ? and wdiither wilt thou go?" He does
not call her Abraham's wife. It is not his part to increase her pride, and aggravate
her discontent. He reminds her of her true condition, and calls up entirely different
thoughts from those which she has been indulging. Those simple questions startle
her from the tumultuous emotions of rebellion and presumption. Whence had she
come ? From a happy, loving home, where she had been the f\ivorite of an
indulgent and gentle mistress ; a home wdiich would speedily be yet dearer to her
as the birth-place of her child, — that child who was to be the {^upposed heir to
her master and all his sainted privileges ; from friends, from companions, all whom
she loved ; and she had left them ! and wdiither ^vas she going ? How might she
answer, when she knew not ? How idle and impotent now seemed her previous
feelings !
4
38 THE MOTHERS OF THE BIBLE. Those questions had flashed light on her
darkened heart, and humbled her at once ; and simply and truthfully she
answered, *'I flee from the presence of my mistress Sarai." The angel, who was no
other than the glorious Messenger of the Covenant, directed her to return and
submit herself to her mistress, and then, to comfort her, and enable her to bear her
lot, unfolded the future. He told her she would bear a son, and bade her call him
Ishmael. This is the first name given by God to any man before his birth. It
signifies, " The Lord hath heard, or will hear," and would always remind her of his
interposition in her behalf. " Because," said he, " the Lord hath heard thy
affliction." He does not say, hath heard thy prayer, nor does it appear that she
offered any. Has the ajjlidion of his creatures such a voice that it thus reaches the
Almighty ear ? Do the woes of the humblest, the poor bond-woman, call to her aid
the AngelJehovah unsought? 0, what a view into the heart of infinite love do these
few words afford ' He then utters that remarkable, prophetic description of the
descendants of Ishmael, concerning
SARAH A D PI A GAR. 39 which Dr. Adam Clarke says, ''It furnishes an absolute
demonstrative argument of the divine origin of the Pentateuch. To attempt its
refutation, in the sight of reason and common sense,
would convict of most ridiculous presumption and excessive folly." " He shall be a
wild man ; his hand will be against every man, and every man's hand shall be
against him ; and he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren." " We have only
to turn to the page of history to see how apposite this character has been in all ages
to the Arab race, the descendants of Ishmael. They have occupied the same
country, and followed the same mode of life, from the days of their great ancestor
down to the present time ; and range the wide extent of burning sands which
separate them from all surrounding nations, as rude, as savage, and as untractable,
as the wild ass himself." " Behold, as wild asses in the desert, go they forth to their
work betimes for a prey : the wilderness yieldeth food for them and for their
children." We have not time to dwell upon all the beauties of this wonderful
prophecy, but beg our readers not to bo satisfied by merely reading it in their
Bibles. If
40 THE MOTHERS OF THE BIBLE. they will study it thoroughly in the light
which its fulfilment during four thousand years affords, they will be amply repaid
for the labor. Whether Hagar had imbibed the faith of Abraham and Sarah in the
true God, or whether her heart still clung to the idols of her early home, we do not
know. When she cast herself, trembling and fainting, upon the ground by the
wellside in the wilderness, she probably thought not of turning to either for aid.
Weary and sick in body, and tempest-tost on a sea of conflicting passions, she
thought only of her wretchedness, and scarcely hoped for deliverance. ow how
changed ! Refreshed, comforted, blessed, she
rises Avith humility and joy in her heart, and expressions of devout gratitude on
her lips, and prepares to retrace her steps. She could no longer doubt the existence
and infinite kindness of Abraham's God. When she had thought herself alone, he
was near, a witness to all her grief. When her master, whom she so much loved, the
father of her child, had with seeming indiiference given her up to her mistress, and
that misfcress had dealt hardly with her, and she felt she had
SARAH A D HAGAR. 41 not a friend on earth, he had befriended her, had spoken
words of kindness, and promised her great and wonderful blessings. She had seen
him, she had heard his voice. Awe-struck, and wondering that she still liv^d after
having seen Jehovah, she turned from the spot, which from that day was called "
The well of the angel of life, who appeared there." Hagar returned to her home, as
she had been directed, but whether she Avent to peace or further affliction is not
disclosed. We infer, however, that her own altered deportment, and the birth of her
child, which occurred soon after, put an end for the time to the bitter troubles
caused by Sarah's unhappy expedient. Abraham was extremely fond of his son, and
Sarah regarded him as her own ; and doubtless the mother's heart rejoiced in
seeing the boy an object of such care. He was exalted far above herself in station ;
but she was his mother, and permitted to perform toward him a mother's part, and
to feel all a mother's happiness in his unfolding powers. early thirteen years passed
quietly on,
bringing with them no events of sufficient import A* z
42 THE MOTHERS OF THE BIBLE. ance to be noticed by the inspired penman. o
further revelation from God disturbed the delusion under which Abram and Sarah
labored, that Ishmael was the promised seed, the heir of the covenant; and he was
doubtless trained up in his father's house in a manner suitable to his future
expectations. The time, however, a,t length came when Jehovah would more fully
unfold his plans. Abram had nearly reached the age of a hundred years, and Sarah
was almost ninety, when he once more appeared, and said, " I am Grod all-
suificient ; walk before me, and be thou perfect." This language seems to convey a
reproof for their want of faith in his promises, nnd resorting to expedients of their
own devising, and bids them henceforth act with more simplicity, and leave God to
bring about his designs in his own way. He then entered into a solemn covenant
with Abram, in which he included all his posterity to the latest generation. He also
changed their names. Abram, which signifies " an eminent father," he called
Abraham, '' an eminent father of a multitude ; " and Sarai, '* my princess," or, as
we more familiarly say.
SARAH A D HA GAR. 43 queen of her own household, he called Sarah,
" princess of a multitude ; " and then for the first time announced that the
promised seed should descend from her : ''I will give thee a son also of her ; " " she
shall he a mother of nations." ot long after this, the Lord again reiterates his
promise, in an interview which is beautifully described in the sacred volume. In the
delightful oak-grove of Mamre, in the midst of a sultry summer day, the patriarch
sat at the door of his tent, enjoying the slight breeze, and resting from toil, which
the intense heat of the Eastern climate forbids during certain hours. All around, at
short distances, were the tents of his numerous dependants, their occupants
reposing like himself, or scattered abroad with the flocks and herds. All was quiet
and peaceful, until the sound of coming footsteps disturbed his meditations, and
warned him of the approach of strangers. Abraham, obeying the quick impulse of
hospitality, hastened to greet them, and invite them to repose under the grateful
shade, and offer them the refreshments they needed. He provided water for their
feet, and, entering the
44 THE MOTHERS OP THE BIBLE. tent, directed Sarah to prepare food and set
before thein ; wliicli being done, he served them himself, according to the custom of
his time. Yfhile they sat eating, the chief of them suddenly asked him, " Where is
Sarah, thy wife ? '* It was an extraordinary question. The women of the East live in
the closest seclusion, having no intercourse with strangers, nor with any of the
opposite sex, save their husbands, and with them they are never permitted to sit at
the same table.
A traveller remarks that one who should ask another of the health of his wife and
family would be considered as offering him a downright insult. The question must,
therefore, have greatly surprised Abraham. He answered, briefly, that Sarah was
in the tent. *' I will certainly return unto thee," continued his mysterious, though
now no longer unknown visitor, '' and, lo, Sarah thy w^ife shall have a son." Their
table was spread at no great distance from the tentdoor, and Sarah, in her private
apartment, was an astonished listener to this strange conversation. We have before
said that she did not partake of her husband's implicit faith. When she heard the
SARAH A D HAGAR. 45 announcement that she should bear a sol^ it was to her
only ridiculous. The infinite power of hini who promised she wholly overlooked,
and remembered only that she had long passed the age when maternity was
possible, in the ordinary course of events. She laughed incredulously at what she
heard. Omniscience pierces any barrier. '* Wherefore did Sarah laugh ? " said he.
'' Is anything too hard for the Lord ? " Terrified at being detected, Sarah now
came forth from the tent, and, in her fear and confusion, '* denied, saying, I
laughed not." One penetrating look, and the quiet, firm reply, '' ay, but thou didst
laugh," were sufficient to send her back to her retirement in penitence, a wiser and
a better woman. From this time her character seems to have undergone a change.
Her distrust of God was gone, and Paul, in days long after, numbers her among
those who were illustrious for their faith, attributing the birth of Isaac to her
implicit reliance on the word of the Almighty : " She judged
him faithful who had promised, and received strength." ot long after this,
Abraham removed from
46 THE MOTHERS OF THE BIBLE. Mamre, where he had long resided, and
went to dwell in Gemh, the capital of the Philistines. Here was reenacted the same
folly which had formerly cost them so much in Egypt, and which it is most
marvellous to us should have ever been forgotten. Sarah was again taken by a
heathen king, and only restored to her husband by the intervention of Jehovah. She
was at this time ninety years of age, yet so remarkable was her beauty that she was
as much an object of attraction as in her youthful days, and Abimelech, after
reproving Abraham for his deception, hinted to her, that it would be becoming in
her to wear, wdien among strangers, a closely-covering veil, such as was universally
customary among females resident in towns, in order to avoid the dangers to which
her beauty exposed her. So far as we can gather from the sacred volume, Sarah was
at this very time pregnant, by the miraculous power of Jehovah, which renders the
whole scene still more remarkable. Whether they remained long in Gerah, we ave
not informed, nor where Isaac was born. But the joyful d>V came at length. *'
After a childless
SARAH A D HAGAR. 47 nnion of more than sixty years," Abraliam and
Sarah welcomed with delight the heir of the promises, the covenanted gift of
Jehovah. They called him Isaac. " There shall be laughter; " " All that hear will
laugh with me," said Sarah; and, indeed, few events, if any, recorded on the sacred
page, were welcomed with so much rejoicing. early three years, according to the
custom of her nation, Sarah nourished her infant at her own breast ; and only a
mother can imagine her heartfelt happiness and gratitude during that delightful
time. "And the child grew and was weaned, and Abraham made a great feast the
same day that Isaac was weaned." It was a bright, joyous day ; friends were
congregated, tables of abundance were spread, congratulations were poured forth ;
while the unconsciou'S object of all, the pride and joy of fond parents, the hope of
generations to come, pursued his childish sports, and expressed his childish wonder
at the scene. But, like many sunny mornings of earth, it was to be overhung with
clouds, its joy to be dampened by deep sorrow. Two hearts were there which no
gladness
48 THE MOTHERS OF THE BIBLE. visited, and in which no good feelings were
cherished. Ishmael and his mother were envious and discontented witnesses of all
that occurred. The happiness of others was their sorrow, the fulfilment of hope to
Abraham and Sarah was their bitter disappointment ; and they manifested their
dissatisfaction. Hagar, probably, by pouring out her thoughts to her son, and he by
ridiculing and speaking contemptuously of Isaac. Sarah saw and heard, and all that
was to come in the future — the discord and wrangling, the endless
disputes and heart-burnings, the evil and perhaps malicious influence over her
precious child — ¦ flashed instantly upon her mind, and, urged by an impulse too
strong to be resisted, she sought her husband, and demanded that Hagar should be
divorced, and Ishmael disinherited. It was a grievous request to Abraham. Ishmael
was his own son, his first-born and first-beloved ; and toward Hagar he felt the
tenderness of a father for the mother of his child. He appears to have appealed to
God, who bade him do as Sarah had said, for Isaac was to be his only heir ; but, at
the f?an.e time, soothed his grief, and allayed his anx-
SARAH A D HAGAR. 49 iefcies, by promising tliat Isbmael, for his sake, should be
abundantly prospered and blessed. Early on the morning which followed the
weaning feast, Abraham arose to execute his sorrowful task. Calling Hagar, he
gave her the necessary directions for her future course, placed on her shoulder a
leathern bottle of water, and bread sufficient for their present wants, and then,
putting Ishmael's hand in hers, he bade them a final farewell, and sent them on
their way. Wonderful, indeed, was the faith and obedience Qf Abraham ! The
wanderers bent their steps toward the uninhabited region beyond Beersheba,
Hagar probably intending, as before, to go to Egypt. She was unhappy then, but
more miserable now, and yet deeper trouble awaited her. The water was soon gone,
and Ishmael, overcome with fatigue and thirst, was unable to proceed ; and when
she saw him lying helpless, and apparently about to
die, in her anguish she left him, that she might not witness the closing of eyes so
dear, forever. Did she now call to mind her former deliverance ? Did the name of
her son recall the scene at tha
60 THE MOTHERS OF THE BIBLE. *'well of the angel of life," and induce her
again to seek his aid ? We do not know. But whether she called or not, that blessed
angel was near her now, as before. Once more his heavenly voice addressed her : ''
What aileth thee, Ilagar? Fear not ; for God hath heard the voice of the lad where
he is." JX* -U* -U* •itf •91* •ft* "TV* 'fP "TT "TP She was relieved and her child
restored. Blessed and comforted by the promises of God, sh^ went on her way.
Ishmael was at this time sixteen years of age ; and though, as we read the account,
we feel that it was cruel to send him forth from the luxuries and privileges of his
father's house, to provide for himself, it was not so in fact. The younger sons of a
family were generally thus sent to seek their fortunes. lie chose for his home a spot
uninhabited and wild, the resort of many animals proper for food, and by the use
of his bow he was able amply to supply his own and his mother's wants, and was
soon, as had been promised, a prosperous man. Hagar, we are told, took him a wife
from her native land, and fr^m him descended a race not
SARAH A D HAGAil. 51 less remarkable than the Israelites themselves. The
faithfalness of Abraham has had its reward not alone in the blessings bestowed on
the chosen seed. After the departure of Hagar and Ishmael little is recorded
concerning the family of Abraham. They dwelt at Beersheba, and, so far as we
know, their life passed quietly. Of Sarah's character as a mother we earnestly wish
to know more than we are told. ot a word is said of her instructions to her
cherished son, and we can only gather the proof of her faithfulness from the
excellent character of Isaac. We know that daily lessons of obedience to his parents
were instilled into his young mind, for he hesitated not to follow his father,
unquestioned, to the Mount of Moriah, and to do his bidding to the utmost. And in
later years, he with the same spirit acceded to his father's wishes in respect to the
most important interests of his life, receiving even his wife from his hands,
apparently without the slightest disposition to select for himself the partner of his
life, after his father had desired to do it for him. We know that the most
unwavering confidence in God
52 THE MOTHERS OF THE BIBLE. had been wrought into his whole life, for he
submitted without shrinking to be bound and laid upon the altar of sacrifice at the
divine command, manifesting a faith sc:ircely inferior to that of Abraham himself.
We know that a mother's untiring, devoted love, had been his daily blessing, and
had linked his heart to hers in ties which
might not be sundered without deepest anguish, for he knew no comfort after her
death, till three years had fled, and Rebecca w^as given to cheer his solitude. We
are certain that a holy example, the sacred influence of daily prayer, the habitual
prominence given to sacred and divine realities, and frequent instructions
concerning his obligations to honor his father's God, trained this child of the
covenant to fill the place assigned him in the mighty plan of grace. Many years he
enjoyed his mother's care and counsels ; he seems to have been her constant
companion, and from that companionship he gained a gentleness and loveliness of
character, very remarkable in a man. The strongest earthly ties are frail when
death appears. Sarah's death and the circumstances
SARAH A D HAGAR. 53 of her burial are touchingly desciibed in the sacred
volume, and it is worthy of notice, that she is the only woman to whom such honor
is given. Abraham was a stranger and sojourner in the land of Canaan, and had
hitherto owned not a foot of the land promised to his descendants, nor had he
needed such possession. Cared for by God, and surrounded by those he loved,
every place was home. But now, death had removed the light of his eyes, the fond
companion of his days. early a century had she shared his every joy and sorrow,
and cheered his pilgrim lot. But now she would no longer gladden his tent, nor
accompany him in his wanderings. She had daily bowed with him, through those
long years, in sincere and humble worship of the living
God, and their united faith had drawn from him wonderful, even miraculous
blessings. But now her familiar form would appear no more at the sacred altar, nor
her confidence in the Almighty strengthen his own. He had loved her in their early
days, when she was the pride and joy of his Chaldean home, but she was far dearer
to him When he looked upon her, after nearly a century 5*
54 THE MOTHERS OF THE BIBLE. had passed over her head, with beauty
unimpanned, her youth renewed by the kindness of God, folding to her mother's
breast the longdesired and most precious son of promise. "A babe in a house is not
merely a well-spring of pleasure," and " a messenger of peace and love," but
infancy and childhood ever bring with them freshening and revivifying influences.
Abraliam had felt their influences himself, and seen their effect on Sarah, and we
can well believe that their evening-time had been brighter than the mornmg. But
she was gone, and the question came, '* where should he lay, for their last repose,
the remains of his beloved and faithful wife ?" ot in the burying-places of the
idolaters ! He could not endure the thought. lie purchased the cave of Machpelah,
and, with weeping and mourning, buried his dead out of his sight. Around that
grave of Sarah how many sacred associations linger. There, when years had passed,
Isaac and Ishmael met, for the flrst time, perhaps, since the weaning feast, to lay
their honored father by her side. *' There they buried Isaac and Kebec^va his wife;
there Jacob buried
SAKAH A D HAGAR. 65 Leali," and thither went up from Egypt the *' chariots
and horsemen, a very great company," v;ho, with Joseph, bore the body of Jacob
also to the same quiet resting-place. Upon the hills of that beautiful region the
mighty -Anakims dwelt, and from thence, more than four hundred jewcv after,
when the descendants of Abraham were returning from bondage, the spies sent by
Moses brought back the evil report which resulted in the many wanderings of the
wilderness. On that spot stood one of the most ancient cities of the world — the
possession of Caleb, the son of Jephunneh, where the tribes received their
inheritance, and later, a city of refuge, and assigned to the Levites. There David
held his court seven years, and there Absalom raised the standard of revolt. And
when centuries had rolled away, when the long-expected Messiah was at hand, to
that sacred " city in the hill-country of Judah, went, in haste, '^ the most highly
favored among women, the virgin mother of Jesus, to exchange congratulations
with her only less favored cousin, and to pour forth her song of exultation and
triumph. The spot on which Abraham and Sarah dwelt so lone^,
56 THE MOTHERS OF THE BIBLE. and where their bones reposed, where the
Almighty had reiterated his solemn promises, — ¦ thousands of years after,
witnessed Mary's joy, and echoed her song of gratitude to him whose word abidtth
forever, for the fulfihnent of those very assurances. " My soul doth magnify the
Lord ; he hath holpen his servant Israel in remembrance of his mercy ; as he spake
to our fathers, to Abraham and his seed forever.'' A multitude of reflections crowd
upon us as we draw to a close our account of Sarah and Hagar, to which we can do
no justice. Indeed, we feel that we have given a meagre transcript of our own
thoughts while studying this deeply interesting history. We earnestly request those
who have read these pages, not to rest for a moment satisfied, but to take the sacred
book, and, asking light from above, give themselves to the work of gaining all the
instruction it affords upon this theme. We assure them that encouragement,
strength, and blessing will be their reward. Especially, they shall gain delightful
views of the character of Jehovah, and be able to sing as never before, ^' Exalt the
Lord our God."
SARAH A D HAGAR. 57 *'Praise ye the Lord, for his mercy endure th forever."
Sarah, notwithstanding her dignified station, her wonderful beauty and noble
character, was still an imperfect woman ; yet how kindly was she dealt with ; what
honor has God put upon her. She consented to prevarication and deceit with her
husband, but the evil consequences which they deserved were once and again
prevented by divine interposition. She laughed incredulously at his gracious words
of promise, and then denied her fault. Yet, in consideration of her '' fear and
amazement," she was not severely reproved, the blessing was not withheld, nor was
her fault noticed to the exclusion of what
was otherwise good in her conduct, for, by the mouth of Peter, God afterward
commends hei reverence for her husband, manifested at that very time. She was
faithless, and jealous, and angry in her dealings with Hagar, yet the Almighty did
not take his favor from her, while he suffered her to reap the bitter fruit of her
folly. As a mother, how remarkable is his kindness to her. " She was ninety years of
age when IsaMO
58 THE MOTHERS OF THE BIBLE. was born. In the course of nature ten or
twelve years would have closed her mortal caieer, or rendered it, from the
infirmities of age, a burden to herself and all around her. There was apparently no
need of her preservation to forward the decrees of the Lord. In giving birth to the
child of promise, her part was fulfilled, and at the age of ten or twelve the boy
might have done without her. But God is love, and the affections of his children are,
in their strength and purity, peculiarly acceptable to him. He never bestoweth
happiness to withdraw it ; and therefore, to perfect the felicity of Sarah and her
child, his tenderness preserved her in life and vigor seven and thirty years after she
had given him birth. The trial of faith, also, in the sacrifice of his son, was given to
the father. He demanded not from her what he knew the mother could not bear."
Strikingly, too, is the loving-kindness of God manifested in Hagar's history. She
was not of the chosen race ; she was but a humble bondwoman, and very faulty in
character, yet he took cognizance of her woes, and twice came in his own glorious
person to her aid, and bestowed upon her rich and abundant blessings. Would that,
amid our many cares, anxieties, and sorrows, we could ever bear in mind the love
of him who wove the ties by which our hearts are bound to our children, whose
tenderness and sympathy are never-failing, who says to every one of his redeemed
children, '' Can a mother forget her child ? Yea, they may, yet will I not forget
thee."
10. SARAH BY FRANCIS COX
At a very advanced period of life, and in obedience to a divine injunction, Abraham
went out from his country and his father's house, "not knowing whither he went."
By this cheerful, prompt, and pious submission to the mysterious will of Heaven, he
has acquired a high distinction in the sacred records, and presents a noble example
for the imitation of all future ages. Here was no debate between a sense of duty and
an inclination to sin--no disposition to question the wisdom or the goodness of the
command--no effort to devise expedients for the purpose of procuring delay--and
no unholy apprehensions respecting the possible or probable consequences of such
a proceeding.
