truth-loving, devout woman, well prepared to welcome the great
principles advanced by the Reformers, had she not been placed in
circumstances most adverse to their influence. Had Henry embraced the
doctrines and the principles of the Reformation from a conviction of
their truth and importance--had he sought to regulate his own life by
the pure precepts of the Bible, and thus striven to disseminate a pure
faith among his people--had the conscientious Catharine been the
patroness and the friend of the Reformers, instead of the trifling, if
not guilty, Anne Boleyn--the English church and the state of religion in
the English nation would doubtless have presented a different history
for the past, and a different aspect for the future.
But these are vain speculations. Catharine lived and died in the Papal
faith. From the circumstances in which she was placed, she clung to it
as to her womanly honour, her queenly dignity--as she would preserve her
name from blight, her child from shame. And when she saw herself
supplanted, when she was disgraced, divorced, her child declared
illegitimate, and she knew her death was desired by one to whom she had
been a devoted, faithful wife, what words could be more touching than
those the dramatist gives as her last message to the king! "Tell him,
his long sorrow has passed away." Oh, none but a wife dying thus, with
the bitter consciousness that her life was undesired and that her death
would be unregretted, can feel their full import.
The bells which had tolled for Catharine of Arragon had hardly ceased to
vibrate when the roar of the cannon announced the execution of Anne. The
one died in January, the other was beheaded in May; and she who, by
exciting and encouraging the unholy love of the king, had unchained his
fierce passions and taught him to break through all restraints, was
herself, full early, their victim.
Shall we pass from the palaces of England to the tents of
Mesopotamia--from the last days of chivalry to those of the ancient
patriarchs and shepherds of the earliest of recorded ages?
When the wandering Jacob reached the abode of his mother's kindred, the
land of Haran, he met, at the same fountain at which Rebekah had watered
the flocks of the messenger of Abraham, the daughter of her brother
Laban. He had seated himself by the well, and when the maiden came, he
aided her to water her flocks; and he was thus introduced to his kinsmen
by Rachel; and he told them that he was the son of Rebekah, of whom,
perhaps, they had long lost the recollection; and with all the
hospitality of the East--that hospitality which ever prevails among a
simple and pastoral people--he was welcomed by the kindred of the
mother.
The brother of Rebekah had two daughters. Leah, the elder, was
tender-eyed, but Rachel was beautiful; and both sisters loved their
cousin, while the heart of Jacob clung to the younger, the fair damsel
who first welcomed him; so that he overlooked the claims of the
elder,--the plain, if not disfigured, Leah. He brought no offerings with
him to conciliate the favour of the father, and, according to the custom
of the East, to facilitate his marriage. But he offered his personal
service as an equivalent. And the son of Isaac served seven years for
the daughter of Laban. But this long period was passed; and dwelling, as
Jacob did, in the presence of Rachel, a member of the household of her
father, they seemed but as a few days, for the love he bore her.
But the time had now arrived when the marriage should be celebrated, and
Jacob claimed his bride. But he who had wronged his brother, who had by
disguise deceived his father, was now imposed upon by guile and
treachery; and all the hopes and expectations of these long years were
defeated. The customs of Eastern marriages favoured the deceit, and
Jacob found that he was wedded to Leah, and not to the object of his
affection. The deceit was most unjustifiable. The disappointment and the
resentment must have been proportionally great; and miserable was the
excuse of Laban, and wretched the device which was offered as an
atonement. Yet Jacob must have bowed before the retributions of an
avenging God, and the remembrance of his own treachery may have stayed
his anger.
Thus commenced the family of Jacob, with all the elements of dissension,
strife and bitterness incorporated into its very earliest existence. The
daughters of Laban both became the wives of Jacob, and they were rivals
as women, as sisters, as wives and as mothers--forced to dwell
together, yet ever in sullen hatred or bitter strife. When the ties of
natural affection are severed, the heart never ceases to bleed; and
there is no hatred so deep, so implacable as that which springs up where
hearts once knit are thus alienated and forced asunder: and the sorrows
and evils which sprang up in the family of Jacob may have led to that
command so explicitly given by Moses--"Neither shalt thou take a wife to
her sister to vex her, in her lifetime."
