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Years thus passed on--and the dark-browed and dark-eyed Egyptian maiden had grown into womanhood, and the freshness of youth, the joyousness of health and early life were her's, while her mistress was passing into age. Sarah no longer hoped to become a mother, and, believing that the promise was not intended for her, she urged Abraham to take another wife, offering for his acceptance her own handmaid, the Egyptian Hagar.

The authority of the mistress of the East over her own establishment is so absolute, the husband so interdicted from all interference, that, although Hagar had passed her youth with Sarah, she may have been hardly noticed by Abraham until Sarah proffered her. According to the usage of the east, Sarah had a right thus to dispose of her handmaid; and a marriage with her master was the highest honour which could be bestowed on Hagar. She was given to Abraham to be his wife, and, the relation was--according to the usage then prevailing--as legal as that sustained by Sarah, although the station was inferior. No injury was intended to Hagar. No higher distinction could have been conferred upon her, and, strong in love to both Hagar and Abraham, Sarah doubtless supposed she might be able to welcome and love their children, though denied offspring of her own.

But such departure from the law, precept, or institution of God, involves a long train of sin and sorrow, no matter what the intention--and the union of Abraham with Hagar was a direct violation of the institution of marriage in all its principles and intentions, and it could not but bring confusion and strife to the tent of the patriarch.

The natural results of such a union followed. The exaltation of Hagar excited her pride and led to arrogance; and when she knew that she should become a mother, her childless mistress was despised.

It is hard to bear contempt from those upon whom we have lavished kindness; to feel that we have exalted those who despise us: and all the indignation of Sarah was roused by the assumption and ingratitude of Hagar; and, with the quick instinct of the woman, she retorted upon her husband, "My wrong be upon thee."

A stranger indifference could not have been manifested than that showed by Abraham towards the youthful wife who should have now received his protection and kindness. "Behold thy handmaid is in thy hands." He recognised no tie--he felt no obligation. What was Hagar, that she should occasion strife between him and the wife of his youth, the partner of his life, the daughter of his own people!

Hagar was from this hour abandoned by Abraham to her mistress. When Sarah resumed the authority belonging to her station, she assumed with it a power never before exercised. Forgetting all the love of past years, all the claims of the present hour upon her kindness and forbearance, she treated the unhappy Hagar with such intolerable harshness, that the wretched woman fled from the face of her mistress and from the tents of her master, and sought refuge in the wilderness.

We can conceive what bitter, despairing thoughts, what a keen sense of injustice and injury may have pressed upon her, as she sat alone by the fountain in the desert. Probably a little spot of green herbage denoted the presence of water, while, all around, lay the sandy, rocky desert. The stars, in the brightness of an oriental night, were looking down on her as she sat alone, her face buried in her hands, unheeded, there to die. Then came the visions of her youth, the remembrances of her childhood, the sound of her mother's voice, the dream of her smile--then the tent of Sarah--then the alliance with her master, the excitement of her pride, the flush of hope, the exultation of a fancied triumph over the childless, but still honoured wife; succeeded by the cold withdrawal of all the kindness of the patriarch, and the entire abandonment of her whom he had taken to his bosom, to the implacable resentment of her former mistress!

The temper of Hagar, the feelings thus excited--dark, sullen, bitter, revengeful--when she fled from all, may have been impressed upon her offspring, and thus marked the future character of her race.

Still, Hagar was not alone. The wanderer was not forgotten. In the hour of darkness and of desolation, there is One nigh even to those who forget him. "And the angel of the Lord found her by the fountain in the wilderness, and he said: Hagar, Sarah's maid, whence camest thou? And whither wouldst thou go?"

She was not addressed as the wife of Abraham. The conventional usage, so opposed to the positive institution, was not recognised and thus hallowed by Him who had established marriage; and while Hagar was pitied, she was reminded of her real condition. "And she said, I flee from the face of my mistress, Sarah. And the angel of the Lord said unto her, Return unto thy mistress and submit thyself under her hands. And the angel of the Lord said, Thou shalt have a son, and shalt call his name Ishmael, because the Lord has heard thy affliction. He shall be a wild man. His hand will be against every man, and every man's hand against him--and he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren. And she called the name of the Lord that spake unto her, Thou God seest me, for she said, Have I also here looked after him that seeth me?" implying a recognition of the unexpected interference, protection and blessing of God.

The promises of God are always preceded by his commands, and the faith which clings to the promises is to be tested by the obedience which alone can make them availing. And when the words of the angel came to the desolate soul of the woman in the desert, there were admonition, reproof, and command mingled with promise and blessing. "Return to thy mistress." Return to thy duty, is the first requirement made of those God seeks out.