In this removal from Chaldea, the illustrious exile took with him his wife, his
nephew, "and all their substance that they had gathered, and the souls that they
had gotten in Haran." Upon their arrival in Canaan, the divine declaration
respecting his future possession of the country was renewed, and he erected an
altar to the Lord in the plain of Moreh. The same act of devotion was performed at
the next stage of his journey, on a mountain to the east of Bethel; for no change of
place could obliterate his sense of religious obligation.
This land of promise was soon afflicted with a grievous famine, in consequence of
which, he was necessitated to provide for the subsistence of his family by removing
into Egypt. This was a new trial to his faith; for by what possible means could a
land at present so impoverished, become a place of plentiful subsistence to his
posterity, when multiplied as the sands upon the sea-shore? Driven even from this
promised inheritance, he did not, however, manifest a spirit of discontent or
unbelief, but hastened to seek a temporary asylum, convinced that he to whose
guidance he had committed himself and his beloved family, could, by the
outstretched arm of his power, not only overcome every obstacle which to human
ignorance might seem insurmountable; but by his concurrent wisdom render
difficulties themselves subservient to the accomplishment of his purposes.
Alas! on his entering Egypt he is seized with apprehension. The faith which had
hitherto been so conspicuous is mingled with distrust, and he engages his beloved
SARAH, who is now introduced to our notice, in an act of most unwarrantable
duplicity. The whole of this transaction is detailed with that perfect impartiality
which characterizes the histories of the Scriptures, and which furnishes one very
decisive evidence of their inspiration.
Sarah is represented as very beautiful. Her husband was aware that this
circumstance would attract the notice of the Egyptians, not only because of the
contrast her person would exhibit to the swarthy complexions of their women, but
on account of their licentious character. He dreaded their illicit attachment, and
the probable consequence that they might assassinate him in order to obtain his
wife. This idea of Egyptian morals was no doubt correct, but how deplorable! They
would not commit adultery; but for the sake of gratifying a guilty passion, were
ready to perpetrate the abominable sin of murder! And thus, under the strange
pretence of reverence for the matrimonial law, they would have violated at once the
dictates of humanity, the principles of reason, and the constitutions of heaven. So
common is it for transgressors to "strain at a knat and swallow a camel;" and so
uniform the course of guilt, which never walks alone, but draws with it a train of
complicated iniquities!
The preliminaries being settled, Abraham and his family entered Egypt. She was to
say, when any inquiries were made, that she was his sister, hoping by this artifice to
escape danger. This, it must be observed, was not a direct falsehood: it was such
only by implication. It was true that, according to the Jewish mode of reckoning,
Sarah was the sister of Abraham; but their intention in circulating this statement
was, to conceal the whole truth of her being his wife. Notwithstanding the ingenuity
which some learned men have displayed in attempting to vindicate this conduct, we
must without hesitation pronounce it base, mean, and prevaricating. The purpose
was to deceive, and it was the more censurable for being so deliberately
premeditated and so perseveringly practised. There are cases in which persons
have been overtaken in a fault, impelled by some momentary passion, excited by
some brilliant temptation, or betrayed by some unexpected coincidence of
circumstances, and of which they have deeply and almost immediately repented--a
situation which cannot but excite our pity, as well as our disapprobation; but this
was a transaction which it is impossible either to extenuate or justify. Let it be
improved as a motive for self-examination, and a beacon to warn us from similar
misconduct. "O keep my soul, and deliver me: let me not be ashamed, for I put my
trust in thee. Let INTEGRITY and UPRIGHTNESS preserve me, for I wait on
thee."
Prevarication of every kind partakes of the very essence of lying, being not only
subversive of social happiness, by preventing all confidential intercourse amongst
mankind, but diametrically opposed to the commands of God. Every species of
wilful deceit, as the use of ambiguities in language for the purpose of misleading;
the adoption of expressions which we know to be understood by another in a
different sense from what we really mean; mental reservations; a studied
suppression of part of the truth, as in the present example, is unworthy the
character of any person who professes to be an honest man, much more of one who
sustains the dignified character of a Christian. "Wherefore, putting away lying,
speak every man truth with his neighbour."
In theory, it seems an easy thing to adhere to truth; but it is too frequently found
difficult in practice. When motives of interest are balanced against motives of duty,
it is well if the former do not sometimes preponderate. Are we always careful to
state facts exactly as they exist; to avoid all false colouring; to swear even to our
own hurt? If so, we need not fear investigation, because nothing can be detected but
an honourable, undissembled mind.
When Adam disobeyed the divine commandment, and in consequence forfeited the
bliss of primeval paradise, he was seduced by his fair partner, who had already
listened to the wily suggestions of the serpent; but Abraham, so far from being
tempted by his wife, appears to have been the sole contriver of this disingenuous
artifice, and employed all his influence to induce her to transgress. In following him
from his original residence into Canaan, and subsequently to Egypt, she obeyed the
dictates of affection and of religion; but when she suffered herself to be persuaded
into a deceitful action, she sacrificed the purity of her conscience. It became her,
however painful the conflict, to resist the temptation; and, when the claims of
heaven were opposed to those of affection or human authority, to obey God rather
than man. It appears that we are not only in danger of being misled by those who
are our avowed enemies, or by the pernicious example of the multitude who do evil,
but the nearest and dearest relatives may become snares to our feet; and even
those, in whose piety and wisdom we should naturally confide, may, under the
influence of temporary delusion, incite us to do wrong. Our affections must not be
implicitly trusted. There is a point where submission to man becomes treason
against heaven. It were better to incur the displeasure even of the dearest friend
and tenderest relative, than of Him who possesses supreme authority over
conscience.
At the same time, let a woman, who thus ventures to disobey her husband, do it
with that caution which results solely from a conviction of paramount duty, and
from a well founded assurance that she is not mistaken. It is no trifling occasion
that will justify opposition to the will of him whom she is commanded to obey; and
if it be done in a proper spirit, it will be done with a degree of reluctance, and
under an overwhelming sense of necessity. Let the spirit of meekness be prevalent.
Nothing in the manner, in which unwelcome opposition is maintained, must
indicate a proud resistance, or an air of triumph. It must not be litigious, petulant,
unconciliating; but the importance of those principles which occasion the
difference, must be apparent in the temper of mind they produce. Thus, it will be
possible to maintain the rights of conscience, and not to violate the claims of duty:
the integrity of the heart will be indicated, not by words only, but by actions.--It is
natural to feel indignant against a conduct which we suspect to proceed from
improper motives, and a hostile spirit; but we extenuate even the mistakes of those
who differ most widely from ourselves, provided we have sufficient evidence that
their scruples result from conscientious feelings. While, therefore, in our
differences from others, we are careful not to be actuated by mere frivolous
pretences, we must be equally solicitous not to be deterred from showing a firm
consistence of conduct, lest we should incur the charge of an affected singularity.
The fact was such as Abraham had anticipated. Sarah was the object of universal
admiration. She attracted the attention even of Pharaoh's courtiers, who, with the
view of pleasing their master, recommended her to the king. Supposing she had
been the stranger's sister, she was taken into his house. Alas! what availed all this
timid policy! The very means which had been devised for the preservation of Sarah
from Egyptian licentiousness, nearly exposed her to all its dreaded consequences;
and Abraham was duped by his own craftiness. His wife was endangered, his
artifice detected, and the household of Pharaoh visited with divine chastisements on
her account. And, in addition to the pain which both he and his beloved partner
must have felt, from the consciousness of having acted wrong, they were dismissed
from the country. "And Pharaoh called Abraham, and said, What is this that thou
hast done unto me? Why didst thou not tell me that she was thy wife? Why saidst
thou, She is my sister? So I might have taken her to me to wife: now, therefore,
behold thy wife, take her and go thy way. And Pharaoh commanded his men
concerning him; and they sent him away, and his wife, and all that he had."
The beauty of Sarah was obviously the occasion of her committing, in concert with
her husband, the sin of equivocation, and of the misfortunes which attended their
Egyptian journey. If she had not been distinguished for a fair exterior, she would
have escaped the admiration of these strangers, and the difficulties which she and
Abraham afterwards encountered. Solomon pronounces beauty to be vain; and the
history of the world will show, that, in innumerable instances, as well as that of
Sarah, it has betrayed its fair possessor into many snares. Experience, however, in
this respect, does not seem to teach wisdom; for the wish to acquire the attraction
which beauty confers, seems to be no less prevalent in the present age, than it was
at the earliest period of the world. How many hours of the day, and how many days
of the wasted year, do some females devote to the improvement of their persons!
Impossible as it has ever been, and ever will be found, to make one hair black or
white, to add one cubit to the stature, to bend one untractable feature into the
admired curve to which common consent attributes grace and loveliness; the
impossible transformation is nevertheless attempted. The treasures of opulence are
exhausted; the more valuable possession of health is often sacrificed at the shrine of
vanity: and while the noble distinctions of cultivated intellect and solid piety are
neglected, the ostentatious decoration of exterior polish is sought with useless and
guilty avidity.
The most effectual means of correcting this error, is in early life to commence the
important business of moral discipline by a solid education. If a greater degree of
attention be paid to showy, than to substantial acquirements; if young ladies be
systematically prepared to shine and attract, instead of being assiduously formed to
be useful in the stations to which Providence has assigned them; it may be expected
that they should become solicitous of courting admiration, rather than of winning
esteem. They will necessarily be unfitted for domestic management, and
disqualified for the sober realities of life. If the matrimonial connexion be founded
upon no better pretensions, and no superior reasons for attachment, it is incapable
of securing solid happiness. It is, in fact, at the mercy of every breeze. The wind of
adversity may blow upon the fair flower, wither its exterior charms, and leave
nothing but prickles and thorns. A consciousness of insignificance on the one hand,
and a perception of it on the other, will produce disappointment, and generate
dissatisfaction; and it will be found, too late perhaps, that the mind, instead of the
face, ought to have been principally regarded.
There is a species of parental vanity against which we would loudly appeal. Some
persons are extremely anxious that their daughters should possess all the
attractions of beauty; and from their earliest infancy, a concern for appearances is
instilled into them, as of the first importance. If young persons, so unhappily
circumstanced, should receive a wrong bias, we cannot feel surprised; and it will
require a long course of salutary discipline, combined with the inculcation of
religious principles, effectually to teach them that to see, and to be seen, are not the
great purposes of human existence; that they must live for nobler ends, and secure
the approbation of the wise and good by other accomplishments than a taste for the
arrangement of a ribbon, or the harmony of a tune. Unless they should be
unfortunate enough to meet with none but flippant and vacant admirers, to whose
flattering nothings they are induced to listen, they will find, that persons of real
worth are not to be attracted by tinsel decorations, nor a butterfly exterior, but
that
"Man has a relish more refined;"
and will rather breathe the following sentiments, as the appropriate language of a
noble enthusiasm, connected with rationality and religion;
"Souls are for social bliss designed--
Give me a blessing fit to match my mind;
A kindred soul to double and to share my joys."
That which constitutes the source of attraction to well regulated minds, does not
depend upon the disposition of the features, nor the colour of the skin. It is possible
to every kind of exterior form. "This beauty," it has been well observed, "does not
always consist in smiles, but varies as expressions of meekness and kindness vary
with their objects: it is extremely forcible in the silent complaint of patient
sufferance, the tender solicitude of friendship, and the glow of filial obedience; and
in tears, whether of joy, of pity, or of grief, it is almost irresistible.
"This is the charm which captivates without the aid of nature, and without which
her utmost bounty is ineffectual. But it cannot be assumed as a mask to conceal
insensibility or malevolence: it must be the effect of corresponding sentiments, or it
will impress upon the countenance a new and more disgusting deformity--
AFFECTATION. Looks, which do not correspond with the heart, cannot be
assumed without labour, nor continued without pain: the motive to relinquish them
must, therefore, soon preponderate, and the aspect and apparel of the visit will be
laid by together: the smiles and the languishments of art will vanish, and the
fierceness of rage, or the gloom of discontent, will either obscure or destroy all the
elegance of symmetry and complexion.
"The artificial aspect is, indeed, as wretched a substitute for the expression of
sentiment, as the smear of paint for the blushes of health: it is not only equally
transient, and equally liable to detection; but, as paint leaves the countenance yet
more withered and ghastly, the passions burst out with more violence after
restraint, the features become more distorted, and excite more determined
aversion.
"Beauty, therefore, depends principally upon the mind, and consequently may be
influenced by education. It has been remarked, that the predominent passion may
generally be discovered in the countenance; because the muscles by which it is
expressed, being almost perpetually contracted, lose their tone, and never totally
relax; so that the expression remains when the passion is suspended: thus, an
angry, a disdainful, a subtle, and a suspicious temper, is displayed in characters
that are almost universally understood. It is equally true of the pleasing and the
softer passions, that they leave their signatures upon the countenance when they
cease to act. The prevalence of these passions, therefore, produces a mechanical
effect upon the aspect, and gives a turn and cast to the features, which make a more
favourable and forcible impression upon the mind of others, than any charm
produced by mere external causes.
"Neither does the beauty which depends upon temper and sentiment, equally
endanger the possessor: it is, to use an eastern metaphor, 'like the towers of a city--
not only an ornament, but a defence:' if it excite desire, it at once controls and
refines it; it represses with awe, it softens with delicacy, and it wins to imitation.
The love of reason and of virtue is mingled with the love of beauty; because this
beauty is little more than the emanation of intellectual excellence, which is not an
object of corporeal appetite. As it excites a purer passion, it also more forcibly
engages to fidelity: every man finds himself more powerfully restrained from
giving pain to goodness than to beauty; and every look of a countenance in which
they are blended, in which beauty is the expression of goodness, is a silent reproach
to the first irregular wish; and the purpose immediately appears to be disingenuous
and cruel, by which the tender hope of ineffable affection would be disappointed,
the placid confidence of unsuspecting simplicity abused, and the peace even of
virtue endangered, by the most sordid infidelity, and the breach of the strongest
obligations.
"But the hope of the hypocrite must perish.--When the factitious beauty has laid by
her smiles; when the lustre of her eyes, and the bloom of her cheeks, have lost their
influence with their novelty; what remains, but a tyrant divested of power, who will
never be seen without a mixture of indignation and disdain? The only desire which
this object could gratify, will be transferred to another, not only without
reluctance, but with triumph.
"Let it, therefore, be remembered, that none can be disciples of the GRACES, but
in the school of VIRTUE; and that those who wish to be LOVELY, must learn
early to be GOOD."
In the next transaction, Sarah appears in a still more unfavourable light than in the
former part of her history. In whatever degree the circumstances in which she was
placed may seem to extenuate the guilt of her conduct in Egypt, they can no longer
be pleaded on her behalf. She is not now overawed by the authority of her husband,
or seduced by an affection, which would, at all hazards, endeavour to save his
valuable life; but becomes the voluntary tempter to a violation of divine
institutions, by which she not only manifested her unbelief, but sacrifices to
unworthy motives her domestic peace.
Notwithstanding the divine assurance, that the posterity of Abraham should
become a great nation, and possess the land of Canaan, Sarah begins to think that
there is no probability of her becoming a mother. Ten years had elapsed, and no
child was born. Reflecting on her advanced period of life, and incapable of an
implicit reliance upon the power of God, she requested Abraham to take Hagar,
her Egyptian handmaid, in order that she might obtain children by her. It is
scarcely possible to imagine a proposal more calculated to subvert the comfort of
her family, or more illustrative of an unbelieving spirit. She could not rely upon the
slow but certain operations of a superintending Providence to fulfil those promises
which had been given; although a humble faith would have cherished confidence in
his word. He who has filled the volume of inspiration with "exceeding great and
precious promises," will assuredly accomplish them, notwithstanding every
apparent impediment. Omnipotence marches forward with a steady, undeviating
step, to its predestined purpose; and that infinite wisdom which originally planned
the future, can never be frustrated or confused by any contingencies or
vicissitudes; for no possible event can occur which was not fully anticipated at the
moment when the promise was given.
Sarah was not only under the influence of distrust, but of inordinate desire. She
was impatient for one of those prime domestic comforts which it was seen fit at
present to deny her; and because the time which had elapsed, exceeded her
calculations of probability, she took upon herself to devise a plan to hasten the
accomplishment of her wishes. Let us beware of an undue eagerness after the
possession of any temporal enjoyment. It will not only produce distrust, but,
probably, precipitate us into irregular means of gratifying our wishes. "Inordinate
desires commonly produce irregular endeavours. If our wishes be not kept in
submission to God's providence, our pursuits will scarcely be kept under the
restraints of his precepts."
It is truly surprising, that the father of the faithful should listen to this insinuating
request. Possibly he thought that, as Sarah was not distinctly mentioned in the
promise, Hagar might become the parent of the promised seed; and by this
specious pretence, being anxious for a son, he was induced to comply. We are easily
persuaded, when our own inclinations already concur with a proposal; and even
good men are very liable to misinterpret the intimations of Providence, whenever
they consult their own feelings rather than the word of God.
It is remarked, that "Abraham hearkened to the voice of SARAH." This was his
error. There was another voice he should have heard. If he had any doubts upon
his mind, or any suspicion that his present wife was not the predestined mother of
the numerous posterity that were to people Canaan, he should at least have betook
himself to prayer. In a day of such remarkable revelations, and in an affair of so
much consequence, he might reasonably have expected an express direction from
heaven; and he who had been already so privileged, ought to have unbosomed his
thoughts and explained his desires to the Lord. Let such as sustain the closest
connexion, beware of becoming snares instead of helps to each other! Previous to a
compliance with any important request that may lead to considerable
consequences, Let us, from whatever quarter it proceed, or however justifiable it
may appear, promptly avail ourselves of that gracious throne, which is always
accessible to the humble petitioner. We are liable to so many misconceptions,
exposed to the influence of so many prejudices, and subject to the attacks of such a
variety of temptations, that our only security is in the exercise of a devotional spirit,
our only help is in the Lord our God. If any man lack wisdom, let him repair to the
fountain of intelligence, and solicit those supplies from heaven which are not only
freely dispensed, but fully adequate to our diversified necessities.
The consequence of this unsanctioned proceeding, was precisely what might have
been expected. Elated with the honour of her situation, Sarah is despised by her
Egyptian handmaid. She treats her with contempt and impertinence, as if she were
the peculiar favourite of Heaven, and hoping no doubt, that the ample promises of
God were to be fulfilled by her means. Knowing what human nature is, we cannot
wonder at this disposition, culpable as it was. Nothing is more common than for
persons, when raised above the meanness of their birth, and the inferiority of their
former circumstances, to be guilty of assuming airs of importance, and to forget
their most obvious duties: and we would caution servants especially against such
unwarrantable conduct. If divine favours should be conferred upon them; if by the
grace of God they should be made partakers of that spiritual dignity which genuine
religion confers, and be thus placed upon a level with their masters or mistresses in
the Christian church, let them remember that they are not exempted from a civil
subserviency. They are by no means elevated above their natural situation as
servants, because they become Christians; but all the peculiar claims of domestic
duty remain. An aspiring, or a haughty spirit, is unbecoming their newly acquired
character, and shows that they have very imperfectly learned of him who was
"meek and lowly of heart." Every person is respectable in his station, exactly in
proportion as it is properly occupied; and real religion, instead of disqualifying for
subordinate situations, is adapted to produce contentment, and to dictate an
exemplary and uniform correctness of conduct in whatever condition we may be
placed by Providence. "Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters,
according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart, as unto
Christ: not with eye-service, as men-pleasers; but as the servants of Christ, doing
the will of God from the heart; with good will doing service, as to the Lord, and not
to men: knowing that whatsoever good thing any man doeth, the same shall he
receive of the Lord, whether he be bond or free." "Let as many servants as are
under the yoke, count their own masters worthy of all honour, that the name of
God and his doctrine be not blasphemed. And they that have believing masters, let
them not despise them, because they are brethren; but rather do them service,
because they are faithful and beloved, partakers of the benefit."
If Hagar behaved with impertinence and vanity, Sarah manifested a very
censurable degree of resentment. Irritated by her handmaid's arrogance, she
appealed to Abraham, protesting that she could not endure such insolence, and
charging him with a secret connivance, if not an encouragement of her provoking
behaviour. Thus we perceive a specimen of what will generally prove the case in
family dissensions--both were in the wrong. Hagar was aspiring and rude; Sarah
passionate and severe. If the former should have recollected her obligations, the
latter ought not to have forgotten her own foolishness in raising her above her
natural level, and placing her in circumstances of powerful temptation. The one
should have known her place; the other have kept her temper. Let the modern
mistress and servant take a lesson from this unhappy difference. How many
intestine commotions might be prevented, if inferiors would not overstep the
proper limits of their sphere; and if superiors in station would be conciliating in
spirit; "The beginning of strife is as when one letteth out water; therefore leave off
contention before it be meddled with."
Abraham wisely avoided all interference in this affair; and though his beloved
Sarah had appealed to him in very intemperate terms, he gave a soft answer.
"Behold thy maid is in thy hand; do to her as it pleaseth thee." He refrained from
all self-vindication, to which he seemed called by the violent appeal of his wife; but
if he thought proper either to defend himself, or to remonstrate with her, he chose
another occasion. When the passions are inflamed, the judgment is seldom
sufficiently unbiassed to listen to reason or to consult propriety. It has been
questioned, however, whether in this instance he was not too submissive. The
Egyptian maid seemed entitled to protection; and, instead of yielding to the rage of
Sarah, he should have interposed his meditation, and if necessary, his authority, to
restore peace.