The heart of Jacob never departed from Rachel. She was the chosen bride.
He loved her with a deep and true affection, while the forced claims of
Leah awoke only the remembrance of the deceit. In the emphatic language
of the Bible, "he loved Rachel, but he hated Leah," and it was in
accordance with the constant exhibitions of human nature that it should
be thus. He had never sought her love. No love, no devotedness, could
efface the remembrance of her connivance at that deep-laid plot which
had imposed her upon him as a wife. Yet the lot of Leah was peculiarly a
lot of reproach and trial--and as we behold her wretchedness, we are
led, not to extenuate her fault, nor to palliate her sin, but to forgive
and pity her sorrows.
In early youth the sympathies are all awakened for the beautiful and the
beloved Rachel, the only chosen, the betrothed bride. As we advance in
years, in deeper acquaintance with human hearts, in truer fellowship in
human suffering, we learn to feel for the plain and hated Leah. There is
something deeply touching in the quiet sorrow which marks her lot; in
her deep consciousness of her husband's alienation and her sister's
hate. We feel how difficult it might have seemed to resist the
authority of the father, when it was aided by the pleadings of her own
affection and the customs of her people. We glance into the tents of
Jacob, and contrast Leah with the beautiful, the loved, the indulged,
the self-willed Rachel. There we see her, plain and unattractive in
person, broken in spirit, bowed down by the consciousness of her own sin
and her husband's hate--her sister's bitter contempt--striving, though
scarce hoping, to win the love of her husband; and welcoming the anguish
of a mother, with the fond assurance, "Now will my husband love me, for
I have borne him a son."
We follow the sisters, as, still side by side, but with alienated hearts
and estranged affections, they depart from the tents of their father to
follow the footsteps of their husband,--Rachel and her offspring are the
first objects of the care, as of the affection, of the patriarch. Yet
we find Rachel, the loved and indulged wife, more murmuring, more
repining, more fault-finding than Leah. By sorrow and trial, Leah may
have learned submission; and the dearest earthly hopes disappointed--all
her affections as a wife crushed and despised--in her hour of grief, and
in the desolation of a widowhood of hate, she may have sought and found
that love which never faileth, which giveth liberally and upbraideth
not.
And He whose ear is ever open to the cry of his creatures, who forgives
even while he punishes their iniquities, pitied Leah, and, without
upbraiding her for that deceit by which she became a wife, gave her the
joys of a mother; and in all the names bestowed upon her children, Leah
at once recognises the mercy of God, while she still remembers that she
is hated of her husband--attesting at once her conscious sorrow and her
trusting faith.
Rachel was childless--and when she saw Leah rejoicing as a mother, it
awoke all the bitterness of envy. With the unreasonable pettishness of a
wife ever indulged, she reproached her husband. For once, the anger of
Jacob was kindled against the idolized Rachel. "Am I in God's stead?"
said he. The consciousness of being the loved and the cherished one--the
overflowing tenderness and the ready indulgence which Rachel received,
made her only more exacting and imperious; and while Leah seemed
softened by trials and sorrows, her sister grew more unreasonable by
indulgence, and was at once haughty and insolent. So corrupt is human
nature, that the gratification of our desires too often merely excites
the pride and haughtiness of the human heart, and the prosperous claim
the blessings of Heaven as a matter of right; while it is mercifully
ordained that the very sorrow which ever follows transgression, the
evils which await all departures from duty and right, should, by their
very tendency, awaken repentance and lead to a penitent and humble
spirit.