And Hagar humbled herself and obeyed the voice of the Lord. She returned to her mistress. Trying as it must have been to one so aggrieved, she submitted to her authority, and again became a member of the household of Abraham. Had she disobeyed the angel, she and her child had doubtless perished in the wilderness; but in yielding her proud and arrogant temper, she secured the future blessing to her race, and insured the safety of her child, while her submission and gentleness must have won back Sarah to a kinder temper, to a more forbearing treatment.

After the birth of Ishmael, there intervened years--long years--in which Hagar tasted the bitterest cup ever presented to the lips of woman. A wife unloved, neglected--a mother disregarded--a woman held in bondage by one who had made her a rival--dwelling in the presence of him who had put her from him! Her very presence brought reproach and sorrow to Sarah and Abraham--the violation of the divine institution ever entailing its penalty.

The wife deserted, neglected, whose hopes have been crushed, ever turns to her offspring for comfort and sympathy; and ardent was the love, strong were the ties, which bound the Egyptian mother to the son of the patriarch; and in Ishmael must all the hopes and affections of Hagar have centred. Could she, indeed, have penetrated the future, could she have seen her race, the seed of her son, filling the desert and dwelling as princes; while the seed of Sarah and of Abraham were held, as if in retribution of her own sufferings, in bondage in her own native land,--could she have passed through the intervening ages and seen the children of Ishmael issuing from their desert and setting their feet upon the necks of the proudest and mightiest, imposing their faith upon a world, while they marched forth conquering and to conquer--could she have contrasted the triumphant warriors of Arabia, the caliphs of the east and the west, with the wandering, desolate, persecuted, trodden-down tribes of Israel--the proudest expectations of the woman and the mother would have been all answered. Could she have penetrated the meaning of the words she must have so often pondered, she would have found that the loftiest dreams of the rankest ambition were to be more than realized.

But dimly and faintly must she have apprehended the meaning of the mysterious prophecy, even while she trusted the accompanying promise. As she saw Ishmael, the only child in the tent of the patriarch, and loved by the father, she perhaps allowed herself to hope that he was yet to be the heir, and that in his future honours she was to find a full recompense for all the trials of her blighted youth.

After long years of waiting, Sarah embraced a son, and the event, so joyous to the parents, awoke afresh the bitter remembrances of Hagar, while it roused her to the consciousness of her present lot and of all the injuries inflicted upon her.

In all the trials and sorrows through which she had passed, she had had none to sustain or sympathize with her. Her child remained her only earthly hope; and now she felt that another was to supplant him, and thus disappoint all her expectations.

Her spirit rose in pride and wrath, and she infused her own bitter feelings into the heart of her child. When Isaac was hailed as the heir, while all rejoiced, Hagar and Ishmael mocked both the infant and the aged parents.

Forbearance was no longer safe, and the decision of Sarah was wise, though harsh--yet it was sad to Abraham. Ishmael was still his son--his first-born. He had been ever dear to him; and when the angel of the Lord had again confirmed the promise of a seed in whom all the nations of the earth were to be blessed, he had almost seemed to overlook it as he pleaded for the son of the bond-woman, "Oh that Ishmael might live before thee!" while to Abraham was then confirmed the promise given before the birth of her child to Hagar. There was sorrow and perplexity in the heart of Abraham, but a message from heaven confirmed the decree of Sarah.

The patriarch arose, after a night of conflict and prayer, while the stars were still shining in the heavens, while the flocks lay in stillness around the tents, and before those who had revelled and rejoiced were awake, and called Hagar and her child. Can we not see them in the gray of the morning? The father, the mother, the child,--the patriarch, aged, but not bowed by age, still retaining the vigour of manhood--the boy shy, yet half-defying--the mother! In such an hour, all distinctions of rank and station would be forgotten, and all the feelings of the woman be roused. Then and there Hagar might well forget that she was Sarah's bondmaid, and only remember that she had been Abraham's wife--that she was still Ishmael's mother.

In that hour must have risen the memory of her wrongs, of her saddened youth, her darkened womanhood--of the selfishness with which he had wedded her; of the heartlessness with which he had deserted her; of her long years of trial and contempt. And her eye might speak reproach, although the lips were closed and there was no voice. Should we not rejoice to believe that the patriarch whispered some regret for the past, and spoke of sorrow and repentance to her whose happiness he had so selfishly sacrificed, even as he consummated his work by casting her out, a homeless exile. Such is the enslaving power of custom, so easily do we blind ourselves to our own delinquencies, that Abraham probably aggravated Hagar's faults while he overlooked her injuries. He saw in her but the despiteful, revengeful handmaid; he forgot that she was an injured wife--a neglected mother.

Yet no words of reproach, of entreaty, or explanation of the past, or promise for the future, are recorded as having passed between them. He pronounced the decree, and laid upon the bondmaid, and not upon his noble boy, the provision for the journey. She turned from the tents, and thus they parted!