Incapable of resisting the combined assaults of jealousy, rage, and revenge, the
poor foreigner is driven from the roof of Abraham. She fled into the wilderness
with the view of returning to her native country, but was suddenly arrested in her
flight by an angelic messenger, who admonished her to return to her mistress, and
pacify her by ready and unconditional submission. He also predicted the character
and habits of her future offspring, mentioning the name by which he was to be
called, and consoling her in this season of tribulation by an assurance that "the
Lord had heard her affliction." She instantly retracted her steps; and, as no
intimation is given to the contrary, we may infer that the fugitive was restored to
her situation in the family. She was humble, and Sarah conciliated: and as we hear
nothing of her for some years, they probably lived in tolerable harmony. It was a
merciful interposition to send her back to the family of Abraham; for a connexion
with the people of God, whatever may be their faults, is far more desirable than the
richest inheritance, or the noblest alliance, where religion is discarded or unknown.
[Sidenote: Years before Christ 1898]
As the birth of the Egyptian's son was attended by no divine congratulations,
Abraham is still permitted to pass thirteen years more in a state of suspense
respecting the promised child; when at the age of ninety-nine, the covenant is
renewed by another revelation. On this remarkable occasion his wife received the
name by which we have uniformly called her, Abraham being distinctly assured of
her predestined privilege as the mother of the promised seed. A similar change of
name was conferred upon the patriarch. Hitherto he had been called Abram, a
"high," or "eminent father;" now he is to be Abraham, "the father of a great
multitude." His beloved wife, who had been called Sarai, "my princess," was in
future to be distinguished by the name of Sarah, "a princess," denoting a more
extensive honour. If he were to become the Father, she was to be the Mother, of
"many nations."
Having already witnessed the misconduct of Abraham's wife on two memorable
occasions, it would be highly gratifying to hear, in the next circumstance of her
history, that she acted worthy of her connexion with so illustrious a husband, But
alas! we are still necessitated to derive instruction rather from a record of her
faults than of her excellencies. We must expect to witness a variety of these in every
human character, combined only with comparatively a small number of shining
graces. Indeed we find, in general, but one very distinguishing good quality
associated with those of a different complexion; and if the plant of grace spring up
and grow in the human character, it is usually in a thicket of inferior principles and
unholy propensities. While, therefore, engaged in the cultivation of our hearts, in
"keeping them with all diligence," as the wise king of Israel expresses it; one very
important duty we owe to ourselves is to watch the appearance of these
irregularities, and aim, by unremitting attention, united with fervent prayer, to
eradicate them from the moral soil. In Sarah we see as great a luxuriance of evil as
can be imagined to blend with real piety, without essentially deteriorating it.
Sitting one day at the door of his tent to enjoy the refreshing shade, [8] Abraham
observed three strangers approaching, whom he hastened to meet, that he might
offer them any temporary accommodation in his power. This act of hospitality was
conformable to the usage of the country; but the peculiar generosity of Abraham
seems indicated in his running to meet them. The invitation is immediately
accepted; and the good old man, with the most obliging readiness, offered water to
wash their feet, and bread to satisfy their hunger. He hastened to Sarah, directing
her to make some cakes of fine meal, and bake them on the hearth; and then went
himself to the herd to choose a tender calf, which he immediately proceeded to
dress. Butter and milk, the produce of their own pasture, were of course supplied.
The venerable patriarch then took his respectful standing under the branches of a
neighbouring tree, which afforded a pleasant screen from the sultry sun. What
exquisite simplicity is discernible here! what a subject for the painter! what a
theme for the poet! what an example for the good! Three heavenly messengers at
the humble table of one of the greatest men that ever inhabited this world--a
patriarch--a prince--the father of the faithful--the friend of God--venerable for
age--distinguished by his hospitality--still more eminent for faith!--their canopy the
overarching sky--their shelter, the wide-spreading tree--flocks and herds grazing
around, the indications of an industry which Providence had blessed with
remarkable success--and the plain of Mamre spreading its luxuriance before their
eyes!--
But we must hasten to the remarkable subject of their conversation. At present the
patriarch did not suspect the real character of his visiters; who introduced their
intended communication by asking, "Where is Sarah thy wife?" This must have
excited great surprise; for how could strangers know the affairs of his family, and
the particular name of his wife, which had been so recently changed? He informed
them, however, that she was in the tent, where, according to the prevailing custom
of the times, she had her separate table. One of the angels, immediately personating
Jehovah himself, if he were not, as appears probable, the very "Angel of the
Covenant," gave this solemn assurance: "I will certainly return unto thee
according to the time of life; and, lo, Sarah thy wife shall have a son!" Sarah,
whom curiosity had brought to the door of the tent to listen to what passed,
overhearing this assurance, and looking upon it as an impossible occurrence at her
time of life, laughed in derision. She had long come to the conclusion that she
should produce no son to Abraham, and, therefore, that all such expectations were
chimerical and ridiculous. This excessive incredulity--excessive, because a distinct
assurance of the fact had been already given to Abraham upon the occasion of their
change of names--was highly culpable; but while we denounce it with merited
severity, let us examine our own hearts. Have we never acted in a similar manner?
Have we never distrusted the providence of God or his promises? Who can plead
exemption from a spirit of unbelief? What surmises have agitated our bosoms,
when the events of life contradicted our expectations? What despondency have we
shown, and what distrust, when the movements Omniscience were
incomprehensible to our reason, and opposed to our apparent interest? If but one
part only of the divine proceedings seemed incongruous, we have dared to arraign
"the whole stupendous plan;" if but "a momentary cloud" arose upon our
prospect, we have begun to fancy that order was at an end, that the sun had for
ever disappeared, that God had "forgotten to be gracious, and in anger shut up his
tender mercies." Let us then aim to correct these irregularities of feeling, and to
dismiss these misinterpretations of providence.
Sarah imagined that her contemptuous incredulity was only known to herself: but
the heavenly visiter instantly detected it, and appealed to Abraham on its
impropriety. Possibly the reason of addressing Abraham, rather than calling the
culprit herself to an account, was to inflict the severer reproof. Ah! how vainly do
we strive to conceal the secret thoughts of the mind from the knowledge of God!
His eyes, which run to and fro through the earth, penetrate through every disguise,
and perfectly discern every inward motion as well as every outward action. We live
every moment--in the darkest midnight as well as at the brightest noon--in the full
blaze of Omniscience. "O Lord, thou hast searched me and known me: thou
knowest my down-sitting and mine up-rising; thou understandest my thoughts afar
off."
Incapable of enduring this exposure, the criminal now rushes from her
concealment, and boldly calls out, "I laughed not." This was a direct falsehood,
dictated by apprehension; and it was confronted by the instant retort of him who
knew her heart: "Nay, but thou didst laugh." It is possible that Sarah had some
mental reservation, when she so flatly denied the assertion of the angel: she might
persuade herself that she did not absolutely laugh, but only smiled, or felt
contempt; but whatever mode she might have adopted to explain away her
conscious guilt, it was unavailable, as every such unworthy subterfuge must always
prove.
We cannot help remarking the danger of the least deviation from the path of
rectitude. One sin prepares the way for the commission of another; one step over
the edge and boundary of uprightness may lead us down a precipice, and plunge us
into a fatal series of crimes. We have already seen an exemplification of this
remark; and it is more strikingly illustrated in the present transaction. Curiosity
brought her to the door, where she was soon betrayed into unbelief: detection soon
produced a fear of censure; this dread produced a ridiculous attempt at
concealment and self-justification; and the pride of her heart issued in exciting her
to a deliberate falsehood. Notwithstanding her incredulity, however, Sarah shall
bear a son, to be the spring of innumerable blessings to her posterity. Thus infinite
goodness overrules the perverseness of his people, as well as the wrath of sinners,
ultimately to promote his own designs.
If, on this occasion, the daring transgressor had been smitten to the earth by an
instantaneous judgment, it must have been regarded as a proper expression of the
divine displeasure. Her repeated provocations merited the severest chastisement,
and would undoubtedly have justified such a proceeding. The thoughts of Jehovah,
however, are not as our thoughts, nor his ways as our ways. There is nothing
vindictive in the character of the blessed God; and if he have on certain occasions
launched the thunderbolt upon the guilty heads of sinners, the circumstances have
shown that the atrocity of their iniquities has required a signal visitation. How far
punishment of this nature may be necessary in any particular case, it is not for
beings limited in their views as we are to decide, but simply to rely on the wisdom
of him, who, with a due intermixture of severity and mercy, justice and grace,
conducts the affairs of the universe.
Overawed by the angelic presence, and mortified by an inward consciousness of
her folly and sin, Sarah uttered not another word. She could neither vindicate her
incredulity, nor extenuate her false assertion; and though she proceeded to great
lengths, we are happy to find that she sufficiently restrained her intemperate
passions to retire in silence.
From this moment we trust she assumed another character. Reflection restored her
to her right mind. She dismissed her criminal doubts, and resigned herself to the
divine disposal. As the predestined period of her giving birth to the child of
promise was approaching, her faith produced the liveliest sensations of joy; and
both she and Abraham exulted in the prospect of a son. That this was the state of
her mind, we are assured from indisputable authority: "Through faith Sarah
herself received strength to conceive seed, and was delivered of a child when she
was past age, because she judged him faithful who had promised."
Perhaps we may be disposed to say, it was time she did believe. After such
remarkable manifestations, and such reiterated promises to Abraham, it would
have been passing strange had she continued incredulous. Surely there was enough
to convince her, that, whatever difficulties nature might present, grace had
determined to overcome them, and that every reasonable and every possible
evidence of the intended miracle had been given. But is it so unusual for mankind
to resist the most convincing arguments, and to disbelieve even the most obvious
truth, that the case of Sarah ought to be regarded as so extraordinary? Have we
not daily proof of a similar obstinacy and perverseness? If it be observed that
Sarah possessed great advantages, being connected with so excellent a man, and so
great a favourite of Heaven as Abraham, and being visited by angelic messengers,
and instructed by celestial visions; this may be admitted. But do not those who
reject the truth of Christianity, or disobey its precepts, act a more criminal as well
as unreasonable part, inasmuch as they enjoy all the instruction and all the
experience of past ages? And is it not a more outrageous defiance of Heaven to
oppose the reality of its manifestations, after successive centuries have
demonstrated the truth of predictions once mysterious, evinced the nature of facts
once misunderstood, dispersed the typical shadow which once enveloped the
sublimest discoveries of infinite wisdom, and poured upon a benighted world the
full blaze of evangelical revelations?--Sarah doubted the possibility of an
occurrence which was attended with striking difficulties, and evidently miraculous;
but what censure do not they deserve who shut their eyes against the clearest light,
perplex with sophisms the most intelligible statements, and endeavour, by every
exertion of a slanderous tongue and a malignant pen, to subvert the basis of our
religious hopes, and to undermine a fabric which has stood the test of ages, giving
repose and refreshment to millions of heaven-bound pilgrims on their journey!
To draw the circle of reflection closer.--If our inconsistencies were written in a
book--if the instances of our unbelief amidst evidences, of our failures in temper
and spirit, of our misimprovement of the peculiar advantages of our situation, were
recorded for the warning of others--is there any probability that we should acquire
much honour by a comparison with the wife of Abraham? We do not indeed justify
her faults, but let us not overlook our own. We have better means, and brighter
discoveries. In these last days God hath spoken unto us by his Son. We are, through
faith, become the children of Abraham, interested in the new covenant, introduced
into the family, and admitted to the friendship of God. We have seen the visions of
patriarchal days, the promises and blessings of the ancient dispensation, the
memorable and terrific descent of Jehovah on Sinai, the prefigurations of the
Mosaic economy, the personal glories, the incarnate love, the agonizing death, the
triumphant ascension of the Son of God: we enjoy means of instruction which no
other age did or could possess. And wherein consists our superiority to former
saints, even those whose imperfections are the most conspicuous? Surely, the
observation may be retorted upon many hearers and professors of the gospel, in
reference to their too frequent instances of inconsistency--it is time you did believe!
[Sidenote: Years before Christ, 1897.]
The birth of Isaac, the promised seed was attended with great rejoicings. His very
name, signifying laughter, was expressive of the happy occasion; and Sarah, in the
ecstacy of her mind, exclaimed, "God hath made me to laugh, so that all that hear
me will laugh with me." The birth of a child is naturally the subject of joy and
congratulation; but the introduction of Isaac into the world, who had been so long
and repeatedly promised, demanded and excited unusual satisfaction. Sarah, who
introduced him with a mother's joy, nursed him herself with a mother's care. She
was ignorant of the cruel absurdity which modern refinement has invented, of
separating the tender offspring from its proper guardian and provider, and thus
not only exposing it to many inconveniences and hardships, but nullifying the wise
and kind arrangements of Providence. Alas! nature, reason, and religion, must all
be violated in compliance with fashion! Need we feel surprised that barbarity
should produce alienation, and that she who refuses to show tenderness, should fail
of receiving attachment? Is it at all astonishing, that habits and sentiments foreign
to domestic comfort should be acquired; and that, when proper discipline and
personal superintendence are neglected, the young plant should shoot into
unsightly irregularities of spirit and character?
How soon may the brightest day be overcast with a cloud! How liable are our best
enjoyments to interruption! The weaning of Isaac was celebrated with great
festivities; upon which occasion this favourite child was recognized as Abraham's
heir. This excited the displeasure of Ishmael; which the jealous eye of Sarah
observing, she insisted upon the instantaneous expulsion of mother and son from
the family. We are sorry to witness any revival of the old spirit; but, in this world,
unholy passions cannot be totally eradicated. We should hope, however, there was
more reason, as well as religion, in her displeasure on this than on a former
occasion. The young man was, probably, ridiculing the whole ceremony, and
deriding the parents, the child, and the promise; for passion and prejudice are
never very discriminating in their censures. Ishmael was, in fact, of a wild,
ungovernable temper; but we have no evidence that the provocation was sufficient
to justify the proceeding of Sarah, in peremptorily demanding the expulsion of the
mother and her child. Thus did Abraham's concubinage continue to imbitter his
domestic peace; and the good old patriarch was again placed in a most difficult and
perplexing situation.
Whatever feelings may be supposed to have dictated the resolution of Sarah, it was
coincident with the designs of God; and Abraham, who had certainly sought divine
direction, was commanded to comply. This would, no doubt, quiet the feverish
anxiety of his mind; for a consciousness of doing the will of God, however contrary
it may be to our natural inclinations, is sufficient to smooth the roughest path of
duty, and to lighten the heaviest burden we may be called to sustain. Abraham, in
this, as well as in various other instances, displayed exemplary faith. The bitter
draught, however, was somewhat sweetened. It was difficult to parental feelings to
concur in so severe a measure; but some gleam of futurity was afforded to
enlighten the darksome but appointed path. "And God said unto Abraham, Let it
not be grievous in thy sight, because of the lad, and because of thy bond-woman: in
all that Sarah hath said unto thee, hearken unto her voice; for in Isaac shall thy
seed be called. And also of the son of the bond-woman will I make a nation, because
he is thy seed."
Notwithstanding the faults to which we have found it necessary to advert, Sarah
was unquestionably a great character. She not only stands recorded in the New
Testament amongst those who were illustrious in ancient times for their faith, but is
exhibited as a pattern of domestic conduct. Her defects were but occasionally
visible, being commonly concealed amidst the brightness of her numerous
excellencies. Her obedience to Abraham is specified by the apostle as a laudable
singularity, which, in connexion with other virtues, he thus recommends:
"Likewise, ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands; that if any obey not
the word, they also may without the word be won by the conversation of the wives;
while they behold your chaste conversation coupled with fear.--Whose adorning let
it not be that outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and of wearing of gold, or of
putting on of apparel; but let it be the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not
corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of
God of great price. For after this manner, in the old time, the holy women also, who
trusted in God, adorned themselves, being in subjection unto their own husbands,
even as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord; whose daughters ye are, as long
as ye do well, and are not afraid with any amazement."
[Sidenote: Years before Christ, 1859.]
Seven and thirty years after the birth of Isaac and when Sarah had attained the age
of one hundred and twenty-seven, we come to the conclusion of her "mortal story."
Her death, and the respect paid to her memory, are related with a circumstantial
minuteness which is truly honourable to her character. This affecting event
occurred at Kirjah-Arba, or Hebron, in the plain of Mamre, where Abraham came
to bemoan his loss. Venerable man! thine was no common mourning! Thou didst
not merely sit upon the ground, assuming the customary attitude of grief; but thine
were genuine sorrows! What big tears of undissembled pain poured down thine
aged cheeks! How did affection recal the days, and months, and years of delightful
union, which time had strengthened, but death had now dissolved! And yet, while
nature demanded this tribute of fond remembrance, religion had taught thee to
moderate thy distress, and to elevate thy hopes to a brighter world, where holy
friendship, begun on earth, shall be purified and perpetuated through everlasting
ages!
The longevity of ancient times, and especially of the antediluvians, naturally excites
surprise; but what a dream is human life, even at its most protracted period! How
soon do even centuries elapse! How solemn the consideration, that the flood of ages,
which has swept from the surface of this globe so many millions of our
predecessors, however firm may have been their health, or numerous their years,
or eminent their characters, is daily impelling us forward to the "house appointed
for all living." Their pilgrimage terminated, and so must ours: their earthly
relations were dissolved, and their places in society were vacated; and soon the
place which we occupy, shall "know us no more." The stream flows on, and we
cannot arrest its course. Happy for us, if it should appear that we are going to join
the society of the blessed; if, possessing the faith of Abraham, we have reason to
indulge the hope of being eventually transported to his bosom!
Sitting in imagination at the grave of Sarah, and blending our sympathizing tears
with those of her honoured husband, what a lesson may we learn respecting the
vanity of human life! The flower whose exquisite beauty and attractive sweetness
once excited so much desire, is faded, and mingled with common dust! There lies a
form, which was so lovely and so beloved, to furnish a repast for creeping worms!
How bereft of that spirit which once animated it! How altered and defaced by the
putrifying touch of mortality! Here the race of life terminates; and to this
loathsome dwelling, the proudest, the fairest, the wealthiest, the most celebrated,
and the most elevated of our race, must sooner or later descend! "Prepare to meet
thy God!"
We may take a momentary glance at another consideration. In order to answer the
great end of their being, in order to be furnished with adequate means for the
employment of their immortal faculties, and for possessing that plenitude of felicity
of which their sanctified natures are capable, the saints of God must be removed
out of the present world. Often do they exclaim, "I loath it; I would not live
alway:"--"O that I had wings like a dove; for then would I flee away and be at
rest!"
This prevailing wish accords with the purpose of Heaven. Infinite benevolence
cannot allow a spiritual and sanctified character always to be imprisoned within
the narrow confines of flesh and blood. It could never be satisfied to assign the
objects of its affection so mean a portion as the pleasures and the possessions of this
inferior state of existence. They must die to be perfectly blest. This earth will not do
for a Christian in the maturity of his character. It is too vile, and too transitory. Its
gold is but dust--its applause, a puff of noisy air--its sparkling pleasures, but
polluted cisterns--its richest gifts, but bubbles, which, if they reflect the fairest
colours of the rainbow, break when they are grasped, or dissolve as we approach
them, into mist and nothingness! "Set your affection on things above:--the things
which are seen are TEMPORAL; the things which are not seen are ETERNAL!"
11. THE ALLEGORIES OF SARAH AND HAGAR
By Charles Haddon Spurgeon
"These are the two covenants."—Galatians 4:24.
HERE cannot be a greater difference in the world between two things than there is
between law and grace. And yet, strange to say, while the things are diametrically
opposed and essentially different from each other, the human mind is so depraved,
and the intellect, even when blessed by the Spirit, has become so turned aside from
right judgment, that one of the most difficult things in the world is to discriminate
properly between law and grace. He who knows the difference, and always
recollects it—the essential difference between law and grace—has grasped the
marrow of divinity. He is not far from understanding the gospel theme in all its
ramifications, its outlets, and its branches, who can properly tell the difference
between law and grace. There is always in a science some part which is very simple
and easy when we have learned it, but which, in the commencement, stands like a
high threshold before the porch. Now, the first difficulty in striving to learn the
gospel is this. Between law and grace there is a difference plain enough to every
Christian, and especially to every enlightened and instructed one; but still, when
most enlightened and instructed, there is always a tendency in us to confound the
two things. They are as opposite as light and darkness, and can no more agree than
fire and water; yet man will be perpetually striving to make a compound of them—
often ignorantly, and sometimes wilfully. They seek to blend the two, when God has
positively put them asunder.
We shall attempt this morning to teach you something of the allegories of Sarah
and Hagar, that you may thereby better understand the essential difference
between the covenants of law and of grace. We shall not go fully into the subject,
but shall only give such illustrations of it as the text may furnish us. First, I shall
want you to notice the two women, whom Paul uses as types—Hagar and Sarah;
then I shall notice the two sons—Ishmael and Isaac; in the third place, I shall notice
Ishmael's conduct to Isaac; and I shall conclude by noticing the the different fates
of the two.
I. First, we invite you to notice THE TWO WOMEN—Hagar and Sarah. It is said
that they are the types of the two covenants; and before we start we must not forget
to tell you what the covenants are. The first covenant for which Hagar stands, is the
covenant of works, which is this: "There is my law, O man; if thou on thy side wilt
engage to keep it, I on my side will engage that thou shalt live by keeping it. If thou
wilt promise to obey my commands perfectly, wholly, fully, without a single flaw, I
will carry thee to heaven. But mark me, if thou violatest one command, if thou dost
rebel against a single ordinance, I will destroy thee for ever." That is the Hagar
covenant—the covenant propounded on Sinai, amidst tempests, fire and smoke—or
rather, propounded, first of all, in the garden of Eden, where God said to Adam,
"In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." As long as he did not eat
of the tree, but remained spotless and sinless, he was most assuredly to live. That is
the covenant of the law, the Hagar covenant. The Sarah covenant is the covenant of
grace, not made with God and man, but made with God and Christ Jesus, which
covenant is this: "Christ Jesus on his part engages to bear the penalty of all his
people's sins, to die, to pay their debts, to take their iniquities upon his shoulders;
and the Father promises on his part that all for whom the Son doth die shall most
assuredly be saved; that seeing they have evil hearts, he will put his law in their
hearts, that they shall not depart from it, and that seeing they have sins, he will
pass them by and not remember them any more for ever." The covenant of works
was, "Do this and live, O man!" but the covenant of grace is, "Do this, O Christ,
and thou shalt live, O man!" The difference of covenants rests here. The one was
made with man, the other with Christ; the one was a conditional covenant,
conditional on Adam's standing, the other is a conditional covenant with Christ,
but as perfectly unconditional with us. There are no conditions whatever in the
covenant of grace, or if there be conditions, the covenant gives them. The covenant
gives faith, gives repentance, gives good works, gives salvation, as a purely
gratuitous unconditional act; nor does our continuance in that covenant depend in
the least degree on ourselves. The covenant was made by God with Christ, signed,
sealed, and ratified, in all things ordered well.