When the daughters of Laban left the house of their father, either from
a latent superstition, or from a family cupidity, Rachel stole the
household gods of Laban and secreted them; and with an art worthy of the
daughter of Laban, she prevented her father from reclaiming them; thus
paving the way for the introduction of idolatry into the household of
Jacob. He had already introduced polygamy by his marriage with her, and,
to secure her, and thereby gratify her rivalry of her sister, he had
multiplied his wives, and brought upon himself still heavier sorrows and
trials. It was the beauty of Rachel which first captivated the eye, and
then enthralled the heart of Jacob; and the wisest of men, thus
ensnared, are still led into sin and folly. All the influences of Rachel
upon his heart and life seem to have been unhappy; and the narrative
shows that the strongest passion, gratified in defiance of prudence and
previously imposed obligation, can only lead to disappointment and
vexation. The two sisters both proved the love of the wife, in leaving
all at the command of the husband; and the God in whom Jacob still
trusted, guarded him against all the designs of Laban, averted the wrath
of his brother, and guided him to the land of Isaac. He had passed
Jordan with his staff and his scrip--he went out an outcast, and a
fugitive; he returned with the train of a chief, the retinue of an
Eastern prince; and his heart swelled with thanksgiving as he recounted
the mercy and remembered the faithfulness of Jehovah. His father was
still living--the nurse of Rebekah, who so long since had left the
family of Bethuel, came to close her eyes in the tents of the
grand-daughter of her former master; but the mother who had led her son
into sin, who had taught him to practise that deceit which had recoiled
upon himself, is not mentioned. She, doubtless, was laid by the side of
Abraham and of Sarah, in the cave of Machpelah. She had anticipated a
short absence, a transient separation from her son. She purposed to send
for him to return to his father, that he might yet be heir of the
estate; but when Jacob did return in wealth and honour--yet bearing that
bitter burden of care and sorrow, from which no honour, no wealth are
exempt,--she who would have assuredly exulted in the one, and
sympathized with the other, was not in the tent of Isaac. She came not
forth to welcome her son, to embrace her relatives and daughters or
caress their children. Her place in the tent and at the board was
vacant--her voice was hushed--her heart cold. The places that had known
her, knew her no more. And thus it often is. Before man attains wealth
or honour, those who had most rejoiced to witness it have passed away;
while still, fair as is the outward lot, there are internal sorrows,
imbittering every pleasant draught, and casting a shadow over all the
brightness of human existence. Thus it is that the most prosperous are
often followed by a cloud, reflecting glory and radiance upon such as
are without, but covering with gloom and darkness those who fall within
its shadow.
And soon followed the bitterest trial of Leah's life,--the shame,
sorrow, and widowhood of her only daughter; avenged by those who
neglected to guard her--while the husband, though indifferent to the
sorrow and love of the wife, must have felt the anguish of the father.
And the rivalry and strife of the sisters was over. "Give me children or
else I die," was the cry of the wife whose wishes had been laws--and the
prayer prompted by hate and envy was answered. Yet Rachel died. And in
that hour of mortal agony, of bitter suffering, Leah probably stood by
her sister. With affections estranged, love turned into bitterness, with
hearts alienated, but fates inseparably united, they had passed their
days. Their tents had been pitched side by side,--the voices of their
children had been mingled together as they fell upon their mothers'
ears,--they had been called to worship at the same altar,--they had been
members of the same household.
Forced thus to dwell together, constantly to meet, to be familiar with
the same objects, to have the same interests, they were alienated, but
not separated; and if their feelings were crushed, they were not all
uprooted. As Leah saw her younger, her beautiful sister in the hour of
extremity, in the agonies of a mother's sufferings, the sympathies of a
woman must have risen with the love of a sister, and bitter tears of
repentant sorrow must she have shed upon the pallid brow and quivering
lips, as the hopes and the memories of youth and childhood gathered
around, to reproach her for that deceit by which she had sown their path
through mutual life with thorns, and made their joys to be but ashes.
There are no tears so bitter as those which are shed by affection, too
late revived, over those whom we have loved and yet injured,--over those
from whom we have suffered ourselves to be estranged.
Rachel was buried in the way to Ephrath, which is Bethlehem. She was
not laid in the sepulchre of Abraham. The children were left to the
fostering care of her hated sister. Her sons passed through trials from
which she could not guard them, and they came to honours while she knew
it not. At this distance, her life seems to us a dream--a few years of
pleasant childhood, a short vision of youthful love,--then comes the
strife of life, its stern discipline, its bitter trials, its
disappointed hopes, and its termination in the grave.
