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 chapter 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 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
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 submitted,
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 overwhelmed 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 weaning was
made a great _fête_, 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 will
laugh with me. Who would have 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 with 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 endowed, 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 great 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.
[Illustration: HAGAR THE SLAVE]
HAGAR THE SLAVE.
A striking pendant to the picture of Sarah the Princess is that of
Hagar the Slave.
In the Bible narrative she is called simply Hagar the Egyptian;
and as Abraham sojourned some time in the land of Egypt, we are
to suppose that this acquisition to the family was then made.
Slavery, in the early patriarchal period, had few of the horrors
which beset it in more modern days. The condition of a slave more
nearly resembled that of the child of the house than that of a
modern servant. The slave was looked upon, in default of children,
as his master's heir, as was the case with Eliezer of Damascus, the
confidential servant of Abraham; the latter, when speaking to God
of his childless condition says: "Lo! one born in my house is mine
heir." In like manner there is a strong probability in the legend
which represents Hagar as having been the confidential handmaid of
Sarah, and treated by her with peculiar tenderness.
When the fear of being childless seized upon her, Sarah was willing
to exalt one, who was as a second self to her, to the rank of
an inferior wife, according to the customs of those early days;
intending to adopt and treat as her own the child of her handmaid.
But when the bondwoman found herself thus exalted, and when the
crowning honor of prospective motherhood was conferred upon her,
her ardent tropical blood boiled over in unseemly exultation,--"her
mistress was despised in her eyes."
Probably under the flapping curtains of the pastoral tent, as under
the silken hangings of palaces, there were to be found flatterers
and mischief-makers ready to fill the weak, credulous ear with their
suggestions. Hagar was about to become mother of the prince and heir
of the tribe; her son one day should be their chief and ruler, while
Sarah, childless and uncrowned, should sink to a secondary rank.
Why should she obey the commands of Sarah?
Our idea of Sarah is that of a warm-hearted, generous, bountiful
woman, with an intense sense of personal dignity and personal
rights,--just the woman to feel herself beyond measure outraged
by this unexpected result of what she must have looked upon as
unexampled favor. In place of a grateful, devoted creature,
identified with her interests, whose child should be to her as her
own child, she finds herself confronted with an imperious rival, who
lays claim to her place and position.
The struggle was one that has been witnessed many a time since in
families so constituted, and with such false elements. Abraham,
peace-loving and quiet, stands neutral; confident, as many men are,
of the general ability of the female sex, by inscrutable ways and
methods of their own, to find their way out of the troubles they
bring themselves into. Probably he saw wrong on both sides; yet
Hagar, as the dependent, who owed all the elevation on which she
prided herself to the good-will of her mistress, was certainly the
more in fault of the two; and so he dismisses the subject with: "Thy
maid is in thy hand; do with her as pleaseth thee."
The next we hear of the proud, hot-hearted, ungoverned slave-girl,
is her flight to the wilderness in a tumult of indignation and
grief, doubtless after bitter words and hard usage from the once
indulgent mistress. But now comes into the history the presence of
the Father God, in whose eye all human beings are equal, and who
looks down on the boiling strifes and hot passions of us all below,
as a mother on the quarrels of little children in the nursery.
For this was the world's infancy, and each character in the drama
represented a future nation for whom the All-Father was caring.
So when the violent, desolate creature had sobbed herself weary in
the lonesome desert, the story says: "And the angel of the Lord
found her by a fountain of water, in the way to Shur. And he said,
Hagar, Sarah's maid, whence camest thou? and whither wilt thou go?
And she said, I flee from the face of my mistress, Sarah."
In this calm question there is a reminder of duty violated, and in
the submissive answer is an acknowledgment of that duty. The angel
calls her "Sarah's maid," and she replies, "my mistress, Sarah."
"And the angel of the Lord said unto her, Return to thy mistress,
and submit thyself under her hands." Then, as with awe and
submission she rises to go, she is comforted with promises of
gracious tenderness. The All-Father does not take part with her in
her rebellious pride, nor in her haughty desire to usurp the station
and honors of her mistress, and yet he has sympathy for that strong,
awakening feeling of motherhood which makes the wild girl of the
desert begin at once to crave station and place on earth for the
son she is to bring into it. So the story goes on: "And the angel
of the Lord said unto her, I will multiply thy seed exceedingly,
that it shall not be numbered for multitude. And the angel of the
Lord said unto her, Behold, thou art with child, and shalt bear a
son, and shalt call his name Ishmael, because the Lord hath heard
thy affliction. And he will be a wild man; his hand will be against
every man, and every man's hand against him; and he shall dwell in
the presence of all his brethren. And she called the name of the
Lord that spake unto her, Thou God seest me: for she said, Have I
also here looked after him that seeth me?"