Now come and look at the allegory. First, I would have you notice, that Sarah who
is the type of the new covenant of grace, was the original wife of Abraham. Before
he knew anything about Hagar, Sarah was his wife. The covenant of grace was the
original covenant after all. There be some bad theologians who teach that God
made man upright, and made a covenant with him; that man sinned, and that as a
kind of afterthought God made a new covenant with Christ for the salvation of his
people. Now, that is a complete mistake. The covenant of grace was made before
the covenant of works; for Christ Jesus, before the foundation of the world, did
stand as its head and representative; and we are said to be elect according to the
foreknowledge of God the Father, through the obedience and sprinkling of the
blood of Jesus. We, long ere we fell, were loved of God; he did not love us out of
pity to us, but he loved his people, considered purely as creatures. He loved them
when they became sinners; but when he started with them he considered them as
creatures. He allowed them to fall into sin, to show forth the riches of his grace,
which existed before their sin. He did not love them and choose them from among
the rest, after their fall, but he loved them beyond their sin, and before their sin. He
made the covenant of grace before we fell by the covenant of works. If you could go
back to eternity, and ask which is the oldest born, you would hear that grace was
born before law—that it came into the world long before the law was promulgated.
Older even than the fundamental principles which guide our morals is that great
fundamental rock of grace, in covenant made of old, long ere seers preached the
law, and long ere Sinai smoked. Long before Adam stood in the garden God had
ordained his people to eternal life, that they might be saved through Jesus.
Notice next: though Sarah was the elder wife, yet Hagar bare the first son. So the
first man Adam was the son of Hagar; though he was born perfectly pure and
spotless, he was not the son of Sarah when he was in the garden. Hagar had the
first son. She bore Adam, who lived for a time under the covenant of works. Adam
lived in the garden on this principle. Sins of commission were to be his fall; and if
he omitted to do the sin, then he was to stand for ever. Adam had it entirely in his
own power whether he would obey God or not: his salvation, then, rested simply on
this basis, "If thou touchest that fruit thou diest; if thou obeyest my command, and
dost not touch it, thou shalt live." And Adam, perfect as he was, was but an
Ishmael, and not an Isaac, till after his fall. Apparently, at any rate, he was a
Hagarene, though secretly, in the covenant of grace, he may have been a child of
promise. Blessed be God, we are not under Hagar now; we are not under the law
since Adam fell. Now Sarah hath brought forth children. The new covenant is,
"The mother of us all."
But notice again, Hagar was not intended to be a wife; she never ought to have
been anything but a hand-maid to Sarah. The law was never intended to save men:
it was only designed to be a hand-maid to the covenant of grace. When God
delivered the law on Sinai, it was apart from his ideas that any man would ever be
saved by it; he never conceived that man would attain perfection thereby. But you
know that the law is a wondrous handmaid to grace. Who brought us to the
Saviour? Was it not the law thundering in our ears? We should never have come to
Christ if the law had not driven us there; we should never have known sin if the
law had not revealed it. The law is Sarah's handmaid to sweep our hearts, and
make the dust fly so that we may cry for blood to be sprinkled that the dust may be
laid. The law is, so to speak, Jesus Christ's dog, to go after his sheep, and bring
them to the shepherd; the law is the thunderbolt which affrighteth ungodly men,
and maketh them turn from the error of their ways, and seek after God. Ah! if we
know rightly how to use the law, if we understand how to put her in her proper
place, and make her obedient to her mistress, then all will be well. But this Hagar
will always be wishing to be mistress, as well as Sarah; and Sarah will never allow
that, but will be sure to treat her harshly, and drive her out. We must do the same;
and let none murmur at us, if we treat the Hagarenes harshly in these days—if we
sometimes speak hard things against those who are trusting in the works of the law.
We will quote Sarah as an example. She treated Hagar harshly, and so will we. We
mean to make Hagar flee into the wilderness: we wish to have nothing to do with
her. Yet it is very remarkable, that coarse and ill-featured as Hagar is, men have
always a greater love for her than they have for Sarah; and they are prone
continually to be crying, "Hagar, thou shalt be my mistress," instead of saying,
"Nay, Sarah, I will be thy son, and Hagar shall be bondmaid." What is God's law
now? It is not above a Christian—it is under a Christian. Some men hold God's law
like a rod, in terrorem, over Christians, and say, "If you sin you will be punished
with it." It is not so. The law is under a Christian; it is for him to walk on, to be his
guide, his rule, his pattern. "We are not under the law, but under grace." Law is
the road which guides us, not the rod which drives us, nor the spirit which actuates
us. The law is good and excellent, if it keeps its place. Nobody finds fault with the
handmaid, because she is not the wife; and no one shall despise Hagar because she
is not Sarah. If she had but remembered her office, it had been all well, and her
mistress had never driven her out. We do not wish to drive the law out of chapels,
as long as it is kept in its right position; but when it is set up as mistress, away with
her; we will have nought to do with legality.
Again: Hagar never was a free woman, and Sarah never was a slave. So, beloved,
the covenant of works never was free, and none of her children ever were. All those
who trust in works never are free, and never can be, even could they be perfect in
good works. Even if they have no sin, still they are bond-slaves, for when we have
done all that we ought to have done, God is not our debtor, we are debtors still to
him, and still remain as bond-slaves. If I could keep all God's law, I should have no
right to favour, for I should have done no more than was my duty, and be a bond-
slave still. The law is the most rigorous master in the world, no wise man would
love its service; for after all you have done, the law never gives you a "Thank you,"
for it, but says, "Go on, sir, go on!" The poor sinner trying to be saved by law is
like a blind horse going round and round a mill, and never getting a step further,
but only being whipped continually; yea, the faster he goes, the more work he does,
the more he is tired, so much the worse for him. The better legalist a man is, the
more sure he is of being damned; the more holy a man is, if he trust to his works,
the more he may rest assured of his own final rejection and eternal portion with
Pharisees. Hagar was a slave; Ishmael, moral and good as he was, was nothing but
a slave, and never could be more. Not all the works he ever rendered to his father
could make him a free-born son. Sarah never was a slave. She might be sometimes
taken prisoner by Pharoah, but she was not a slave then; her husband might
sometimes deny her, but she was his wife still; she was soon owned by her husband,
and Pharoah was soon obliged to send her back. So the covenant of grace might
seem once in jeopardy, and the representative of it might cry, "My Father, if it be
possible, let this cup pass from me;" but it never was in real hazard. And
sometimes the people under the covenant of grace may seem to be captives and
bond-slaves; but still they are free. Oh! that we knew how to "stand fast in the
liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free."
One thought more. Hagar was cast out, as well as her son; but Sarah never was. So
the covenant of works has ceased to be a covenant. Not only have the people been
cast away who trusted in it, not simply was Ishmael cast out, but Ishmael's mother
too. SO the legalist may not only know himself to be damned, but the law as a
covenant has ceased to be, for mother and son are both driven out by the gospel,
and those who trust in law are sent away by God. You ask to-day who is
Abraham's wife? Why Sarah; does she not sleep side by side with her husband in
the Machpelah's cave at this instant? There she lies, and if she lie there for a
thousand years to come, she will still be Abraham's wife, while Hagar never can be.
Oh, how sweet to think, that the covenant made of old was in all things ordered
well, and never, never shall be removed. "Although my house be not so with God,
yet hath he made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things and sure."
Ah! ye legalists, I do not wonder that ye teach the doctrine of falling away, because
that is consistent with your theology. Of course, Hagar has to be driven out, and
Ishmael too. But we who preach the covenant of free and full salvation know, that
Isaac never shall be driven out, and that Sarah never shall cease to be the friend
and wife of Abraham. Ye Hagarenes! ye ceremonialists! ye hypocrites! ye
formalists! of what avail will it be, when at last ye shall say, "Where is my mother?
Where is my mother, the law?" Oh! she is driven out, and thou mayest go with her
into eternal oblivion. But where is my mother? the Christian can say at last; and it
will be said, "There is the mother of the faithful, Jerusalem above, the mother of us
all; and we shall enter in, and dwell with our Father and our God."
II. Now we are going to review the TWO SONS. While the two women were types
of the two covenants, the two sons were types of those who live under each
covenant. Isaac is a type of the man who walks by faith, and not by sight, and who
hopes to be saved by grace; Ishmael of the man who lives by works, and hopes to be
saved by his own good deeds. Let us look at these two.
First, Ishmael is the elder. So, beloved, the legalist is a great deal older than the
Christian. If I were a legalist to-day, I should be some fifteen or sixteen years older
than I am as a Christian, for we are all born legalists. Speaking of Arminians,
Whitfield said, "We are all born Arminians." It is grace that turns us into
Calvinists, grace that makes Christians of us, grace that makes us free, and makes
us know our standing in Christ Jesus. The legalist must be expected, then, to have
more might of argument than Isaac; and when the two boys are wrestling, of
course Isaac generally gets a fall, for Ishmael is the biggest fellow. And you must
expect to hear Ishmael making the most noise, for he is to be a wild man, his hand
against every man, and every man's hand against him; whereas Isaac is a peaceful
lad. He always stands up for his mother, and when he is mocked, he can go and tell
his mother that Ishmael mocked him, but that is all that he can do; he has not
much strength. So you notice now-a-days. The Ishmaelites are generally the
strongest, and they can give us desperate falls when we get into argument with
them. In fact, it is their boast and glory that the Isaacs have not much power of
reasoning—not much logic. No, Isaac does not want it, for he is an heir according
to promise, and promise and logic do not much consist together. His logic is his
faith; his rhetoric is his earnestness. Never expect the gospel to be victorious when
you are disputing after the manner of men; more usually look to be beaten. If you
are discoursing with a legalist, and he conquers you, say, "Ah! I expected that; it
shows I am an Isaac, for Ishmael will be sure to give Isaac a thrashing, and I am
not at all sorry for it. Your father and mother were in the prime of life, and were
strong; and it was natural that you should overcome me, for my father and mother
were quite old people.
But where was the difference between the two lads in their outward appearance?
There was no difference between them as to ordinances, for both of them were
circumcised. There was no distinction with regard to outward and visible signs. So,
my dearly beloved, there is often no difference between Ishmael and Isaac, between
the legalist and the Christian, in matters of outward ceremonies. The legalist takes
the sacrament and is baptized; he would be afraid to die if he did not. And I do not
believe there was much difference as to character. Ishmael was nearly as good and
honorable a man as Isaac; there is nothing said against him in Scripture; indeed, I
am led to believe that he was an especially good lad, from the fact that when God
gave a blessing, he said, "With Isaac shall the blessing be." Abraham, said, "O that
Ishmael might live before thee." He cried to God for Ishmael, because he loved the
lad, doubtless, for his disposition. God said, yes, I will give Ishmael such-and-such a
blessing; he shall be the father of princes, he shall have temporal blessings; but
God would not turn aside, even for Abraham's prayer. And when Sarah was rather
fierce, as she must have been that day when she turned Hagar out of the house, it is
said, "It grieved Abraham because of his son;" and I do not suspect that
Abraham's attachment was a foolish one. There is one trait in Ishmael's character
that you love very much. When Abraham died, he did not leave Ishmael a single
stick or stone, for he had previously given him his portion and sent him away; yet
he came to his father's funeral, for it is said that his sons Ishmael and Isaac buried
him in Machpelah. There seems then to have been but little difference in the
characters of the two. So, dearly beloved, there is little difference between the
legalist and the Christian as to the outward walk. They are both the visible sons of
Abraham. It is not a distinction of life; for God allowed Ishmael to be as good as
Isaac, in order to show that it was not the goodness of man that made any
distinction, but that he "will have mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom
he will be hardeneth."
Then what was the distinction? Paul has told us that the first was born after the
flesh, and the second after the Spirit. The first was a natural son, the other a
spiritual one. Ask the legalist, "You do good works; you have repented, you say:
you are keeping the law, and you have no need to repent. Now, where did you get
your strength from?" Perhaps he says, "Grace;" but if you ask him what he means,
he says that he used it; he had grace, but he used it. Then the difference is, you used
your grace, and others did not. Yes. Well, then, it is your own doing. You may call
it grace, or you may call it mustard; it was no grace after all, for it was your using,
you say, that made the difference. But ask poor Isaac how he has kept the law, and
what does he say? Very badly, indeed. Are you a sinner, Isaac? "Oh! yes, an
exceedingly great one; I have rebelled against my father times without number; I
have often gone astray from him." Then you do not think yourself quite as good as
Ishmael, do you? "No." But yet there is a difference between you and him after all.
What has made the difference? "Why, grace has made me to differ." Why is not
Ishmael an Isaac? Could Ishmael have been an Isaac? "No," says Isaac, "it was
God who made me to differ, from the first to the last; he made me a child of
promise before I was born, and he must keep me so."
"Grace all the work shall crown
Through everlasting days;
It lays in heaven the topmost stone,
And well deserves the praise."
Isaac has more really good works; he does not stand second to Ishmael. When he is
converted, he labours, if it be possible, to serve his father far more than the legalist
does his master; but still doubtless, if you were to hear both their tales, you would
hear Isaac say that he was a poor miserable sinner, while Ishmael would make
himself out a very honorable Pharisaic gentleman. The difference is not in works,
however, but in motives; not in the life, but in the means of sustaining life—not in
what they do, so much as in how they do it. Here, then, is the difference between
some of you. Not that you legalists are worse than Christians; you may be often
better in your lives, and yet you may be lost. Do you complain of that as unjust?
Not in the least. God says men must be saved by faith, and if you say, "No, I will be
saved by works," you may try it, but you will be lost for ever. It is as if you had a
servant, and you should say, "John, go and do such-and-such a thing in the stable;"
but he goes away and does the reverse, and then says, "Sir, I have done it very
nicely." "Yes," you say, "but that is not what I told you to do." So God has not told
you to work out your salvation by good works; but he has said, "Work out your
own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God that worketh in you to will and
to do of his good pleasure." So that when you come before God with your good
works he will say, "I never told you to do that. I said, believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ and be baptized, and thou shalt be saved." "Ah!" you say, "I thought the
other was a great deal better way." Sir, you will be lost for your thoughts. "Why is
it that the Gentiles, who followed not after righteousness, have attained unto
righteousness," when Israel, who followed after righteousness, hath not attained it?
It is this: "Because they sought it not by faith, but by the works of the law."
III. Now I will briefly say a word or two concerning ISHMAEL'S CONDUCT TO
ISAAC. It says that Ishmael mocked Isaac. Have not some of you, dear sons of
Hagar, felt exceedingly irritated when you heard this doctrine? You have said, "It
is dreadful, it is horrible, it is quite unjust, that I may be as good as I like, but if I
am not a son of the promise, I cannot be saved; it is really awful, it is an immoral
doctrine; it does a deal of damage, and ought to be stopped." Of course! That
shows that you are an Ishmael. Of course Ishmael will mock at Isaac; and we need
no further explanation. Where the pure sovereignty of God is preached, where it is
held that the child of the promise, and not the child of the flesh, is the heir, the
child of the flesh always makes a hubbub about it. What said Ishmael to Isaac?
"What business have you here? Am I not my father's eldest son? I should have had
all the property, if it had not been for you. Are you above me?" That is how the
legalist talks. "Is not God the father of everybody? Are we not all his children? He
ought not to make any difference." Said Ishmael: "Am not I as good as you? Do I
not serve my father as well? As for you, you know you are your mother's favourite,
but my mother is as good as yours." And so he teased and mocked at Isaac. That is
just how you Arminians do with free salvation. The legalist says, "I don't see it, I
cannot have it, and I won't; if we are both equal in character, it cannot be fair that
one should be lost, and the other saved." And thus he mocks at free grace. You may
get on very easily, if you do not preach free grace too fully, but if you dare to speak
such things, though they are obnoxious to the crowd, what will people say? They
call them "baits for popularity." (See the so-called FREEMAN Newspaper.) Few
fishes, however, bite at those baits. Most men say, "I hate him, I cannot bear him;
he is so uncharitable." You say we preach this to gain popularity! Why, it is, upon
the surface of it, a bare-faced lie; for the doctrine of God's sovereignty will always
be unpopular; men will always hate it, and grind their teeth, just as they did when
Jesus taught it. Many widows he said, were in Israel, but to none of them was the
prophet sent, save unto a widow of Sarepta. And many lepers were in Israel, but
none of them were healed, except one who came far away from Syria. A fine
popularity our Saviour got from that sermon. The people ground their teeth at
him; and all the popularity he had, would have been to be pushed down the hill,
from which, it is said, they would have cast him headlong, but he made his way out
of them and escaped. What! popular to humble a man's pride, to abolish man's
standing, and make him cringe before God as a poor sinner? No; it will never be
popular till men be born angels, and all men love the Lord, and that will not be just
yet, I ween.
IV. But we have to enquire WHAT BECAME OF THE TWO SONS.
First, Isaac had all the inheritance, and Ishmael none. Not that Ishmael came off
poorly, for he had many presents, and became very rich and great in this world;
but he had no spiritual inheritance. So the legalist will get many blessings, as a
reward for his legality; he will be respected and honored. "Verily," said Christ,
"the Pharisees have their reward." God does not rob any man of his reward.
Whatever a man angles for, he catches. God pays men all he owes, and a great deal
over; and those who keep his law, even in this world, will receive great favours. By
obeying God's command they will not injure their bodies as much as the vicious,
and they will preserve their reputation better-obedience does good in this way. But
then Ishmael had none of the inheritance. So, thou poor legalist, if thou art
depending on thy works, or on anything, except the free sovereign grace of God, for
thy deliverance from death, thou wilt not have so much as a foot of the inheritance
of Canaan, but in that great day when God shall allot the portions of all the sons of
Jacob, there will be not a scrap for thee. But if thou art a poor Isaac, a poor guilty
trembling sinner—and if thou sayest, "Ishmael has his hands full,
But nothing in my hands I bring,
Simply to the cross I cling."
If thou art saying this morning—
I am nothing at all,
But Jesus Christ is my all in all."
If thou renouncest all the works of the flesh, and dost confess, "I the chief of
sinners am, but I am the child of the promise; and Jesus died for me," thou shalt
have an inheritance, and thou shalt not be robbed of it by all the mocking Ishmaels
in the world; nor shall it be diminished by the sons of Hagar. Thou mayest
sometimes be sold, and carried down to Egypt, but God will bring his Josephs and
his Isaacs back again, and thou shalt yet be exalted to glory, and sit on Christ's
right hand. Ah! I have often thought what consternation there will be in hell when
outwardly good men go there. "Lord," saith one as he goes in, "am I to go into that
loathsome dungeon? Did not I keep the Sabbath? Was not I a strict Sabbatarian? I
never cursed or swore in all my life. Am I to go there? I paid tithes of all that I
possessed, and am I to be locked up there? I was baptized; I took the Lord's
supper; I was everything that ever a man could be, that was good. It is true, I did
not believe in Christ; but I did not think I needed Christ, for I thought I was too
good and too honorable; and am I to be locked up there?" Yes, sir! and amongst
the damned thou shalt have this pre-eminence, that thou didst scorn Christ most of
all. They never set up an anti-Christ. They followed sin, and so didst thou in thy
measure, but thou didst add to thy sin this most damnable of sins: that thou didst
set up thyself as an anti-Christ, and bowed down and worshipped thine own
fancied goodness. Then God will proceed to tell the legalist, "On such a day I heard
thee rail at my sovereignty; I heard thee say it was unfair of me to save my people,
and distribute my favors after the counsel of my own will; thou didst impugn thy
Creator's justice, and justice thou shalt have in all its power." The man had
thought he had a great balance on his side, but he finds it is only some little grain of
duty; but then God holds up the immense roll of his sins, with this at the bottom:
"Without God, without hope, a stranger from the common wealth of Israel!" The
poor man then sees that his little treasure is not half a mite, while God's great bill is
ten thousand million talents; and so with an awful howl, and a desperate shriek, he
runs away with all his little notes of merit that he had hoped would have saved him;
crying, "I am lost! I am lost with all my good works! I find my good works were
sands, but my sins were mountains; and because I had not faith, all my
righteousness was but white-washed hypocrisy."
Now, once more, Ishmael was sent away, and Isaac was kept in the house. So there
you are some of you, when the searching day shall come to try God's church,
though you have been living in the church as well as others, though you have got
the mask of profession on you, you will find that it will not avail. You have been
like the elder son; whenever a poor prodigal has come into the church, you have
said, "As soon as thy son is come which hath devoured thy living with harlots, thou
hast killed for him the fatted calf." Ah! envious legalist, thou wilt be banished at
last from the house. I tell you legalist, and formalist, that you have no more to do
with Christ than the heathens have, and thou you have been baptized with
Christian baptism, though you sit at a Christian table, though you hear a Christian
sermon, you have neither part nor lot in the matter, any more than a Catholic or a
Mahomedan, unless you are trusting simply in the grace of God, and are an heir
according to the promise. Whosoever doth trust to his works, though it be ever so
little, will find that that little trust will ruin his soul. All that nature spins must be
unravelled. That ship which works have builded must have her keel cut in halves.
A soul must trust simply and wholly to the covenant of God, or else that soul is lost.