As we dwell upon the characters so truthfully delineated in the word of
God, and follow the record of human pride, passion and infirmity, we are
taught at once to magnify and adore the patience, the forbearance and
the mercy of Jehovah. And let us remember that it is because these
characters are reflected in the pure mirror of truth that the dark
shades so plainly appear. In every age the heart of man is the same;
but the temptations which especially evince this depravity may be
peculiar to some particular age or condition.
We know not how long Leah survived her sister. Her advancing years were
not exempt from affliction, and age brings its own trials; yet
prosperity rested upon Jacob--and in the decline of life she may have
known happiness desired, but not realized, in youth.
After the death of his beloved Rachel, the heart of Jacob may have
turned to Leah, and a peaceful friendship have succeeded the storm and
the conflicts of youthful passion. Sorrow may have knit hearts softened
by the mutual consciousness of error and by the tears of repentance, and
strengthened by the hopes of pardon, and drawn to each other by the
strong ties of parental love for their mutual offspring. When the
patriarch was called into Egypt, Leah went not with him. He had laid
her in the gathering-place of his sons, in the tent of his fathers. From
the touching expression of the dying patriarch--himself far from the
land of his fathers' sepulchres--"And there I buried Leah," we feel
that, in age and bereavement, the heart of Jacob turned to Leah. The
repudiated wife of his youth became the solace of his age, and her
memory awoke the last tender recollections in the dying patriarch. As we
have read the book of God, we have been taught that good, inordinately
coveted, or obtained by injustice and deceit, ever brings a curse. The
principal actors in the events recorded in these chapters of Genesis,
may have secured the object which they sought, yet the attainment did
not avert or mitigate the punishment of the treachery by which it was
secured.
Rebekah obtained the birth-right and the coveted blessing for her
favourite child, and by that act separated him from herself and doomed
him to a banishment from his father's house, and from that hour she saw
his face no more. Laban secured by his deceit the marriage of his
unattractive daughter and the establishment of the beautiful Rachel, but
he thus alienated the children he still seems to have loved, and that
wealth which he so coveted.
Leah, by her connivance at her father's deceit, married the man she
loved, but it was to lead a life of bitter, of heart-consuming sorrow.
Jacob, departing from the institution of marriage that he might yet
possess Rachel, entailed upon himself a career of strife, bitterness and
disappointment; and introduced into his family an example that became a
fruitful source of individual depravity and national corruption; while
he first witnessed the evil effects of his complicated domestic
relations in the conduct of his eldest son, and felt at once his shame
as a husband and his reproach as a father. And are not these things
written for our edification? Are we not, in every page of God's word,
taught explicitly that for man there is neither safety nor happiness
save in the path of duty and of literal obedience? That each departure
from the rule of right, whatever be the motive, and crowned as it may
seem to be with success, draws a long succession of sin and sorrow in
its train? Many have studied the word of God to justify sin, or palliate
guilt, by the examples of the former dispensation. Let it be carefully
studied, and it will show that the transgression which secured a
positive object, still brought its punishment,--if delayed, never
remitted--although successful, never justified. The word of God never
justifies crimes, though in infinite wisdom He over-rules them to
promote the designs of his eternal providence.
Modern days and Christian institutions allow no examples of the exact
type of the strife and rivalry exhibited in the household of the
patriarch of Israel. Yet, while human nature remains as it is, there
will ever be the jealousies, the strifes, the bitterness arising from
misplaced affection, or alienated hearts, or jarring interests. There is
still to be found the coquetry which would win love from a sister or a
friend, and the treachery that would supplant the rival--as there are
still fathers who, for motives of interest, would sacrifice their
daughters, regardless of their hearts or their happiness. Youthful
beauty still attracts the eye and wins the heart, and the best and
wisest of men are too often enthralled by mere personal attraction.
Human nature is ever the same, and the motives and feelings which swayed
the generations who have mouldered back to dust are still felt and
acknowledged.