This little story is so universally and beautifully significant of
our every-day human experience, that it has almost the force of an
allegory.
Who of us has not yielded to despairing grief, while flowing by us
were unnoticed sources of consolation? The angel did not _create_
the spring in the desert: it was there all the while, but Hagar was
blinded by her tears. She was not seeking God, but he was seeking
her. How often may we, all of us, in the upliftings and deliverances
of our life, say as she did, "Have I here looked after him that
seeth me?"
The narrative adds, "Wherefore the spring was called _The Well of
Him that Liveth and Seeth Me_."
That spring is still flowing by our daily path.
So, quieted and subdued and comforted, Hagar returns to her
mistress and her home, and we infer from the story, that, with
submission on her part, kindness and bounty returned on the part of
her mistress. She again becomes a member of the family. Her son is
born, and grows up for twelve years under the shadow of Abraham's
tent, and evidently, from the narrative, is fondly beloved by his
father, and indulgently treated by his foster-mother.
In an hour of confidential nearness the Divine Father announces to
Abraham that a son shall be given him by the wife of his heart.
"As for Sarah, thy wife, I will bless her, and give thee a son of
her, and she shall be a mother of nations; kings of people shall be
of her. Then Abraham fell upon his face and laughed, and said in
his heart: Shall a child be born to him that is an hundred years
old, and shall Sarah, that is ninety years old, bear?" Yet, in this
moment of triumphant joy, his heart yearns after Ishmael; "And
Abraham said unto God: O that Ishmael might live before thee!" And
the Divine answer is: "As for Ishmael, I have heard thee. Behold, I
have blessed him, and will make him fruitful, and will multiply him
exceedingly; twelve princes shall he beget, and I will make him a
great nation."
But now comes the hour long waited for, of Sarah's triumph,--the
fulfillment of the desires of her life. A generous heart would have
sympathized in her triumph. A mother who had known the blessedness
of motherhood would have rejoiced when the mistress who had done
so much for her was made so joyful. If her own son be not the heir
in succession, yet an assured future is promised to him. But the
dark woman and her wild son are of untamable elements. They can no
more become one in spirit with the patriarchal family, than oil can
mix with water. When the weaning feast is made, and all surround
the little Isaac, when the mother's heart overflows with joy, she
sees the graceless Ishmael mocking; and instantly, with a woman's
lightning prescience, she perceives the dangers, the impossibilities
of longer keeping these aliens under the same roof,--the feuds, the
jealousies, the fierce quarrels of the future.
"Cast out this bondwoman and her son," she says, with the air of
one accustomed to command and decide; "for the son of this bondwoman
shall not be heir with my son, even with Isaac."
It appears that Abraham had set his heart on the boy, and had hoped
to be able to keep both in one family, and divide his inheritance
between them; but it was otherwise decreed. "And God said to
Abraham, Let it not be grievous 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 seed be called. And
also of the son of the bondwoman will I make a nation, because he is
thy seed. And Abraham arose up early, and took bread and a bottle of
water and gave it to Hagar, putting it on her shoulder, and sent her
away with the child; and she departed and wandered in the wilderness
of Beersheba." Probably she was on the road towards Egypt. "And the
water was all spent in the bottle, and she cast the child under one
of the shrubs; and she went away and sat her down over against him
a good way off, as it were a bow-shot, for she said, Let me not see
the death of the child; and she lifted up her voice and wept."
Poor, fiery, impatient creature!--moaning like a wounded
leopardess,--apparently with no heart to remember the kindly Power
that once before helped her in her sorrows; but the story goes on:
"And God heard the voice of the lad; and the angel of the Lord
called to Hagar out of heaven, and said unto her, What aileth thee,
Hagar? Fear not, for God hath heard the voice of the lad where he
is. Arise, lift up the lad, and hold him in thy hand; for I will
make of him a great nation. And God opened her eyes, and she saw a
well of water; and she went and filled the bottle with water and
gave the lad drink. And God was with the lad, and he grew, and
dwelt in the wilderness and became an archer. And he dwelt in the
wilderness of Paran; and his mother took him a wife out of the land
of Egypt."