Legalist, thou hopest to be saved by works. Come, now, I will treat thee
respectfully. I will not charge thee with having been a drunkard, or a swearer; but
I want to ask thee, Art thou aware, that in order to be saved by thy works, it is
requisite that thou shouldst be entirely perfect? God demands the keeping of the
whole law. If you have a vessel with the smallest crack in it, it is not a whole one.
Have you never committed sin in all your life? Have you never thought an evil
thought, never had an evil imagination? Come, sire, I would not suppose that you
have stained those white kid gloves with anything like lust, or carnality, or that
your fine mouth which uses such chaste language ever condescended to an oath, or
anything like lasciviousness; I will not imagine that you have ever sung lascivious
son; I will leave that out of the question—but hast thou never sinned? "Yes," sayest
thou. Then, mark this: "the soul that sinneth, it shall die;" and that is all I have to
say to thee. But if thou wilt deny that thou hast ever sinner, dost thou know that if
in future thou commit but one sin—though thou shouldst live for seventy years a
perfect life, and at the end of that seventy years thou shouldst commit one sin, all
thy obedience would go for nothing; for "He that offends in one point is guilty of
all." "Sir," you say, "you are going on a wrong supposition, for though I believe I
ought to do some good works, I believe Jesus Christ is very merciful, and though I
am not exactly perfect, I am sincere, and I think sincere obedience will be accepted
instead of perfect obedience." You do, indeed! and pray what is sincere obedience?
I have known a man get drunk once a week; he was very sincere, and he did not
think he was doing wrong so long as he was sober on a Sunday. Many people have
what they call a sincere obedience, but it is one which always leaves a little margin
for iniquity. But then you say, "I do not take too much margin, it is only a little sin
I allow." My dear sir, you are quite in error as to your sincere obedience, for if this
be what God requires, then hundreds of the vilest characters are as sincere as you
are. But I do not believe you are sincere. If you were sincere, you would obey what
God says, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." It strikes
me thy sincere obedience is a sincere delusion, and such thou wilt find it. "Oh,"
sayest thou, "I believe that after all we have done, we must go to Jesus Christ, and
we must say, "Lord, there is a great deficiency here, wilt thou make it up?" I have
heard of weighing witches against the parish Bible, and if they were found heavier
they were declared to be innocent; but to put the witch and the Bible in the same
scale is a new idea. Why, Christ will not get in the scale with such a conceited fool
as thou art. You wish Christ to be a make-weight. He is much obliged to you for the
compliment, but he will accept no such menial service. "Oh," sayest thou, "he shall
assist me in the matter of salvation." Yes, I know that would please you; but Christ
is a very different kind of Saviour; he has a propensity when he does a thing to do it
all. You may think it strange, but he never likes any assistance. When he made the
world, he did not ask the angel Gabriel so much as to cool the molten matter with
his wing, but he did it entirely himself. So it is in salvation: he says, "My glory I
will not give to another." And I beg to remind thee, as thou professest to go to
Christ, and yet to have a little share in the business thyself, that there is a passage
in the Scriptures which is apropos to thee, and which thou mayest masticate at thy
leisure, "And if by grace, then is it no more of works; otherwise grace is no more
grace. But if it be of works, then is it no more grace; otherwise work is no more
work." For if you mix the two together, you spoil them both. Go home, sir, and
make yourself a stirabout with fire and water, endeavour to keep in your house a
lion and a lamb, and when you have succeeded in doing these, tell me that you have
made works and grace agree, and I will tell you, you have told me a lie even then,
for the two things are so essentially opposite, that it cannot be done. Whosoever
amongst you will cast all his good works away, and will come to Jesus, with this
"Nothing, nothing, NOTHING,
Nothing in my hands I bring,
Simply to the cross I cling,
Christ will give you good works enough, his Spirit will work in you to will and to do
of his good pleasure, and will make you holy and perfect; but if you have
endeavoured to get holiness before Christ, you have begun at the wrong end, you
have sought the flower before you have the root, and are foolish for your pains.
Ishmaels, tremble before him now! If others of you be Isaacs, may you ever
remember that you are children of the promise. Stand fast. Be not entangled by the
yoke of bondage, for you are not under the law, but under grace.
12. SARAH. BY Frances Manwaring Caulkins
"She was very fair. I will bless her, and she shall be a mother of
nations; kings of people shall be of her." Gen. 12:14; 17:16.
From ages of sepulchral gloom
In old Machpelah's honored tomb ;
From records of the Hebrew sage
Inscribed upon the fivefold page f
From eastern skies, from earth's young hours,
When patriarchs lived in tents and bowers,
Eobed in thine oriental guise,
Eise, Sarah, Abraham's consort, rise !
A lovely and majestic form
Appears, with life's bright lustre warm ;
Chaldean in her stately air,
Symmetric, and surpassing fair.
* Pentateuch, the five books.
16 EVE AND HER DAUGHTERS.
Fair, but not faultless ; see her life
Marked by evasion, rashness, strife :
A " princess of celestial mien,
But oft in paths of error seen.
Twice did the timid patriarch seek,
By pretexts plausible but weak,
From pagan chiefs, in scenes untried,
To screen from harm his beauteous bride.*
His the rash thought — from danger's train,
By bold deceit, escape to gain ;
But hers the apt concurrence shown,
Consent that made the guilt her own.
How oft hath beauty proved a snare,
Peace, health, and conscience to impair ;
How oft a face, like Dian's bright,
Emits through clouds a fitful light.
Is beauty thine? Oh seek to show
A sweeter charm, a brighter glow —
A heart devout, a cheerful mind,
A conquered will to heaven resigned.
* Gen. 12:13; 20:2.
True grace is that which reigns within ;
Immortal beauty seek to win,
And prize the amaranth sublime
Above the fading rose of time.
That face is fair, wherein we trace
The seal of God's sustaining grace ;
And they are brilliant, who are bright
With sacred truth's unerring light.
It chanced before the tent one day,
Reposing from the noon-tide ray,
The patriarch sat: he raised his eye,
And lo, three strangers drawing nigh.
With hospitable speed, he ran,
Lowly he bowed, and thus began:
"My lord, turn not in haste aside.
But in my tent's calm shade abide.
"Cool water for your dusted feet,
Refreshing food, attendance meet
Accept, and in these shades benign
Rest till the fervid hours decline."
The strangers paused with grave assent,
Eeposing near the friendly tent ;
While swift the household train prepare
The viands for their guests to share.
By Sarah's hands the cakes were made ;
By Abraham's, from the herd conveyed
The fatted calf: each hand, each heart
Was quick its service to impart.
Such courtesy in tents was shown,
When time was young, and pomp unknown.
Behold the pleasing picture! See
The strangers and overarching tree.
The meat and cake in order placed,
With salt, milk, butter, duly graced ;
Abraham stands by with service kind,
And Sarah in the door behind.
They talked ; their thrilling words proclaim
The heaven from whence the strangers came ;
That face, in such divine repose,
The Angel of the covenant shows.
Then was the prophecy unrolled
That Sarah's arms a son should hold :
She heard announced the promise bright,
But laughed incredulous and light.
Inly she laughed, and then denied :
"I did not laugh, she quickly cried.
Vain, thoughtless impulse! foolish art!
The Eye was there that reads the heart.
Yet o'er our thwarting, low designs,
Divine compassion calmly shines :
Believe or disbelieve ; yet still
God will his promised word fulfil.
Of all earth's daughters, two alone
That deep peculiar bliss have known,
As mothers, on an aged breast,
To fold a new-born son to rest.
To Sarah came that boon divine,
As part of Mercy's vast design :
Maternal love her bosom thrilled ;
The void of years was sweetly filled.
Yet discord still with fierce annoy
Troubled the fountain of her joy :
One drop that fountain could defile ;
If Ishmael mocked, could Sarah smile?
The princess shows resentment high,
A fretful lip, a flashing eye ;
Her lifted hand th' Egyptian maid
Drives outcast to the desert glade.
The mistress fierce, the maiden vain,
Each looked on each with proud disdain ;
And yet, would each a trifle yield,
A word, a look the strife had healed.
With meek forbearance, words discreet,
The patient mind, the temper sweet,
A point to yield, a fault to own,
How brightly then had Sarah shone.
Fair, faulty woman : yet this phrase
Not all her varied path portrays ;
True, fond, submissive to her lord,
She shared his toils, obeyed his word.
By grace her temper was refined ;
The faithless made a trusting mind :
'Mid the blest heirs of faith,* her name
Shines with a bright enduring fame.
May every daughter of our land
In faith's high scroll like Sarah stand ;
Like her, in earnest, duteous love,
A fair domestic model prove.
Yet, daughter, seek a lowlier charm,
A temper more divinely calm ;
Be thou thy dwelling's constant light,
A star with inward lustre bright.
And while in Sarah's life you trace,
Like threads of gold, her faith and grace,
Observe how oft she went astray,
Nor take to heaven her devious way,
* Heb. 11:11.
13. THE WIFE-SARAH. AMERICAN SUNDAY-SCHOOL UNION.
WITHIN a few centu-
ries after the flood,
while some who had
witnessed the sin and
the destruction of the
ante d i 1 u v i a n worl d
were still living, Je-
hovah saw fit, in accordance with his de-
signs of eternal wisdom, to separate Abra-
ham from his brethren, calling upon him to
leave the land of his birth and go out into a
8 THE WIFE — SARAH
strange land, to dwell in a far country. He
was to pass the rest of his days as a sojourner
in a land which should be thereafter given to a
people yet unborn, — to a nation which was to
descend from him.
Abraham was a lineal descendant of Shem,
who was doubtless still living while " the father
of Abraham yet abode with his kindred in
the land of the Chaldees ;" and from the lips
of his venerable progenitor, Abraham himself
may have first received the knowledge of the
true God, and have learned lessons of wisdom
and obedience, as he sat at his feet. Shem
may have conversed with Methuselah ; and
Methuselah must have known Adam ; and
from Adam, Methuselah may have heard that
history of the creation and fall, which he nar-
rated to Shem, and which Shem may have trans-
mitted to Abraham ; and the history of the world
would be thus remembered as the traditional
THE WIFE — SARAH. tf
recollections of a family, and repeated as the
familiar remembrances of a single household.
Tales of the loveliness of Eden, — of the glo-
ries of the creation, — of the blessedness of the
primeval state, — of the days before the fall ; re-
membrances of the "mother of all living" in
the days of her holiness, when she was as beauti-
ful as the world created for her home, in all the
dewy sweetness of the morning of its existence,
— of the wisdom of man before he yielded to the
voice of temptation, when authority was en-
throned upon his brow, and all the tribes of
the lower creation did him homage ; — of the
good spirits who watched over to minister unto
and bless them ; — of those dark, unholy and ac-
cursed ones, who came to tempt, betray and de-
stroy them, — were recounted as events of which
those who described them had been the wit-
nesses. And from the remembrances thus
preserved and transmitted by tradition, each
10 THE WIFE — SARAH.
generation obscuring or exaggerating them,
have descended what we call fables of antiquity,
— great facts, now dimly remembered and darkly
presented, as shadowed over by the mists of
long ages.
How must the hearts of the descendants
of Shem have thrilled as they heard from him
the history of by-gone times — of a world which
had passed away ! How much had the great
patriarch of his race, himself, beheld ? He
had seen the glory and the beauty of the world
before the flood. It was cursed for the sin
of man, in the day of his fall — but slowly, as
we measure time, do the woes denounced by
God often take effect, and, though excluded from
Eden, the first pair may have seen little change
pass over the face of the earth. The consum-
mation of this curse may have been the deluge ;
and those who dwelt on the earth, before this
calamity swept it with its destroying wing, may
THE WIFE — SARAH. 11
have seen it in much of its original beauty;
while those who outlived that event witnessed
a wonderful change.
From that frail fabric, the ark, which proved
the second cradle of the race, Shem had be-
held a world submerged, — a race swept off by
the floods of Almighty wrath. He had heard
the shrieks of the drowning, the vain prayer
of those who had scoffed the threatened ven-
geance, the fruitless appeal of those who had
long rejected mercy. As the waves bore up
his frail vessel, he had seen the black and
sullen waters settle over temples, cities and
palaces ; and he had gazed until he could behold
but one dark expanse of water, in whose turbid
depths were buried all the families of the
earth — save one.
Those he had loved and honoured, and much
which, perhaps, he had envied and coveted —
the pride, the glory, the beauty of earth — all
12 THE WIFE — SARAH.
had passed away. And after the waters sub-
sided, and the ark had found a resting-place,
what a deep and sad solemnity must have
mingled with the joy for their preservation.
How strange the aspect the world present-
ed ! How must the survivors have recalled
past scenes and faces, to be seen no more !
How much they must have longed to recog-
nise old familiar places, — the Eden of Adam
and Eve, — the graves in which they had been
laid ! For doubtless Seth and his descendants
still remained with their first parents, while Cain
went out from their presence and built a city
in some place remote. The earth which Noah
and his descendants repeopled was one vast
grave ; and what wonder that those who built
above a race entombed, should mingle fancy
with tradition, and imagine that the buried
cities and habitations were yet inhabited by the
accursed and unholy. Such have been the
THE WIFE — SARAH. 13
fancies of those who darkly remembered the
flood ; and as the wind swept through the ca-
verns of the earth, the superstitious might still
imagine that they heard the voices or the
shrieks of the spirits imprisoned within.
Shem seems to have far exceeded his bro-
thers in true piety, and the knowledge of Jeho-
vah was for many generations preserved among
his descendants, while few or none of them ever
sank into those deep superstitions which de-
based the children of Ham. And it is beautiful
to remark, that the filial piety which so pre-
eminently marked him has ever been a promi-
nent trait among all nations descended from
him. Thus receiving his impressions of the
power, the truth, the awful justice of Jehovah,
from one well fitted to convey them, — and taught
the certain fulfilment of promises and of threats,
— Abraham was early inspired with that deep
reverential and yet filial love, that entire con-
14 THE WIFE — SARAH.
fidence, which led to the trusting obedience
which distinguished his character.
Yet, from his very piety, sad must it have
been when the command came to leave the plains
of Mesopotamia, and go out a stranger and a
pilgrim into distant lands, to become a dweller
among those who were fast apostatizing from
the true faith. "But by faith he obeyed," and
by his obedience he has given us an example and
illustration of faith, which has been held forth
through all succeeding ages. To be the child
of Abraham, to walk as he walked, is, after
the lapse of thousands of years, the character-
istic of the true worshipper of God.
Guided by an Omniscient hand, trusting in
an Almighty power, cheered by that mysterious
promise, which, as a star of hope shining in the
hour of deepest darkness, still rose to higher
brightness as it guided the long line of pa-
triarchs, kings, and prophets, until it settled
THE WIFE — SARAH. 15
over the manger of Bethlehem, and was lost
in the full glory of the Sun of righteousness,
— Abraham girded his loins and prepared for a
departure to far distant lands.
At first, attended by his father and brother,
he sojourned with them in Haran; and the fa-
mily pitched their tents in that spot which was
to become in future ages the battle-ground
of nations, when the proud eagle of imperial
Rome was trailed in the dust, and her warriors
and her nobles fell before their fiercer foes.
Long ages have intervened since the tents of
this Syrian family were pitched by the side of
the waters of Charan; and midway between
their days and ours, were these waters disco-
loured with the blood of those who fell in the
battle of Charae, so disastrous to Rome, ever
haughty, and then exulting in the height of her
prosperity. A few wandering shepherds now
lead their flocks in the plain in which Sarah
16 THE WIFE — SARAH.
and Abraham dwelt, and where Cassius and his
legions fell. But a short sojourn was per-
mitted Abraham here. "Arise and depart, for
this is not your rest" — and again he listened to
the command from above, and gathered his
flocks and servants, and girded his loins, and
set his face towards the land promised to him,
and to his seed after him. And now he left
his father and his brethren, and went with his
own family, the head of his house, the future
patriarch of his race.
Yet he was not alone. The wife of his
youth was by his side. In all his wanderings,
in all his cares, there was one with him to
participate in his joys and to alleviate his
sorrows. With him and for him, his wife
forsook home, kindred and country. We doubt
not that she too shared the faith of Abra-
ham ; that she too trusted and loved and wor-
shipped the God of Abraham, and of Shem,
THE WIFE — SARAH. 17
and of Noah. Like Abraham, a descendant of
Shem, — like him too, she had been trained in
the worship of Jehovah. Yet to the faith of
the true believer, there was added the strong
affection of the wife ; and while Abraham went
out obeying God, Sarah followed, trusting God
indeed, but leaning still upon her husband. In
all her future life, she is presented to us the
wife ; devoted, affectionate, submissive ; loving
her husband with a true affection, and honour-
ing him by a due deference.
"With a beauty that fascinated kings, preserv-
ing the charms of youth to the advanced period
of her life, she still lived but for her husband ;
and when even the faith of Abraham failed, and
he withdrew from the wife the protection of the
husband, and said, " She is my sister," Sarah ap-
pears to have acquiesced in a deceit so unworthy
of her husband and of herself, merely to insure
his safety among the lawless tribes around them.
18 THE WIFE — SARAH.
As we read the story of Abraham's wife, we
catch glimpses of ages and nations that were
hoar with antiquity, and had passed away when
our ancient historians began the record of the
past. Nation after nation had perished and
been forgotten before the profane historian be-
gan his annals. Yet childless, still trusting
in the promise of Jehovah, Abraham wandered
for many years through the land which was to
be given to him, and his seed after him. Now
pitching his tent in Moreh ; then building his
altar at Bethel ; then driven by famine into
Egypt ; then returning to his altar at Bethel, —
and there separating from his nephew Lot, be-
cause " the land could not bear" both, he fixes his
abode in Hebron.
No pictures of pastoral life are more beau-
tiful than those presented in Genesis ; and while
we contemplate the character of Abraham, we
catch occasional glimpses of his household,
THE WIFE — SARAH. 19
and of the manners of his age. We see him
exercising forbearance and relinquishing the
rights of a superior, that there might be no
strife between him and his too worldly rela-
tive. We see him leading out his own band
as a prince, to rescue that same relative, —
who, tempted by the promise of large wealth,
had chosen a location full of dangers, — and, in
the hour of victory, refusing all spoil and showing
all honour to the priest of the most high God.
Again he is before us, sitting in his tent
in the heat of the day, and hastening to receive
strangers, — " thus entertaining angels una-
wares," — and then interceding for that city
doomed to destruction for the wickedness of the
dwellers therein.
And again he appears as the prince, the
patriarch, the head of his own family, and
high in honour with those around him, ever
observing all the decorum and proprieties of
20 THE WIFE — SARAH.
oriental life. We see him, too, as one who
walked with God ; as the priest of his house-
hold, presenting the morning and the evening
sacrifice ; as holding high communion with God
in the hours of darkness; entering into that
covenant which is still pleaded by those who
claim the promise, " I will be a God to thee,
and to thy seed after thee."
This promise of a seed, from which was to
spring a great nation, " like to the stars of
heaven in number," was frequently repeated,
yet still deferred. Youth, manhood, middle
age, all had passed, and still no child blest the
tents of Sarah ; and while Abraham still be-
lieved, and it " was accounted to him for right-
eousness," Sarah seems to have felt that not
upon her was to be conferred the distinction of
becoming the mother of the promised seed.
"With the warm impulse of the woman, she sa-
crificed the feelings of the wife and the instincts
THE WIFE — SARAH. 21
of the heart, to promote what she doubtless
believed to be the plan of God and the happi-
ness of Abraham. There is a deficiency of
faith as much to be manifested in the forestall-
ing the plans of Providence as in the denial
of the promises of God : and while Abraham
still trusted and waited the fulfilment of the
promise, Sarah sought, by her own device, to
accomplish prophecy and insure the blessing.
In accordance with the usages of those around
her, she gave her handmaid to her husband to
be his wife, " that their children might bless
her age." She doubtless felt herself strong
enough in love to Abraham and to Hagar to
believe that her affection would embrace their
children. But when the trial came, and all
the instincts of the heart, all the feelings of
the wife revolted, she proved that this violation
of a heaven-appointed institution brings only
sorrow and strife. Yet there was no alien-
22 THE WIFE — SARAH.
ation between Sarah and Abraham. The wife
of his youth was ever dearer to him than the
mother of his child.
At length, however, the promise was fulfilled.
Sarah became a mother. Many years had
passed since she had left the home of her
fathers. The days of man were now much
abridged, and she was fast approaching the
ordinary limit of human life ; but we may sup-
pose her cheek was still fair and her brow
smooth, and that she still retained much of the
beauty of youth.
With a wondering joy, Sarah gazed upon
the child so long desired — the child in whose
seed " all the nations of the earth" were to
be "blessed." And she said, " God hath made
me to laugh, so that all who hear shall laugh ;"
and while those that heard that Sarah " had
borne Abraham a son in his old age," won-
dered at an event so strange, Abraham must
THE WIFE — SARAH. 23
have pondered the prophecy which had revealed
to him the destiny of his race, — perhaps fore-
seeing that Star which was to rise in a still
distant age, and apprehending, however dimly
and faintly, something of the mysterious con-
nection between the birth of the child and the
promise given in the hour of the curse — the
blending of the fate of his race with the eter-
nal plan of mercy and redemption.
There is an instinct in our natures which
leads us to rejoice at a birth ; but, could Sarah
have foreseen the destiny of her race, tears
would have mingled with her smiles. Won-
derful has been the past history of that people,
strange their present condition, while the fu-
ture may develop mysteries still more incom-
prehensible.
In the hour of rejoicing over the new-born
babe, past transgression brought forth its legiti-
mate fruits. Sullenness and strife were brood-
24 THE WIFE — SARAH.
ing in the bosoms of the Egyptian bond-woman
and her son ; and the quiet eye of the mother
saw all the danger arising from the jealous
hate and rivalry of the first-born of Abraham.
If the decision was stern, it was needful.