While we thus attempt to trace the outlines of the domestic history of
these individuals, we cannot but feel that there is a surpassing beauty
and excellence in the character of Abraham. He bore the fresh impress of
a renovated world, and was truly worthy of the pre-eminence which is
always allotted to him. Isaac seems to have dwelt in quiet, peaceful
prosperity. Inheriting great wealth, dwelling until mature age with his
parents, there seem to have been few occasions in which the prominent
traits of the character are displayed. His life offers less of interest,
less to excite, less to praise and less to blame than either Abraham's
or Jacob's. The father's energy, patience, faith and obedience had
prepared the way for the prosperity of the son; and Isaac, nursed in
affluence and cherished by maternal affection, seems to have exhibited
less energy, enterprise and decision than either his father or his
descendants. His premature blindness doubtless conduced to this inactive
life. Yet he trusted and obeyed the God of his father, though he enjoyed
neither the exalted faith of Abraham, nor was he favoured with the
enlarged prophetic views of Jacob.
In all the trials and infirmities of Jacob--from the day in which he
left his father's house until the hour in which "he gathered his feet in
his bed and died" in Egypt--we see the evidence and the growth of true
piety, of enlarged faith. He was encompassed with infirmities, and these
infirmities betrayed him into sins, which brought in their train the
sorrows which, through Divine grace, purified and sanctified him. Thus
his character excites our increasing love and sympathy, and his
advancing piety our veneration.
From the glimpses we obtain of the families of Nahor, Bethuel, and
Laban, we trace a gradual departure from Jehovah among the descendants
of Shem. Nahor and Abraham were possessors of like faith. They both
worshipped the God of their fathers--of Shem, of Noah, of Methuselah, of
Enoch, of Seth, of Adam. Bethuel's household still remained a household
of faith, but in Laban we see the beginning of a departure from the true
God. The first steps towards idolatry were taken. There was the resort
to a sensible representation,--some image probably used as a symbol of
the true God at first, but certainly ensnaring the heart, and ending in
idolatry. Thus the gods of Laban, which Rachel stole, were leading him
and his family rapidly to idol-worship, and to forgetfulness of the true
God. Still he had not sunk into gross idolatry. Laban still pledged
himself, and invoked the name of the God of Abraham and of Nahor, and
of their fathers, when he entered into covenant with Jacob. He had not
yet altogether abjured the worship of Jehovah: he had begun to mingle a
false worship with it, and thus prepared the way for the full apostasy
of his descendants.
That the chosen people might be kept from the taint of idolatry, Jacob
left Laban; yet Rachel had stolen her father's images--and there is then
great significance in that act by which Jacob renewed his covenant with
God, when called upon to build the altar at Bethel.
"And Jacob said unto his household, and to all that were with him, Put
away the strange gods that are among you and be clean, and change your
garments: and let us arise and go up to Bethel; and I will make there an
altar unto God, who answered me in the day of my distress, and was with
me in the way which I went. And they gave unto Jacob all the strange
gods which were in their hand, and all their ear-rings which were in
their ears; and Jacob hid them under the oak which was by Shechem."
Probably the ear-rings were used as heathen charms or amulets. While
idolatry, as a leprosy, was thus beginning to infect the household, he
saw the need of their purification; and there seems no accidental
connection between this searching out and putting away of idolatry in
the household of Jacob and the following death of Rachel: "With
whomsoever thou findest thy gods, let him not live."
The cherished wife of Jacob, deeply tainted with the superstitions by
which her family were corrupting the religion of Jehovah, may have been
thus removed to prevent further contagion. While the apostle may refer
to this example in his promise: "Nevertheless she shall be saved in
child-bearing, if she continue in the faith." And this sin may have
excluded Rachel from the sepulchre of Abraham. The plague-spot
disappears from this time, and the purification of the household was
availing. For many generations, whatever their other sins, the children
of Jacob were kept from idolatry.
[Illustration]
MIRIAM.
THE INFLUENCE OF WOMEN UPON THE DESTINY AND CHARACTER OF MAN, AS
EXEMPLIFIED IN THE LIFE OF MOSES.
[Illustration]