In all this story, nothing impresses us so much as the absence of
all modern technical or theological ideas respecting the God who is
represented here as sowing the seed of nations with a wise foresight
of the future. As a skillful husbandman, bent on perfecting a
certain seed, separates it from all others, and grows it by itself,
so the Bible tells us that God selected a certain stock to be
trained and cultivated into the sacerdotal race, through which
should come his choicest revelations to man. Of this race in its
final outcome and perfected flowering was to spring forth Jesus,
spoken of as the BRANCH of this sacred tree. For the formation of
this race, we see a constant choice of the gentler and quieter
elements of blood and character, and the persistent rejection of
that which is wild, fierce, and ungovernable. Yet it is with no fond
partiality for the one, or antipathy to the other, that the Father
of both thus decides. The thoughtful, patient, meditative Isaac is
chosen; the wild, hot-blooded, impetuous Ishmael is rejected,--not
as in themselves better or worse, but as in relation to their
adaptation to a great purpose of future good to mankind. The ear of
the All-Father is as near to the cry of the passionate, hot-tempered
slave, and the moans of the wild, untamable boy, as to those of the
patriarch. We are told that God was with Ishmael in his wild growth
as a hunter in the desert,--his protector from harm, the guardian of
his growing family, according to the promise made to Abraham.
When the aged patriarch is gathered to his fathers at the age of a
hundred and seventy-five years, it is recorded: "And Abraham gave up
the ghost in a good old age, an old man and full of years; and his
sons, Isaac and Ishmael, buried him in the cave of Machpelah, in the
field that Abraham purchased of the sons of Heth; there was Abraham
buried, and Sarah his wife."
The subsequent history of the nation which Ishmael founded, shows
that the promises of God were faithfully kept.
The Arab race has ever been a strongly marked people. They have been
worshipers of the one God, and, at one time, under the califs, rose
to a superiority in art, science, and literature beyond that of
so-called Christian nations.
The race of Ishmael is yet as vigorous and as peculiar, and as
likely to perpetuate itself, as the race of Isaac and Jacob; and as
God was near to the cries and needs of the wild mother of the race
and her wild offspring, so, doubtless, he has heard the prayer that
has gone up from many an Arab tent in the desert.
The besetting sin of a select people is the growth of a spirit of
haughty self-sufficiency among them. In time the Jews came to look
upon themselves as God's only favorites, and upon all other nations
as outcasts. It is this spirit that is rebuked by the prophet Amos
(ix.) when, denouncing the recreant children of Israel, he says,
in the name of the Lord: "Are ye not as children of the Ethiopians
unto me, O children of Israel? saith the Lord. Have not I brought up
Israel out of the land of Egypt? and the Philistines from Caphtor,
and the Syrians from Kir?"
There is a deep comfort in this record of God's goodness to a poor,
blinded, darkened, passionate slave-woman, nowise a model for
imitation, yet tenderly watched over and succored and cared for in
her needs. The Father unsought is ever seeking. He who said, "What
aileth thee, Hagar?" is he who, in later times, said that he came
to seek and to save the lost. Not to the saintly and the righteous
only, or mostly, but to the wayward, the sinful, the desperate, the
despairing, to those whose troubles come of their own folly and
their own sin, is the angel sent to console, to promise, to open the
blind eyes upon the fountain which is ever near us in life's desert,
though we cannot perceive it.
[Illustration: REBEKAH THE BRIDE]
REBEKAH THE BRIDE.
In the pictures which the Bible opens to us of the domestic life
of the patriarchal ages, we have one perfectly characteristic and
beautiful idyl of a wooing and wedding, according to the customs
of those days. In its sweetness and sacred simplicity, it is a
marvelous contrast to the wedding of our modern fashionable life.
Sarah, the beautiful and beloved, has been laid away in the dust,
and Isaac, the cherished son, is now forty years old. Forty years
is yet early youth, by the slow old clock of the golden ages, when
the thread of mortal life ran out to a hundred and seventy-five or
eighty years. Abraham has nearly reached that far period, and his
sun of life is dipping downwards toward the evening horizon. He has
but one care remaining,--to settle his son Isaac in life before he
is gathered to his fathers.