" Cast out the bond-woman and her child, for
her son shall not be heir with my son, even with
Isaac." Harsh words, — but it is better to dwell
peacefully asunder, than together in strife and
bitterness. The malignant passions which led
Ishmael to mock, might soon be stimulated by
the mother to murder, — chafed and irritated as
she was by the constant presence of the child
who had supplanted her own. From the time
of the departure of Hagar from the household
of Abraham, peace seems to have rested upon
it. Prosperity attended him. He no longer
wandered from place to place. He remained in
Hebron, sojourning with Sarah and her child.
Many years passed, — years of peaceful quiet
, THE WIFE — SARAH. 25
and happiness seldom allotted to such an age, —
while they trained their child in the nurture
of the true God, and were honoured by the
princes around him, who sought to enter into
league with him, for they saw that " God
blessed him in all that he did."
Once again God saw fit to test the faith of
Abraham by calling upon him to offer his son
— his only son Isaac, whom he loved — as a
sacrifice ; and Abraham obeyed the divine
command, and thus doing, uttered that pro-
phecy which has thrilled so many souls, " God
will himself provide a sacrifice." In this triaL
Sarah seems not to have been called to parti-
cipate. The mother was spared the agony of
feeling that her only child was to be offered as
a sacrifice — that the hope of her life was to
perish.
" Sarah was an hundred and twenty years
old, and she died." The dark shadow of death
26 THE WIFE — SARAH.
is, sooner or later, to fall upon each household.
Abraham seems to have been at a distance — per-
haps in the charge of some of his numerous
flocks — when he was recalled to Hebron by news
of Sarah's death. And he came to mourn over
her. The remembrance of her maiden beauty
and modesty, the grateful recollection of all her
conjugal devotedness, filled his soul. If light
and immortality were brought to light in the
gospel, still the divine rays were faintly reflected
in the former dispensation, and the eye of faith
even then penetrated the thick darkness of the
grave.
And now, after these long years of pro-
mise and waiting, Abraham takes possession
of the land which God had given to him and
to his seed. He asks, however, but a small
portion, — a tomb, a place for his dead, — and a
more beautiful description of a scene of mutual
deference, of regard for rights and respect for
THE WIFE — SARAH. 27
character and position, was never penned than
that which records the negotiation between the
bereaved patriarch and the children of Heth.
With the touch of magic, the whole scene is
before us. The bereaved patriarch, courteous
in grief, bowing in the presence of the sons of
Heth, — the deep respect, the kindly sympathy,
manifested by those who, strangers to his reli-
gion, felt the claims of his character, — mingled
with that deep awe which the visitation of
death ever inspires.
The last scene was now over, and Sarah has
first taken possession of that home to which she
was to be followed by her husband and their
descendants. One by one they take their places
by her side, — unwelcomed, unquestioned, —
"Where none have saluted and none have replied," —
and yet where all are gathered at last. We see
her not as a sister or a daughter. She is not
28 THE WIFE — SARAH.
known to us in the house of her father. Sarah
is only presented to us as the wife of Abraham.
And as a wife the apostle has held her up to her
own sex as a model and example. " Even as
Sarah obeyed her husband, calling him lord,"
— exclaims the apostle, exhorting the wife to due
deference. The deep, fervent affection of the
heart led to that outward manifestation of
honour so beautiful and becoming ; and as the
only love which can be enduring is that which
is founded on respect, so it is the highest hap-
piness of the wife to be able truly to honour
him whom she is bound to love and obey.
When the heads of a household are thus
united in warm affection and mutual respect,
the influence will pervade the whole circle, and
the family of Abraham presented a beautiful
picture of such a household. The numerous
members composing a large family were go-
verned by one who provided for their suste-
THE WIFE — SARAH. 29
nance, led them forth for the defence of rights.
or the redress of injuries, or the rescue of the
captive ; and who officiated as the priest as
well as ruler of his household. In such a com-
munity, the character of the head would be
impressed upon the whole people ; and it was
with obvious meaning that Jehovah exclaimed,
" I know him that he will command his house-
hold after him." It was by example that ad-
monition was made availing. And the wife
was ever ready, with her ardent and trusting
love, to aid and co-operate. Hastening, when
he welcomed the stranger, to prepare the feast,
she was ever ready to receive his guests and
add her efforts to his hospitality.
Hatred, strife, and mutual alienation so often
cloud over the unison of wedded life, and cause
its sun to set in darkness, that few spectacles
can be presented more beautiful or more de-
lightful than the old age of wedded life, soothed
30 THE WIFE — SARAH.
by true affection and mutual kindness. It is
more touching than the glow of youthful passion.
It proclaims the presence of high moral worth.
It is never found in the habitations of the un-
holy. The love which thus survives the glow
of youth, which bears the storms and the trials
of life, must be founded on truth, on unimpas-
sioned esteem, on approved integrity ; and
those alone who love God supremely, love each
other unselfishly.
While Sarah honoured her husband, she too
was treated with proper deference. Her coun-
sels were ever heeded, her voice had its due
influence, and he still deferred to her wishes.
It is beautiful to note the increasing esti-
mation in which she is held. Sarai, "the
mistress," betokened her station as the head
of a household ; and as years brought honours,
and an enlarged sphere of duty, and a more
elevated position among the people around
THE WIFE — SARAH. 31
them, Sarai was changed into Sarah — my lady.
Her husband, in addressing the former Sarai
as Sarah, "my lady," gracefully returned the
honour she bestowed when she called him "lord."
By such manifestation of mutual respect and
love, the chain of family affection is kept bright.
As the household of Abraham was the house-
hold of faith, ordained as the model for all ages,
it is well to analyze the elements which com-
posed it, and to trace their combined influence.
There was the conjugal union of the true wor-
shippers of Jehovah, animated by the same hopes,
governed by the same principles, whose hearts
were united in the strong bonds of natural
affection. There was the confiding, unfailing
affection, the deep, reverential respect, and due
obedience of the wife. There was the tender
love, protecting care, the unwavering faith, the
honourable deference of the husband. The reli-
gion of this household was the religion of faith
32 THE WIFE — SARAH.
and of obedience, — a religion winch led them
to forsake all at the command of God, which
taught them to rely upon his promises, to fear
his threatenings, to plead his grace, to trust his
mercy, while it was a religion which led to a
due observance of all the relative duties of life,
which taught the exercise of that impartial jus-
tice, careful benevolence, disinterested kindness,
and ready hospitality to those without the
family; and of steady love, of affectionate
kindness, of sympathetic forbearance to the
members of the household within. The family
of faith, where faith is pure, will ever be a
family of love; and as true piety is the best
security for family happiness, so family love is
the best nurse for family piety.
There are many families among us who aim
at being families of faith, who profess to walk
in the steps of Abraham, to imitate his exam-
ple. Let such not confine themselves to the
THE WIFE — SARAH. 33
manifestation of his peculiar faith, to his trust
and dependence alone. Let them walk as he
walked before his household, in the fear of God
and the love of man, in the careful fulfilment
of every relative and social duty, in the daily
exemplification of a tender and loving spirit,
carefully avoiding or removing all sources of
division. Let that piety which unites them to
God, be a bond, encircling all and drawing
them near to each other.
By the cultivation of the simple domestic
virtues, by the daily, quiet, self-denying trials,
by the observance of the thousand decencies,
the unaffected proprieties, the unostentatious
efforts to bless and comfort, — by the elevating
influence of personal example, — by the breath-
ing atmosphere of a holy spirit, — the family is
to be made the household of faith, the nursery
of the church.
Direct instruction and formal efforts and
stated observances are neither to be forgotten
nor to be remitted ; but these can only be made
effectual by the living exemplification of a
spirit of love, a life of holiness. It will ever
be found true that he who prays most loves
most.
14. SARAH BY Phineas Camp Headley
Sarah was a Hebrew maiden of remirk-
able beauty. Her clildhood and youth
were passed among tJio mountains of Ar-
menia, whose fine climate and sublime sce-
nery developed her form and gave strer^^h
to her itttellectnal powera. Her nob)'* fig-
ure, dark eye luminous with expression,
and the graceful dignity of her ro inner,
made her the admiration of the Chaldean
shepherds and the pride of her kindred.
Hosiecb, Google
Among the wealthy nomads of the fruits
ful valleys who sought her hand m marriage,
was Abram, a kinsman. A worshipper of
the infinite One, lie loved her foi- her ele-
vated piety, no less than for her personal
beauty. And doubtl^* they often walked
forth together beneath the nightly sky,
whtse transparent air in that latitude made
the stara impressively — ■
" The burning blaionry of God !'
Upon the hill-tops around, were the ob-
servatories and altars of Chaldean philoso-
phy, whose disciples woi-shipped the host
of Heaven. In the serenity of such an hour,
with the white tents reposing in the dis-
tance, and the "soul-like sound" of the
rustling forest alone breaking the stillness,
it would not be strange- as they gazed on
flaming Orion and the Pleiades if they had
bowed with the devotee of Light, while
Hosiecb, Google
He worsiiipped at tbeir lofty shrine,
And deemed he Eaw nilli gifted eye.
The Gudbead la im works divine."
But a purer illuiiilnatioii tliau stre;
from that radiant dome, brought near in
his ineffable majeaty the Eternal, and hke
the holy woi^hippers of Eden, they adored
with subdued and reverent heaiis, their in-
finite Father.
To a reflective mind, there is great sub-
limity and impressiveness in the purity
and growth of religious principle, in cir-
cumstance so adverse to its manifesta-
tion. The temptations resisted — ^the ear-
nest communion with each other — the glo-
rious aspirations and soarings of imagina-
tion, when morning hrote upon the girdling
summits, and when evening came down
with its stars, and its i-ising moon, flooding
with glory nature in her repose ; these and
a thousand lovely and touching scenes of
Hosiecb, Google
tliat pastoral life are all unrecorded. The
great events in history, and bold points in
character, are seized by tlie inspired pen-
man as sufficient to sweep the gi'and out-
lin e of Grod's providential and moral gov-
ernment over the world^ and his cave of hia
people.
Just when it wonld best accomplish his
designs, which are ever marching like des-
tiny to their fidfthnent, Jehovah called to
Abram, and bade hira go to a distant land
which he would show him. With his
father-in-law and with Lot, his flocks and
herds, he journeyed toward Palestine. —
When he arrived at Haran, in Mesopota-
mia, pleased with the country, and probably
influenced by the declining health of the
aged Terah, he took up his residence there.
Here he remained till the venerable patri-
arch, Sarai's father, died. The circle of
relatives bore him to the grave, and kept
Hosiecb, Google
SARAK 31
the daya of mourning. But the dutiful
daughter wept in the solitaiy grief of an or-
phan's heart. A few years licfore, she had
lost a brother, and now the father to whom
she was the last flower that bloomed on
the desert of age, and who lavished his love
upon her, was buried among strangers.
Then the command to move forward to
]iis promised inheritance came again to
Abram. Sarai shed upon that lonely grave
the baptism of hei' tears, and turned away
in the sad beauty of mourning to fold her
tent and enter the shadows of an untravelled
wilderness. They journeyed on among the
hills, encamping at night beside a mountain
spring, and beneath the unclouded heavens
arching their path, changeless and watchful
as the love of God— exiles by the power of
their simple faith in him. Soon as they
reached Palestine, Abram consecrated its
very soil by erecting a family altar, first in
Hosiecb, Google
tlie plain of Moreh, and again on tlie sum-
mits ttat catcli the smUe of morning near
tlie lianalet of Bethel.
Months stepped away rapidly as silently,
old associations wore off, and Abram wa&
a wealthy and happy man in the luxuriant
vales of Canaan. His flocks dotted the
plains, and his cattle sent down their low-
ing from encircling hUls. But more than
these to Mm was the affection of his beau-
tiful wife. Her eye watched his f )nn along
the winding way, when with the ascending
sun he went out on the dewy slopes ; and
kindled with a serene welcome when at
night-fall he returned for repose amid the
sacred joys of home.
At length there came on a fearful famine.
The rain was withholden, and the dew
shed its benediction no more upon the earth.
He was compelled to seek bread at the
court of Pharaoh, or perish. Knowing the
Hosiecb, Google
power of female beauty, and the want of
principle among the Egyptian piinces, lie
feared assassination and the captivity of
Sarai which would follow. Haunted with
this appi'ehension, he told her to affirm
tipon inquiry that she was his sister —
which was not a direct falsehood, but only
so by irnplicaiion. According to the Jew-
ish mode of reckoning she might be called
a sister, and Abram stooped to this pre-
varication under that terrible excitement
of fear, which, in the case of Peter, drove
a true disciple of Christ to the brink of
apostasy and despaif.
Bnt his deception involved him in the
rery difficulty he designed to escape. The
king's courtiers saw the handsome Hebrew,
and extolled her beauty before him. He
smnmoned her to the apartments of the
palace, and captivated by her loveliness,
determiaed to make her his bride. During
Hosiecb, Google
the agonizing suspense of Abrain, and the
concealed angoish of Sariu in her conscious
degradation, tlie hours wore hea\'ily away,
until the judgQienta of God upon the royal
household brought deliverance. Pharaoh,
though an idolater, knew by this supemat-
aral infliction, that thei'e was guUt in the
transaction, and called Abram to an ac-
count. He had nothing to say in self-acquit-
tal, and with a strange magnanimity, was
sent away with his wife and his property
qnietly ; followed only by the reproaches of
Pharaoh, and liis own wakeful conscience.
Abram returned to Palestine, became a
victor in fierce battles with a vastly out-
numbering foe, and was in possession of a
splendid fortune. Yet Sarai was unhappy
because she was childless. She had the
Lord's promise that a son should beguile
the hours of declining life, but the years
fled, and there was no token of fulfilment.
Hosiecb, Google
SARAH, 35
In lier disappointment and impatience slie
told Her husband it. was folly to hope on,
and pointed to Hagai", a servant, as the mo-
ther of the expected heir. By following
his suggestion in Egypt she went to the
verge of ruin, and now in turn is the temp-
ter, involving her family in guilt and dis-
cord that almost broke the heart of Abrara.
"When the slave was likely to bear a son,
her vanity was excited, and she treated
Sarai with scorn that roused her indigna-
tion. Hagar was banished and became a
friendless fugitive in the wilderness — where
the angel of God found her weary and faint-
ing, led her to a gushing spring, and there
bade her go bacl^ submissively to her mis-
tress.
Soon after Jehovah appeared to Abram,
in a glorious vision, talking with liim as
ftiend to friend. He fell on his face in the
dust, as did the exile of Patmos ages after,
Hosiecb, Google
while a voice of affection and hope, came
from the bending sky — " I am the Almighty
God ; walk before me and be thou perfect."
The solemn covenant involving the great-
ness and splendor of the people and com-
monwealth that should spring from the soli-
tary pair, was renewed ; and as an outward
seal, he was named Abraham, Thefathsr of
a great midiUude— and liis wife Sarah, The
princess. Still he laughed at the absurdity
that Sarah would ever be a mother, and iu-
Toked a blessing on Ishmael, but evidently
saidnothingto her upon a subject dismi^ed
as incredible from his thoughts. For when
the celestial messengers were in the tent
on their way to warn Lot, she listened tc
their earnest conversation, concealed by the
curtains, and hearing that repeated prom-
ise based on the immutability of God, also
laughed with bitter mirth, at her hopeless
prospect in regard to the marvellous pre-
Hosiecb, Google
diction. And when one of the Angels, who
was Jehovah veiled in human form, as af-
terwards "manifest in the flesh," charged
her with this unbelief and levity, the dis-
covery roused her fears, and approaching
him, without hesitation, she denied the fact.
He knew peif^sctly her sudden apprehen-
sion, and only repeated the accusation, en-
forced doubtless by a glance of omniscience,
like that which pierced the heart of Peter,
The group separated, and two of those
bright beings went on to Sodom. The
next morning Abraham walked out upon
the plain, and looked towards the home of
Lot. He saw the smoke as of a great fur-
nace going up to the calui azure, from the
scathed and blackened plains where life was
so busy and joyous a few hours before 1
With a heavy heart he returned to his tent,
and brought Sarah forth to behold the scene.
She clung with trembhno- to his side, while
Hosiecb, Google
slie listened to tlie naiTation of tHe terrible
overtlirow of tliose gorgeons cities, and. the
rescue of Her brother's houseliold, and "be-
held in the distance the seething and silent
grave of millions, sending up a swaying col-
umn of ebon, cloiid-Iike incense to God's
burning indignation against sin.
They left the vale of Mamre, and jour-
neyed to Gera, where, with a marvellous
forgetfulness of the past, the beauty of Sa-
rah again led them into deception and false-
hood, and with the same result as before.
Abimelech, the king, would have taken her
for his wife as Abraham's sister, had not
God appeared in a dream thi-eatening im-
mediate death. Upon pleading his inno-
cence he wag spared, and expostulating
with his guest, generously oifered him a
choice of residence in the land ; but rebuked
Sarah with merited severity.
Prophecy and covenant now hastened to
Hosiecb, Google
their fulfilment. Sarah gave bii'tli to a son,
and witli tlie name of GiDd on lier lips, she
gave utterance to .lioly rapture. Witli all
her faults, slie was a pious and noble wo-
man. She meant to train him for the Lord.
and therefore when she saw young Ishmael
mocking at the festival of his weaning, she
besought her husband to send away the
irreverent son, whose influence might ruin
the consecrated Isaac. Hagar, with a gen-
erous provision for her wants, was once
more a fugitive; and the Most High ap-
proved the solicitude of a mother for an
only child, around whose destiny was gath-
ered the interest of ages, and the hopes of
a world.
And now, with the solemn shadows of
life's evening hom-s falling around her, and
a heart subdued by the discipline of Provi-
dence, in the fullness of love which had
been rising so long within the barriers o*"
Hosiecb, Google
liope defen'ed, slie bent prayerfully over the
very slumbers of that fair boy, and taught
hhn the precious name of God, with the
first prattle of bis infant lips. How proud-
ly she watched the unfolding of thi^ bud of
promise. When in the pastimes of child-
hood, he played before the tent-door, or with
a shout of gladness ran to meet Abraham
returning from the folds, her calm and glow-
ing eye marked his footsteps, and her grate-
ful aspirations for a l^lessing on the lad
went up to the Heaven of heavens. Al
length he stood before her in the manhness
and beauty of youth unsearred by the ragt
of passions, and with a brow open and
laughing as the radiant sky of his own
lovely Palestine.
It was a morning which flooded the dewy
plains with glory, and filled the groves with
music, when Abraham came in from hi;
wonted communion with God, and cd^^'^<^
Hosiecb, Google
for Isaac, and told him to prepare for a
three days' journey into tlie wilderness.
How tenderly was Sarali regarded in tliia
scene of trial. Evidently no information
of the awful command to sacrifice the son
of her old age, was made to her. She
might have read something fearful in the
lines of anxious thought and the workings
of deep emotion in the face of Abraham.
But he evaded all inquiries on the subject,
" clave the wood^" and accompanied by two
of his young men, turned from Ids dwelling
with a blessing from that wondering mother,
and was soon lost from her straining vision
among the distant hills. Upon the third
day he saw the top of Mount Moriah kind-
ling in the rismg sun, and taking Isaac
alone, ascended to the summit, whei-eon
was to be reared an altar, which awakened
more intense solicitude in heaven, than any
y before or since, except on Calvai-y,
Hosiecb, Google
where God's " only-begotteu aud well-be-
loved son" was slain. There is no higher
moral subliniityj than the unwavermg trust
and cheeiful obedience of this patiiarch,
when the very oath of the Almighty seemed
peijured, and the bow of promise blotted
from the firmament of fa,ith ! But he be-
lieved Jehovah, and would have clung to
his assurance, though the earth had reeled
in her orbit, and every staa- drifted fi-om
its mooring^. He prayed for strength, with
his hand on the forehead of his submissive
" He rose up and laid
The wood upon the nliar. All vsa done,
He. siood a moment — and a deep, quick flush
Passed o'ei' his countenance ; nnd then lie nerved
TTi a Bpirit with a bittior strength, tm J Epoko —
" Isanc 1 mj only sun "— Tliu boy looksd up,
And Abraham tumad liis fooe away and wept.
"Where ia the hmib, my Either?' — 0, the tones.
The sweet, llie thrilling musie of a cliild 1
How it doth agonize at such an liour I
It was ilia last, deep struggle — Abraham hchi
Hia loved, his beautiful, hia only son,
Hosiecb, Google
And lifted up ha sivni, and called on God —
And lo ! Gkid's Angel stnid him— and lie fell
Upon his fa™ and wept."
When on his return lie told Sarali of his
strange mission, and how the Lord stayed
his uplifted hand when the struggle had
passed, with deeper yearnings of the ma-
ternal heart she clasped Isaac to her hosom,
and mingled with his own, her tears of joy.
She did not long survive this last test of
fidehty, itself the crowning e\'idence that
she was the mother whose posterity would
out-number the stars. At Kirjath-arba, in
the vale of Hebron, during the absence of
Abraham, Sarah died. When he heard of
her death, he hastened to her burial, " to
mourn and to weep for her." There is no
more affecting funeral scene in history.
Bending over the corpse of his beautiful
and devoted wife, he looked upon the
strangers about him, and while his hoary
locks shook with the excitement of grief
he sobbed aloud, " I am a stranger and a
sojourner with you; give me a possession
of a buiTing julace with you, that I may
bury my dead out of my sight."
He bought the field of Machpelah, and in
a cave, which seemed to have been formed
for a sepulchre, beneath the shade of forest
trees, he laid the form he loved when a
beauteous maiden, the noblest of wives,
and a faithful, praying mother. With Isaac
weeping at his side, he turned away to en-
force on his tender spirit her holy counsels,
and w^t further upon the providence of
God toward the youth ; upon whom must
fall the patriarchal mantle, and who was to
guard and transmit the knowledge and wor-
ship of Jehovah.
15. SARAH BY Rev. Monsignor BERNARD O REILLY, D.D., L.D.
There is one providential miracle witnessed daily by every man, woman, and child
in every Christian land, and to which mothers would do well to point the attention
of their dear ones. It is the survival of the Hebrew race in our midst, as distinct and
well defined to the mind s eye among sur rounding nations and races, as the
towering crests of the western mountains stand out at sunset clearly cut, and
illumined with golden splendors, against the darkening sky of evening.
Only think of it! Since the day when men contemporary with
the mighty hunter " Nimrod stamped on tablets of Assyrian
brick the story of the flood so unexpectedly brought to light,
and just interpreted to us by the ripest science of Christendom,
- only think how revolution after revolution, more destructive
than flood or flame, has swept over these Mesopotamian plains,
and over every spot of earth where the wandering children of
Abraham and Sara have planted their tents, blotting out utterly
from the face of the earth the conquering races of Assyria,
Babylon, Egypt, and Rome, and leaving one ever-living, ever-
present monument behind, on which the whole earth must gaze
with an awe mixed with veneration and pity, the Hebrew
race.
It is with such memories that we approach the history of Sara,
the mother of God s chosen people, chosen herself, together
with her husband, for sacrifices and sufferings well calculated to
try the temper of the most heroic souls.
She was called at first Sarai (the Contentious), and was the
sixth in descent from Heber, the great-grandson of Noe. Abram,
however, and his wife, when they had passed, at God s call, from
their native Chaldaea to the west of the Euphrates, were desig
nated Ibrim, or immigrants from u beyond" (eber) "the great
river."
According to some chronologists, Noe lived for sixty-two years
after the birth of Abraham, and fifty-two after that of his niece,
or half-sister, Sarai. If Noe s wife (Noria, as she is called in some
traditions, or Noema in others) lived as long as her husband, it
might, in this case, have been the privilege of both these ances
tors of Israel to have dwelt for half a century with the venerable
pair from whose loins sprung the renewed human family. Thus
SARA THE PRINCESS. 21
we may, without violating historical probability, contemplate
Noria (or Noema) as holding on her knees the child Sarai, and
pouring into her ear in girlhood and early womanhood the story
of her own long existence, of gigantic crimes against Heaven
which she had seen visited with such overwhelming retribution,
and of the solitary example of godlike piety in her own com
panion, rewarded by the divine friendship, and the experience of
so merciful a Providence. The Almighty hand, so terrible in
destroying the guilty and unrepentant, had been all fatherly ten
derness and protection to them and theirs. And with this tale
of a world destroyed to punish sin would be told that other no
less truthful one of the first creation, coming directly from our
first parents through Mathusala, who had lived hundreds of years
with these on the one hand, and then with Noe and his wife on
the other. With the still nearer example of the unteachable
pride exhibited at Babel, and of the chastisement that overtook
the builders, Sara must have been made familiar from the cradle,
by every person and object around her. Babel, or Bab-Ilu, "the
gate of the god Ilu," was very near to, if not identical with, Bor-
sippa, " the tower of tongues," or " the tower of the dispersion
of tribes," as one cuneiform inscription terms it ; while another
inscription designates Babylon as " the town of the root of
languages."
Both Abram and Sarai dwelt in Chaldaea, in the very district
bearing the name of their ancestor Arphaxad, in that city of Ur,
whose name in the cuneiform languages is " the dwelling of
Ouannes," or of the fish-god, and is identified with the modern
Um-Mugheir.
The Lower Euphrates was the seat of an empire in which idol
atry prevailed to an extent that to us seems unaccountable,
particularly when we recollect that all who were then living in
ripe manhood and womanhood were the descendants of one man,
deceased but a few years before, and the devoted worshiper of
the one true God. Indeed, we are now putting together from
the mounds of Babylon and Nineveh the historical records of
that same empire and that idol worship. Thare (Terah), Sarai s
father, was himself an idolater (Josue xxiv. 2). From out the
22 SARA THE PRINCESS.
whole mass of erring humanity, she and her husband would alone
appear to have remained true to God, and to be therefore chosen
by him to preserve in their blessed seed the knowledge and love
of the Holy Name, and the cherished faith in the promised
Redeemer and Restorer.
One mighty trial is hinted in Scripture as put upon her
womanly heart before the divine voice summoned Abram forth
from the land and the people. In 2 Esdras (Nehemiah) ix. 7, it
is said that God brought Abram u forth out of the fire of the
Chaldees." Josephus affirms that Abram was superior to his
fellow-countrymen in learning, eloquence, and virtue, and that he
determined to spread among them and all mankind a knowledge
of the true God and his worship. The worship of light and fire
formed the central part of the Chaldaean idolatry ; and Abram
" ventured to publish his opinion " in opposition to the popular
belief. " If," said he, " the sun and moon, and all the heavenly
bodies, had power of their own, they would certainly take care
of their own regular motion. Since they do not take care of
their own regularity, they make it plain, that, in so far as they
co-operate to our advantage, they do it not of their own abili
ties, but as they are subservient to Him who commands them,
and to whom alone we ought justly to offer our homage and
thanksgiving." With the irregularity here complained of, mod
ern astronomers may not agree, nor may they value much the
consequence drawn from such premises ; but we are not putting
forth an argument. On the nature of the Chaldsean worship a
singular light is thrown by the recent discoveries. They reveal
the fact that the Mesopotamian populations did not confine them
selves to a bloodless sun and star worship, but that they united
with the idolatry akin to the monstrous systems of India and
China the mythology and demon-worship afterward prevalent
throughout Western Asia, Egypt, and Europe. The homage paid
to the supreme god Ilu was comparatively pure ; not so, how
ever, the worship of the double triads of gods and goddesses
whom they adored as emanating from his substance. We know
from 4 Kings xvii. 31, that in Sippar, near Babylon, both to
Ouannes or Anu Malik, the ocean god, and to Adar Malik, the
8AEA THE PRINCESS. 23
Chaldaean Saturn, were immolated human victims. Thus in
the days of Abram, as well as in those of the exiled Israelites,
the Babylonian cities " burnt their children in fire " to propitiate
their demon-gods. And it was the altars of this same Anu Malik
of the Assyrian discoverers that Abram may have sought to over
throw in the city of Ur, of which Anu was the tutelar deity. At
any rate, Josephus goes on to say that " the Chaldseans and other
people of Mesopotamia raised a tumult against him " (Abram) ;
and "he thought it prudent to leave the country."
Other Jewish traditions say that the noble-hearted teacher of
an unpopular creed was cast publicly into the fire, God deliver
ing him therefrom miraculously ; that this deliverance wrought
the conversion of his father Thare, and his other kinsfolk ; and
that thus purified, like gold in the fire, God chose Abram as a
most precious vessel in which to preserve for all future time the
deposit of revealed truth.
But even if Sarai was not doomed to witness this crucial test
of her husband s fidelity to God, and of God s truth toward his
servant, there was, in the daily and hourly persecutions which
popular fanaticism can silently inflict on the object of its hatred,
an ordeal for both their souls, more to be feared than the tortures
of the furnace or the blazing pile. That ordeal they both had
certainly to undergo until the day dawned when their Master
found them fit for his purposes.
u And the Lord said to Abram, Go forth out of thy country,
and from thy kindred, and out of thy father s house, and come
into the land which I shall show thee. And I will make of thee
a great nation ; and I will bless thee, and magnify thy name, and
thou shalt be blessed. I will bless them that bless thee, and
curse them that curse thee ; and in thee shall all the kindred of
the earth be blessed" (Gen. xii.). Then it was, in obedience to
this call, that u Thare took Abram his son, and Lot the son of
Aran, his son s son, and Sarai, his daughter-in-law, and brought
them out of Ur of the Chaldees, to go into the land of Chanaan;
and they came as far as Haran (Charran), and dwelt there."
Sarai was now in her sixty-fifth year ; and her surpassing
beauty does not seem to have suffered blight or decrease. But in
24 SAEA THE PRINCESS.
tearing herself away for ever from country, kinsfolk, friends, and
all the dear associations that bind us so closely to our native soil,
she was not even consoled by having child of her own on whom
to bestow the affection that is ever welling up and overflowing
in the exile s heart. God had promised Abram to make them
the parents of an entire nation ; but as they turned their backs
on Chaldsea, and their faces westward to those lands where wave
after wave of emigrants had preceded them, the realization of
the divine promise receded farther into the dark future ; and
Sarai s long-cherished hopes resembled the mirage on the parched
plains over which they traveled, daily mocking the thirsty and
footsore pilgrims with bright visions that vanished as they drew
near.
At Charran, in the lovely region around the modern Chabour,
the wayfarers tarried some space, and there closed the eyes of
their parent Thare, taught by his children, ere earth disappeared
for ever from his sight, to look up for mercy to Jehovah. And
then began the long march toward the setting sun, leaving part
of their relatives behind them in Charran, amid fertility and
affluence, taking with them their nephew Lot whom they had
adopted, and directing their course "they knew not whither,"
and cared not, so long as they followed the will of Him who
was to be thenceforward their sole light and stay and hope.
The whole Mediterranean seaboard, from Tarsus in the north to
the mouth of the Nile, and westward along the African shore,
was in the possession of the same Chamitic race who had planted
the empire of violence and idolatry along the Euphrates and the
Tigris. The sensual Chanaanites occupied the beautiful and
teeming valleys that radiate around the mountain-chains of
Libanus and Carmel, and were building up at Tarsus, Tyre,
Aradus, and Sidon centers of commercial activity and of political
and religious power, whose influence should be soon felt far and
wide. This same land of Chanaan, then truly flowing with milk
and honey, was the goal of Abram s journey, and the destined
inheritance of his posterity. Did any prophetic vision float before
Sarai s mind, or any secret presentiment fill her heart with the
sweet assurance, as she and her husband crossed t> 3 Jordan near
SARA THE PRINCESS. 25
the Sea of Galilee, that One sprung from her, and in whom all
nations should be blessed, would one day press these same shores
with his feet, and waken with his words of power the echoes of
yonder dark blue waters ?
Through rich pastures, and hills planted with the vine and the
olive, to " the noble vale " of Sichein (Shechem) between its
flowering Alps, opening up a vista as of the garden of God, and
worthy of being the abode of paradisiacal man, the peaceful
caravan wended its way. There, while the wanderers rested in
their first blissful sleep beneath the sky of Palestine, the Lord
appeared to Abram, and said to him, " To thy seed will I give
this land." We can imagine the patriarch awakening his cou
rageous wife to communicate to her the purport of this new
promise ; or it may be that he who honored in her the ancestress
of the future God-man made her now the sharer, with her bus-
band, of these glad tidings, and shed on her eyes the glory of
his presence.
At any rate, they built an altar there, on the hillside, near the
site of the future city of Bethel, and poured out their hearts in
grateful sacrifice to their Guide and Benefactor. Farther on to
the south, whither the divine instinct now led them, another altar
was built, apparently with greater solemnity ; and, as a protesta
tion against the idolatry that defiled the land as well as to take
formal possession thereof in the name of the living God, Abram
u called upon his name."
Southward still the pilgrims sped, planting their tents, now in
one place, and now in another, as though surveying in advance
the scenes of Christ s labors, and planting their footprints on
every spot to be one day consecrated by his blessed feet. To
Bethlehem, it may be, and to Jerusalem, they journeyed, every
where " calling on His name " in whom they believed and trusted
with a loving faith that no delays could weaken, and no dis
appointments shake.
They were bound to go to Egypt too, marking out a pathway
for the Babe afterwards divinely preserved from Herod s pitiless
sword. And here occurs for Sarai a danger more to be feared
than the flames of the Chaldsean furnace. Famine visited this
26 SAEA THE PRINCESS.
land of Chanaan, naturally so fertile ; and the strangers, whose
herds and followers could not find subsistence there, sought a
temporary relief in Egypt, ever blessed with plenty. Josephus
gives an additional motive to Abram s journey thither : he was
desirous of thoroughly learning their philosophic and religious
systems, and of spreading among them the knowledge of Jehovah.
But, being aware of the licentious and despotic temper of the
Egyptian rulers, he gave way to a fear lest the beauty of Sarai
should cost him his life. Being childless, they agreed to pass for
brother and sister, and to Conceal their relation of husband and
wife. It would appear to be an unworthy subterfuge ; and the
Scriptures, in relating it, with their wonted candor relate, also,
the terrible consequences to which the deception well-nigh led.
The princely rank of the strangers, and, still more, the marvel
ous beauty of the Chaldaean lady, were noised abroad through
the land ; and the Pharaoh who ruled in Lower Egypt hastened
to secure the possession of the latter.
To Christian eyes illuminated by faith, the signal deliverance
wrought by the divine intervention, when all human aid seemed
powerless to avert dishonor, will not appear extraordinary. Sarai
represented both the church of the old law and that of the new,
who is called " Christ s spouse undefiled." God owed it to him
self, to Abram, who bore the figure of Christ, and to Sarai, who
typified his church, to save her from every stain.
Man s extremity is also God s opportunity. When the agony of
the two hearts was at its height, the Almighty hand was stretched
forth : its touch warned Pharaoh of the wrong he was about to
commit. Besides, he believed Sarai to be still unwedded, and
deemed he was honoring her brother by the contemplated con
nection. Abram was rebuked for his subterfuge; and his wife
was restored with every demonstration of honor, and every mark
of liberality, that could repair an evil partly unintentional. It is
said that Abram then carried out his design of visiting the most
famous seats of Egyptian learning, and of imparting, in return for
the instruction derived therefrom, a knowledge of astronomy and
arithmetic. But of this there is no mention in the Bible.
Thus was verified of Abram and Sarai the saying of the
SABA THE PRINCESS. 27
Psalmist : " They passed from nation to nation, and from one king
dom to another people. He suffered no man to hurt them ; and
he reproved kings for their sakes. Touch ye not My anointed ;
and do no evil to My prophets" (Ps. civ. 14, &c.).
With increased gratitude and trustfulness toward God, and
clinging more tenderly to each other, they now returned to the
oaken groves and rich pastures of Bethel. The valley at that
period, and before the dreadful fate that soon overwhelmed Sodom
and its kindred cities, opened into the magnificent sweep of low
lands extending from the Sea of Galilee downwards, and embra
cing the whole territory of the Dead Sea.
Here Lot departed from his adopted father and chief: we know
from the tragic story of Sodom s guilt and punishment, how
dearly the selfish nephew paid for his imprudence and love of
false independence. New blessings came to Abram with each
succeeding year, new power, fresh honor in the eyes of the Cha-
naanites, and even the halo of success in war. Melchisedech, the
priest-king of Jerusalem, blessed him in the name of the Most
High. The covenant between himself and his Master, and its
accompanying promise of a countless posterity, were reiterated
with increased solemnity. Still no child gladdened his hearth
stone ; and Sarai s brow, as age and its infirmities came on apace,
was not encircled with the crown of maternity. In her unselfish
love for her husband, and her anxious desire to see the divine
promises fulfilled even in children that were not her own, she
persuaded him to follow the custom, too common in their native
land, and universal among the heathen of Palestine and Egypt,
and take from her own hand a concubine in the person of her
Egyptian servant Agar.
Whatever may be the excuses alleged in favor of this mitigated
form of polygamy at this early stage of the history of mankind,
there is no need to offer any here.
In every instance where the Scriptures set before us God s
privileged servants electing to do what is a moral imperfection,
or even choosing what is least perfect, instead of what is most, we
are made to witness in the event disappointment, bitterness of
soul, and, not unfrequently, calamities. We have just seen how
28 SARA THE PRINCESS.
Abram s subterfuge in Egypt was followed by perils from the
thought of which a chaste soul recoils with dread. Further on
(Gen. xx.), the very same pusillanimous course brings on pre
cisely similar dangers that are averted by another act of divine
interposition.
Making every allowance for the age, the country, and other
extenuating circumstances, we are bound to judge Sarai s offer
and Abram s acceptance in the light of Christ s teaching, and in
that of the eternal fitness of things consecrated by the primitive
institution of matrimony. God, the Author alike of the natural
and the supernatural order, would have perfect and eternal unity
in the love from which the family springs. Two mothers, in the
home that Nature approves and God would bless, must never
divide the affections of the father s heart, nor divide either the
filial veneration of his children, or the obedience of his servants.
One undivided love, ever deepening and widening with successive
years, growing purer and holier with time, such is the love
intended by the Creator, and commanded by the law of the
gospel.
No sooner is Agar a mother than she despises her childless
mistress. No sooner does Isaac, the child of the promise, appear
in the great patriarch s home by the side of Ishmael than there
is strife between the mothers, cruel affliction in the father s soul ;
and peace can come only at the price of unnatural separa
tion.
But we are anticipating. The end of the trial put upon
Sarai s lively faith and yearning trust in her God was about to be
rewarded, but not till time had, in its seemingly interminable
course, brought her to her ninetieth year, and Abram had begun
his hundredth. Well may such heroic reliance on the word of
Him who is very truth remain for all future ages as a solitary and
shining lesson. Then a new covenant is made : Abram (the
Exalted Father) is changed to Abraham (Father of a Multitude) ;
and Sarai (the Contentious) becomes Sara or Sarah (Princess or
Lady). Three angels are also deputed to Sara to reward her
long-waiting by a direct and solemn promise that her hope is
soon to be fulfilled.
SABA THE PRINCESS. 29
From the home honored by such a presence, and in reward of
such virtues, the angelic visitors speed to pour the divine ven
geance on the wicked cities of the valley. When they return the
next year, Isaac is laid, like a treasure beyond all price, and a
delight beyond the reach of thought, on that motherly heart.
Hope, like the century-plant, had survived the winters of ninety
years, and blossomed, and borne its solitary fruit, filling the whole
valley with fragrance and joy.
How tenderly, how carefully, this child was reared amid scenes
hallowed by God s visible and habitual intercourse with his
parents, need not be told. Sara watched him, with all the pent-
up love of a long lifetime, growing up to early manhood, when a
supreme test was demanded of that father s oft-tried faith and
generosity. He was asked to sacrifice with his own hand the son
on whose head rested the destinies of his race ; and this sacrifice
he was required to make absolutely and unquestioningly, leav
ing it to God to send him, in his own good time, another child to
fill the place of Isaac.
Was this dread requisition communicated to Sara when the
aged patriarch and his boy left their home to go to that same
mountain-top near which another Father, in after-years, was also
to immolate his only-begotten Son ? We are not told by Scrip
ture. If Sara s heart was searched to its inmost depths of gen
erosity by the intimation of the divine Will, then, indeed, no
mother that ever lived on earth was tried like her, save that
Mother of the Only-Begotten, to whom no pang was spared. But
we believe that God, who associated the Mother of Sorrows in
suffering with the second Isaac, because she represented Eve, was
pleased to spare Sara the unutterable agony of that consent and
that parting. Abraham s sublime generosity was the lively image
of the charity of that Father, who, for our sakes, gave up his
only Son to death.
Was it on that mountain-top, when Isaac was unbound from
the altar, and restored to the paternal embrace, that the veil of
ages was torn asunder, and Abraham was permitted to gaze on
the divine reality typified by the sacrifice thus left unaccom
plished? We know that Christ said of him, "Abraham . .
3Q SARA THE PRINCESS.
rejoiced that he might see my day : he saw it, and was glad "
(John viii. 56). Did Sara share in the ineffable consolations of
that vision of the Redeemer s triumph in suffering, humiliation,
and death? We may rest assured, at least, that Abraham delayed
not to make known to her on what glories he had been given to
look from afar. And oh ! what reward was there in that one
hour of blissful contemplation of the mystery hidden from the
beginning of the world, for all the wanderings of half a century,
for all the untold bitterness of exile and isolation in strange lands,
and amid peoples hostile to x the faith and hopes nearest to the
wanderers 1 hearts!
Restored to his fond parents as from the gates of death, Isaac
grew up to ripe manhood before the treasure of that mother s
love was taken from him. That she labored through these years
of unalloyed happiness to store the mind and heart of her wor
shiped boy with the faith in Jehovah that had been the guiding-
star of her own existence, and with all the wisdom and manly
virtues needful to the appointed ancestor of God s people, there
is every reason to believe. How her own soul must have glowed
with love for the Divine Majesty as the end drew nigh, and the
sweet communion with himself and his angels, so often vouchsafed
to cheer her exile, and raise her drooping hopes, became more
intimate, and more uninterrupted, as the dawn of eternal day
grew brighter in the east!
Abraham had long come to be looked upon as "a mighty
prince " among the great ones of the land ; and his princess was
as much revered for her goodness as she had been admired for
her incomparable graces of person. She died with the hands of
Abraham and Isaac clasped in her own, looking serenely up to
Him who had promised to be their "exceeding great reward; "
for God alone, in the full communication of his life, glory, and
happiness, can be the fitting reward of "the children of God"
The princes of Palestine hastened to offer to the bereaved
patriarch a choice among their most splendid sepulchers, in which
to deposit all that was mortal of a woman tried and blessed as
never woman had been. But Abraham would have for the
resting-place of that heart so singularly all his own a tomb which
no heathen rites might defile. He purchased the Cave of Mach-
pelah, and laid her there. No spot of earth, save one, the
sepulcher of her descendant, the Holy One of Israel, is looked
upon with such veneration, and guarded with such jealous care.
16. SARAH THE PRINCESS, BY HARRIET BEECHER STOWE.
ONE woman in the Christian dispensation has received
a special crown of honor. Sarah, the wife of Abraham,
mother of the Jewish nation, is to this day an object
of traditional respect and homage in the Christian
Church. Her name occurs in the marriage service as an ex-
ample for the Christian wife, who is exhorted to meekness and
obedience by St. Peter, "Even as Sarah obeyed Abraham, call-
ing him lord ; whose daughters ye are, so long as ye do well,
and are not subject to a slavish fear."
In turning to the narrative of the Old Testament, however, we
are led to feel that in setting Sarah before wives as a model of
conjugal behavior, no very alarming amount of subjection or sub-
mission is implied.
The name Sarah means "princess"; and from the Bible story
we infer that, crowned with the power of eminent beauty, and
fully understanding the sovereignty it gave her over man, Sarah
was virtually empress and mistress of the man she called "lord."