The scene in which Abraham discusses the subject with his head
servant sheds a peculiar light on the domestic and family relations
of those days. "And Abraham said unto his eldest servant of his
house, that ruled over all that he had, Put, I pray thee, thy hand
under my thigh: and I will make thee swear by the Lord, the God of
heaven, and the God of the earth, that thou shalt not take a wife
unto my son of the daughters of the Canaanites, among whom I dwell:
but thou shalt go unto my country, and to my kindred, and take a
wife unto my son Isaac. And the servant said unto him, Peradventure
the woman will not be willing to follow me unto this land: must I
needs bring thy son again unto the land from whence thou camest? And
Abraham said unto him, Beware that thou bring not my son thither
again. The Lord God of heaven, which took me from my father's house,
and from the land of my kindred, and which spake unto me, and sware
unto me, saying, Unto thy seed will I give this land; he shall send
his angel before thee, and thou shalt take a wife unto my son from
thence. And if the woman will not be willing to follow thee, then
thou shalt be clear from this my oath: only bring not my son thither
again."
Here it is remarkable that the servant is addressed as the legal
guardian of the son. Abraham does not caution Isaac as to whom he
should marry, but cautions the old servant of the house concerning
the woman to whom he should marry Isaac. It is apparently understood
that, in case of Abraham's death, the regency in the family falls
into the hands of this servant.
The picture of the preparations made for this embassy denotes a
princely station and great wealth. "And the servant took ten camels
of the camels of his master, and departed; for all the goods of his
master were in his hand; and he arose, and went to Mesopotamia, unto
the city of Nahor."
Now comes a quaint and beautiful picture of the manners of those
pastoral days. "And he made his camels to kneel down without the
city by a well of water, at the time of the evening, even the time
that women go out to draw water."
Next, we have a specimen of the kind of prayer which obtained in
those simple times, when men felt as near to God as a child does to
its mother. Kneeling, uncovered, in the evening light, the gray old
serving-man thus talks to the invisible Protector:--"O Lord God of
my master Abraham, I pray thee, send me good speed this day, and
show kindness unto my master Abraham. Behold, I stand here by the
well of water; and the daughters of the men of the city come out
to draw water: and let it come to pass that the damsel to whom I
shall say, Let down thy pitcher, I pray thee, that I may drink; and
she shall say, Drink, and I will give thy camels drink also: let
the same be she that thou hast appointed for thy servant Isaac; and
thereby shall I know that thou hast showed kindness unto my master."
This is prayer. Not a formal, ceremonious state address to a
monarch, but the talk of the child with his father, asking simply
and directly for what is wanted here and now. And the request was
speedily granted, for thus the story goes on: "And it came to pass,
before he had done speaking, that, behold, Rebekah came out, who
was born to Bethuel, son of Milcah, the wife of Nahor, Abraham's
brother." It is noticeable, how strong is the sensibility to womanly
beauty in this narrative. This young Rebekah is thus announced:
"And the damsel was very fair to look upon, and a virgin, and she
went down to the well, and filled her pitcher, and came up." Drawn
by the bright eyes and fair face, the old servant hastens to apply
the test, doubtless hoping that this lovely creature is the one
appointed for his young master. "And the servant ran to meet her,
and said, Let me, I pray thee, drink a little water of thy pitcher.
And she said, Drink, my lord: and she hastened, and let down her
pitcher upon her hand, and gave him drink." She gave with a will,
with a grace and readiness that overflowed the request; and then it
is added: "And when she had done giving him drink, she said, I will
draw water for thy camels also, until they have done drinking. And
she hasted and emptied her pitcher into the trough, and ran again
unto the well to draw water, and drew for all his camels." Let us
fancy ten camels, all on their knees in a row, at the trough, with
their long necks, and patient, careworn faces, while the pretty
young Jewess, with cheerful alacrity, is dashing down the water from
her pitcher, filling and emptying in quick succession, apparently
making nothing of the toil; the gray-haired old servant looking on
in devout recognition of the answer to his prayer, for the story
says: "And the man wondering at her, held his peace, to wit [know]
whether the Lord had made his journey prosperous or not."