She was a woman who understood herself and him, and was too
wise to dispute the title when she possessed the reality of sway ;
and while she called Abraham " lord," it is quite apparent from
certain little dramatic incidents that she expected him to use his
authority in the line of her wishes.
In going back to these Old Testament stories, one feels a cease-
less admiration of the artless simplicity of the primitive period
of wliich they are the only memorial. The dew of earth's early
morning lies on it, sparkling and undried; and the men and
women speak out their hearts with the simplicity of little chil-
dren.
In Abraham we see the man whom God designed to be the
WOIIAJ!^ JJSr SAC BED HIS TOBY.
father of a great sacerdotal nation ; through whom, in the full-
ness of time, should come the most perfect revelation of himself
to man, by Jesus Christ. In choosing the man to found such
a nation, the Divine Being rejected the stormy and forcible
characters which command the admiration of rude men in early
ages, and chose one of gentler elements.
Abraham was distinguished for a loving heart, a tender domes-
tic nature, great reverence, patience, and fidelity, a childlike
simplicity of faith, and a dignified self-possession. Yet he was
not deficient in energy or courage when the event called for them.
When the warring tribes of the neighborhood had swept his kins-
man. Lot, into captivity, Abraham came promptly to the rescue,
and, with his three hundred trained servants, pursued, vanquished,
and rescued. Though he loved not battle, when roused for a
good cause he fought to some purpose.
Over the heart of such a man, a beautiful, queenly woman
held despotic sway. Traveling with her into the dominions
of foreign princes, he is possessed by one harassing fear. The
beauty of this woman, — will it not draw the admiration of
marauding powers % And shall I not be murdered, or have her
torn from me % And so, twice, Abraham resorts to the stratagem
of concealing their real relation, and speaking of her as his sister.
The Rabbinic traditions elaborate this story with much splendor
of imagery. According to them, Abraham being obliged by
famine to sojourn in Egypt, rested some days by the river
Nile ; and as he and Sarah walked by the banks of the river,
and he beheld her wonderful beauty reflected in the water, he
was overwhelmed with fear lest she should be taken from liim,
or that he should be slain for her sake. So he persuaded her
to pass as his sister; for, as he says, "she was the daughter
of my father, but not of my mother." The legend goes on to
say, that, as a further precaution, he had her placed in a chest
to cross the frontier; and when the custom-house officers met
them, he offered to pay for the box whatever they might ask, to
pass it free.
" Does it contain silks f " asked the officers.
" I will pay the tenth as of silk," he replied.
SARAH THE PRINCESS.
" Does it contain silver? " they inquired,
"I will pay for it as silver," answered Abraham.
"Nay, then, it must contain gold."
" I will pay for it as gold."
" May be it contains most costly gems."
" I will pay for it as gems," he persisted.
In the struggle the box was broken open, and in it was seated
a beautiful woman whose countenance illumined all Egypt. The
news reached the ears of Pharaoh, and he sent and took her.
In comparing these Rabinnic traditions with the Bible, one is
immediately struck with the difference in quality, — the dignified
simplicity of the sacred narrative contrasts forcibly with the fan-
tastic elaborations of tradition.
The Rabbinic and Alcoranic stories are valuable, however, as
showing how profound an impression the personality of these
characters had left on mankind. The great characters of the
Biblical story, though in themselves simple, seemed, like the sun,
to raise around them many-colored and vaporous clouds of myth
and story. The warmth of their humanity kept them enwreathed
in a changing mist of human sympathies.
The falsehoods which Abraham tells are to be estimated not by
the modern, but by the ancient standard. In the earlier days of
the world, when physical force ruled, when the earth was covered
with warring tribes, skill in deception was counted as one of the
forms of wisdom. " The crafty Ulysses " is spoken of with honor
through the " Odyssey " for his skill in dissembling ; and the Lace-
demonian youth were punished, not for stealing or lying, but for
performing these necessary operations in a bungling, unskillful
manner.
In a day when it was rather a matter of course for a prince to
help himself to a handsome woman wherever he could find her,
and kill her husband if he made any objections, a weaker party
entering the dominions of a powerful prince was under the laws
of war.
In our nineteenth century we have not yet grown to such
maturity as not to consider false statements and stratagem as
legitimate war policy in dealing with an enemy. Abraham's ruse
WOMAJV IN SACRED HISTORY.
is not, therefore, so very far behind even the practice of modern
Christians. That he should have employed the same fruitless
stratagem twice, seems to show that species of infatuation on the
one subject of a beloved woman, which has been the " last infirm-
ity " of some otherwise strong and noble men, — wise everywhere
else, but weak there.
The Rabbinic legends represent Sarah as being an object of
ardent admiration to Pharaoh, who pressed his suit with such
vehemence that she cried to God for deliverance, and told the
king that she was a married woman. Then — according to this
representation — he sent her away with gifts, and even extended
his complacency so far as to present her with his daughter Hagar
as a handmaid, — a legend savoring more of national pride than
of probability.
In the few incidents related of Sarah she does not impress us
as anything more than the beautiful princess of a nomadic tribe,
with many virtues and the failings that usually attend beauty
and power.
With all her advantages of person and station, Sarah still wanted
what every woman of antiquity considered the crowning glory of
womanhood. She was childless. By an expedient common in
those early days, she gives her slave as second wife to her hus-
band, whose child shall be her own. The Rabbinic tradition says
that up to this time Hagar had been tenderly beloved by Sarah.
The prospect, however, of being mother to the heir of the family
seems to have turned the head of the handmaid, and broken the
bonds of friendshij) between them.
In its usual naive way, the Bible narrative represents Sarah as
scolding her patient husband for the results which came from fol-
lowing her own advice. Thus she complains, in view of Hagar's
insolence: "My wrong be upon thee. I have given my maid
unto thy bosom, and when she saw that she had conceived, I was
despised in her eyes. The Lord judge between thee and me."
We see here the eager, impulsive, hot-hearted woman, accus-
tomed to indulgence, impatient of trouble, and perfectly certain
that she is in the right, and that the Lord himself must think so.
Abraham, as a well-bred husband, answers pacifically : " Behold,
SABAH THE PIUNCESS.
thy maid is in thy hand, to do as pleaseth tliee." And so it
pleased Sarah to deal so hardly with her maid that she fled to the
wilderness.
Finally, the domestic broil adjusts itself. The Divine Father,
who watches alike over all his creatures, sends back the im-
petuous slave from the wilderness, exhorted to patience, and com-
forted with a promise of a future for her son.
Then comes the beautiful idyl of the three angels, who an-
nounce the future birth of the long-desired heir. We could
wish all our readers, who may have fallen out of the way of
reading the Old Testament, to turn again to the eighteenth chap-
ter of Genesis, and see the simple picture of those olden days.
Notice the beautiful hospitality of reception. The Emir rushes
himself to his herd to choose the fatted calf, and commands the
princess to make ready the meal, and knead the cakes. Then
comes the repast. The announcement of the promised blessing,
at which Sarah laughs in incredulous surprise ; the grave rebuke
of the angels, and Sarah's white lie, with the angel's steady an-
swer, — are all so many characteristic points of the story. Sarah,
in all these incidents, is, with a few touches, made as real flesh
and blood as any woman in the pages of Shakespeare, — not a
saint, but an average mortal, with all the foibles, weaknesses, and
variabilities that pertain to womanhood, and to womanhood in an
early age of imperfectly developed morals.
We infer from the general drift of the story, that Sarah, like most
warm-hearted and passionate women, was, in the main, a kindly,
motherly creature, and that, when her maid returned and submit-
ted, she was reconciled to her. At all events, we find that the son
of the bondwoman was born and nurtured under her roof, along
with her own son Isaac. It is in keeping with our conception of
Sarah, that she should at times have overwlielmed Hagar with
kindness, and helped her through the trials of motherhood, and
petted the little Ishmael till he grew too saucy to be endured.
The Jewish mother nursed her child three years. The wean-
ing was made a great /e^e, and Sarah's maternal exultation at this
crisis of her life, displayed itself in festal preparations. We hear
her saying: '^ God hath made me to laugh, so that all that hear
WOMAIi IN' SACRED HISTORY.
will laug-li witli me. Who would liave said unto Abraham that
Sarah should have given children suck % for I have borne him a
son in his old age."
In the height of this triumph, she saw the son of the Egyptian
woman mocking, and all the hot blood of the woman, mother, and
princess flushed up, and she said to her husband: " Cast out this
bondwoman and her son ; for the son of this bondwoman shall
not be heir with my son, even with Isaac."
We are told "the thing was very grievous in Abraham's sight
because of his son." But a higher power confirms the hasty,
instinctive impulse of the mother. The God of nations saw in
each of these infant boys the seed-forms of a race with a history
and destiny apart from each other, and Abraham is comforted
Avitli the thought that a fatherly watch will be kept over both.
Last of all we come to the simple and touching announcement
of the death of this woman, so truly loved to the last. '' And
Sarah was a hundred and seven and twenty years old : these were
the years of the life of Sarah. And Sarah died in Kirjath-arba ;
the same is Hebron in the land of Canaan ; and Abraham came to
mourn for Sarah, and to weep for her." It is a significant token of
the magnificent physical vigor with which that early age was en-
dowed, that now, for the first time, the stroke of death has fallen
on the family of Abraham, and he is forced to seek a burial-place.
Sarah, the beautiful princess, the crowned mother of a gieat
nation, the beloved wife, is dead ; and Abraham, constant lover
in age as youth, lays her away with tears. To him she is ever
young ; for love confers on its object eternal youth.
A beautiful and peculiar passage in the history describes the
particulars of the purchase of this burial-place. All that love can
give to the fairest, most beautiful, and dearest is a tomb ; and
Abraham refuses to take as a gift from the nobles of the land
so sacred a spot. It must be wholly his own, bought with his
own money. The sepulchre of Machpelah, from the hour it was
consecrated by the last sleep of the mother of the tribe, became
the calm and sacred resting-place to which the eyes of children's
children turned. So Jacob, her grandson, in his dying hour,
remembered it : —
'' Bury me with my fathers in the cave that is in the field
of Ephron the Hittite. There they buried Abraham and Sarah
his wife ; there they buried Isaac and Rebekah his wife, and
there I buried Leah."
Two powerful and peculiar nations still regard this sepulchre
with veneration, and cherish with reverence the memory of Sarah
the Princess.
17. SARAH: OBEDIENT WIFE BY W. MACKINTOSH MACKAY
Wives, be in subjection to your own husbands . . . even as
Sara obeyed Abraham^ calling him lord.* 1 PETER iii. 1 and 6.
ALTHOUGH I have taken up many a type of
Bible Woman, this is the first time I have
spoken on 6 the obedient wife.' Perhaps the
reason is that the type is not very common !
Luther declared that if he wanted an obedient
wife, he would have to carve her out of a
stone. However that may be, the Bible is
pretty strong on the obedience of wives, and
in the words of our text, St. Peter sets forth
Sarah, the mother of the nation, as his Bible
type of her.
At first sight, indeed, the identification does
not seem to be very apt ; for the passage in
which she calls Abraham her c lord * is one
that is more remarkable for incredulity than
for the obedience of faith. * Then Sarah
laughed within herself, saying, After I am
waxed old, shall I have such a pleasure, my
lord being old also ? * (Gen. xviii. 12).
But when we look deeper, we see that Peter
2 THE OBEDIENT WIFE
is right. All through the chequered life of
Sarah with its waywardness and its wan-
derings, there runs the golden thread of a
beautiful submission to a husband's inter-
ests, in which she has been such a pattern
to the multitudes of 4 holy women ' who have
in this respect followed her. For, joking
apart, I do believe this wifely submission of
Sarah is not such an uncommon phenomenon
as we are apt to think. What has often
struck me rather is the noble way in which
many women ' forget their own house and
their father's kindred * in order to further
the interests of the man they love.
But to return to Sarah, There are four
places in which she comes into the limelight
in the Bible, and in each of these she displays
this self-denying quality of wifely submission.
I. We see her as the emigrant's tvife>
leaving Haran with Abraham to go out into
a strange land. This must have been no
small trial ; to leave her settled home and
become a dweller in tents* Yet we read
of no word of complaint from her, and the
fact that God changed her name from Sarai
to Sarah, the Mother of Nations, proves, 1
THE OBEDIENT WIFE 3
think, that she must have played her part as
a Pilgrim Mother and been sympathetic with
Abraham in his obedience to the call of faith.
And, as I have said, Sarah has in truth been
a mother of nations in that respect. How
many a girl has to follow up her marriage
vow 4 till death us do part ' by standing on
the deck of some emigrant ship and watching
the land fade away beneath a blue horizon
the land of home and kindred. I was read-
ing over again the other day the story of
Chalmers of New Guinea. He was a true
Abraham, a pioneer of faith. But what
about his wife ? As I read of his restless
wanderings from one mission station to
another, I could sympathise with the com-
plaint of his poor wife, 4 Tamate is so restless. 5
Yes, she, like him, was a martyr too. She fell
not by the spear of an Indian savage, but by
an arrow of love shot by her husband's noble
faith.
II. Once again we see Sarah's wifely sub-
mission in her willingness to disguise herself as
Abraham's sister when famine drove them both
into the land of Egypt.
The proposal Abraham made to her at this
4 THE OBEDIENT WIFE
time was base in the extreme. One wonders
that Sarah's love for him did not fall dead
when it was made. It was nothing less
than that she should allow herself to submit
to dishonour in order that he might escape
the assassin's dagger. It was a vile sugges-
tion, and we can only wonder that such a man
as Abraham afterwards became should have
yielded to it for one moment. But fear of
death had unmanned him, and perhaps he
hoped that Sarah would escape out of the
Egyptian harem ere the worst came.
It must have been with a sore heart, we
say, that Sarah listened to her husband's
abject proposal at this time. But love is a
blind god, and she not only did not despise
him forit, but willingly yielded to his proposal
The life of her dear husband was too precious
to her to make her think of the shame she
might incur by it. Besides, there was always
a way of escape the way of Lucretia*
'Even here she sheathed in her harmless breast
A harmful knife, that thence her soul unsheathed ;
That blow did bail it from the deep unrest
Of that polluted prison where it breathed :
Her contrite sighs unto the clouds bequeathed
Her winged sprite, and through her wounds cloth fly
Life's lasting date from cancelPd destiny."*
THE OBEDIENT WIFE 5
Whatever her motive, or her ultimate in-
tention in the plot, she was wrong utterly,
hopelessly wrong in yielding to her husband
on this occasion. And this incident well illus-
trates how far wifely submission should go
in yielding to a husband's desires and where
it must find a limit beyond which it can
never pass. That limit is set by the word
& Conscience. 9 6 God alone is Lord of the
conscience and hath left it free from the
commandments of men 5 even be that man
the dearest and his life in forfeit.
Yet how often still do we see women too
submissive in the matter of conscience.
There is no place in which a wife has a more
difficult battle to fight than in standing up
to her husband in the matter of conscience.
Many give way, as we can see from the reports
of collusion in crime in the daily press. But
do not you, my sister, if you wish to be a
true friend to your husband. No woman
ever did her husband a nobler service than
when she was not afraid to tell him he was
doing wrong. Faithful are the wounds of
a friend. Sarah would have been a nobler
woman had she been able to say to Abraham
at this time, * How can I do this great
6 THE OBEDIENT WIFE
wickedness and sin against God ? 9 And yet
you see how it all came out of her submissive-
ness. She called her husband 4 lord/ even
lord of her conscience.
III. Once again we see Sarah's submissive-
ness in the next great mistake she made 9 the
giving of her maid to Abraham as a subsidiary
wife, in order to carry on her husband? s Jieredi-
tary line.
It could not have been with anything but
pain that Sarah would make this suggestion
to her husband. Though it was done all
round her, Abraham and she had been ever
so closely knit together, that such a thought
had never entered their heads. But as the
years pass on and the promised seed shows
no sign of making its appearance,, and as
Sarah watches the disappointment deepen on
the brow of her husband and reads in his eye
the unspoken question Has it been ail in
vain then, ? This emigration and visions
sacrifices is nothing going to come of it ? I
say as she reads this in his face, the desperate
device takes form in her soul. Abraham
shall not suffer ! Though it means death to
her, he shall have a son. Take Hagar then and
let not the promises of God fail through me !
THE OBEDIENT WIFE 7
Ah ! it was all a blunder a blunder due
to her own lack of faith, a blunder that was
to cause her many sorrows and stain her
name with an indelible blot at the last the
stain of cruelty to poor Hagar. But this is
what we too often do. As one has said, 4 Have
you not sometimes used a means of effecting
your purpose, which you would shrink from
using habitually a Hagar brought in for a
season, to serve a purpose ; not a Sarah
accepted from God and cherished as an
eternal helpmeet. It is against this we are
here warned. From a Hagar can at best
spring only an Ishmael; while in order to
obtain the blessing God intends, we must
betake ourselves to God's barren-looking
means.'
Yet sin as it was, it was a defect of Sarah's
qualities. It sprang from submission to her
beloved's interests, as she conceived them.
IV. Last of all, do we not see Sarah's
wifely submission to her husband in Abraham's
Sacrifice of Isaac*! We are told nothing
about this in Scripture. The silences of Scrip-
ture are sometimes more impressive than
their speech. But that such a sacrifice was
* Dr. Mawms Dods* Mapositor't Bibk Genesis, p. 160.
8 THE OBEDIENT WIFE
hers I have little doubt. Sarah was not
a woman to be easily deceived, even had
Abraham been the man to deceive her. Their
hearts had been too long united for a secret
like that to get between them ; without,
at least, a dreadful suspicion filling Sarah's
mind with a pain beyond words to imagine.
We must remember human sacrifices were
going on all around Abraham's tents at this
time. Knowing Abraham's devotedness to
God, Sarah could feel little wonder that he
should sacrifice the very dearest thing he had
if his conscience told him to do so* When,
therefore, she discerns him on that gray
morning, leaving the tent with Isaac con-
vulsively gripped by his hand, and a servant
or two carrying wood for a sacrifice, but no
lamb oh, if he did not tell her before, the
dreadful truth must have now dawned
upon her mind! "He is going to take my
boy, my darling boy, the one and only child
of my old age and give him to Jehovah!*
What an agony of soul must have pierced
through her soul! She was in that hour,
in truth, the Mary of the Old Testament*
The sword was passing through her heart* as
she saw them both fade away in the distance,
THE OBEDIENT WIFE 9
going toward that solemn height of Mount
Moriah.
Yet there is no word of complaint. She
does not follow them along the way screaming
in agony. She does not attempt to outwit
her lord as Rebekah might have done. No,
6 she calls him lord * even in that sad hour.
There is an old Jewish tradition that she died
after it ; that when Abraham and Isaac came
back on the third day, they found her either
dying or dead of a broken heart. Yes, we
speak of Abraham's faith in the sacrifice of
Isaac as a noble one ; but what of Sarah's ?
Was there no sacrifice there ? Was not her
faith in her husband even in this terrible trial
almost as beautiful in its way as Abraham's
faith in God ? With all her faults, and I
freely admit them, is there not something
fine in the character of this much misunder-
stood heroine of the Old Testament ? Is she
not a pattern, as St. Peter says, for wives in
all ages in her sacrificial submission ?
Of course, Sarah is a true Eastern, Western
women cannot copy her to the letter. In
this matter
6 East is East and West is West,
And never the twain shall meet'
10 THE OBEDIENT WIFE
Yet in spite of longitudinal distinctions, I am
old-fashioned enough to believe that in this
matter Sarah has an eternal lesson to teach
us.
As one has well said* the New Testament
conception of marriage is 4 two lives fused
into one. 5 4 Where this unity of life is
absent, there are two individualities set over
against each other in every home, and where
that takes place, there is self-assertion and
the strain which self-assertion involves. A
merely legal bond is a fetter the bond
which is made by the unity of interest ; but
affection is a silken chain, to draw husband
and wife within the circle of a higher life
and a fuller joy.* l
There is thus something eternally true
in the Apostle's injunction* 'Wives, submit
yourselves unto your own husbands/ A
good wife has to throw herself into her hus-
band's life and do all she can to further his
aims else she is no true helpmeet. But is site
on that account his slave ? Far from it.
She is her husband's queen. Love crowns
her with a royalty she could never have won
by fear or force*
1 Dr. 0. M. Ross, Ckritt antf th* Mom*.
THE OBEDIENT WIFE n
I never use the word 6 obey ' In my marriage
service, because it is a word which is un-
known in the vocabulary of love. When
c maisterie J comes, as Chaucer says, c sweet
love takes wings and flies away ' ; but I
always read the wise words of St. Paul and
bid wives and husbands to live in that
atmosphere.
Critics of St. Paul often forget the con-
dition on which his injunction of wifely
obedience is given 6 even as the Church is
subject unto Christ.' He couples the sub-
mission of the wife with a service on the part
of the husband like that of the Church to
Christ a service kindled by the self-sacrifice
and love of her Lord. Whoever, therefore,
he be who Is entitled to claim the submission
of a wife, he is certainly not a tyrannical
husband. When the first vow is broken, the
second Is abrogated. He who said to wives
c Submit/ said to husbands, c Love your wives
even as Christ loved the Church and gave
Himself for her.'
We cannot do better than close with the
fine words of Jeremy Taylor, who in his
Marriage Ring sums it up in a nutshell.
* Christ/ he says, c Is the president of mar-
12 THE OBEDIENT WIFE
riage. He joins the hearts. Therefore let the
Banns of your wedding be first proclaimed
before Him in the Court of Heaven/
Where there is such a union, there will be
no difficulty in a true wife saying Amen to
the words of our text :
c Likewise, ye wives, submit yourselves
unto your own husbands, even as Sara
obeyed Abraham, calling him lord/ As
Longfellow says truly :
* As unto the bow, the string is.
So to the woman is the man.
Though she bend him, she obeys him,
Useless each without the other*'
.
.
\