But the connection of Abraham and Hagar had woven a thread into the destiny of nations, still to be traced. She left the patriarch in sorrow, in bitterness of soul; but she went out to found nations, to punish rulers, to establish a long line who should transmit the name of her son and the influence of her character to remotest ages--even to the end of time.

Accustomed to the wandering life of the desert, and provided for the journey, Abraham probably deemed Hagar competent to guide her steps to a place of safety. But sorrow may have blinded her eyes, or despair made her reckless, and she was lost in the desert. The water was spent in the bottle--tons of gold could not open a fountain in the desert--and she saw her child parched with thirst, "faint and ready to die; and she cast him under one of the shrubs, and went and sat a good way off, as it were a bow-shot, for she said, Let me not see the death of the child; and as she sat over against him, she lifted up her voice and wept. And God heard the voice of the lad, and the angel of God called to her out of heaven and said unto her, What aileth thee Hagar? Fear not! For God hath heard the voice of the child where he is. Arise, lift up the lad, and hold him in thy hand, for I will make of him a great nation. And God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water, and she went and filled the bottle with water, and gave the lad to drink." What an inimitable description of a mother's love! What a display of the watchful benevolence of Jehovah!

In this hour of desolation, when no human aid was near, there was again the Divine interposition, while there was no reproach, no allusion even to that sinful temper which had led to the banishment of both mother and child, and caused them to come here to perish in the wilderness. Blessed be God that he does not suffer the unworthiness of his children to separate them from his love; that in the hour of extremity he is still nigh; that his ear is ever open to hear and his arm ready to save.

"And God was with the lad: and he grew and dwelt in the wilderness, and became an archer; and he dwelt in the wilderness of Paran." And his mother still dwelt with him; and in all his wanderings, wherever his footsteps were turned, there was her home. There is a touching remembrance of her early life, in the fact that Hagar chose a wife for her son from among the daughters of her own people: "She took him a wife out of the land of Egypt." And from this union have sprung the tribes who still fill the deserts where Hagar sought a refuge. A wild race, dwelling in the presence of all their brethren, whose hand is against every man, while every man's hand is against them.

Ishmael rose rapidly to rank, and Hagar lived to rejoice in his prosperity. The life which commenced in want, privation and wandering in the wilderness, conducted her to wealth and honour. So dark and inscrutable are the ways of Providence, that at each step we are taught but to seek the path of duty and obey the direction of Heaven.

The children of Ishmael seem to have long preserved the knowledge of Jehovah. Hagar, who had received so many proofs of the being, power, and providence of the God of Abraham, might well instruct her descendants in the principles of the true faith. The race of Ishmael have still preserved the rite which Abraham received as the seal of faith. Often may Hagar have recounted the providences of God--the account she had heard, in the tent of Abraham, of the creation, the fall, the deluge, the re-peopling of the world; and often, in the course of their wandering lives, she may have led her descendants to those deep waters which covered the guilty cities of the plain, and then described them as she knew them before the wrath of God fell upon them.

The tribes of Ishmael have ever recognised their descent from Abraham; and the instructions of Hagar are preserved as national traditions to this very day, though exaggerated by Eastern fancy, and mingled with wilder romance, as they have been transmitted from one generation to another by the children of Ishmael, who still lead their flocks in the same valleys, and pitch their tents by the same fountains to which Hagar resorted with Ishmael.

Hagar and Ishmael were no more members of Abraham's household, yet the relationship of father and son was ever recognised. Doubtless Abraham imparted of his wealth to his first-born; and as Abraham often sojourned afterwards in Beer-sheba, probably not far from the spot where Hagar and Ishmael so nearly perished, the father and son may have often met; and Isaac and Ishmael may have held kindly intercourse, when the bitter feelings of rivalry and of conscious wrong had subsided. The ties of kindred were still allowed, and Esau sought a wife from the family of his own kindred, as a means of conciliating his father and mother; thus showing that a purer morality and a higher religious feeling were cherished than those among surrounding tribes. And when Abraham died, having attained a full age, his sons, Isaac and Ishmael, both far advanced in years, buried him. The strifes, the bitterness, the hate of early life seem to have been forgotten, and they united in the last offices of filial love and duty.

The son of the bondmaid had attained, during the life of Abraham, a distinction beyond that of the son of the wife; and his immediate descendant rose to wealth and honour, while, if one branch of Isaac's family tasted prosperity, those recognised as the heirs of that mysterious blessing were long known as wanderers, and then despised as slaves. Their long line of descent has run parallel, side by side, distinct, unmingled; recognising a common origin, but never acknowledging a common brotherhood. The oldest nations of the earth,--the one exiled from the land given them, dwelling as outcasts and strangers among all the nations of the earth, yet still separate, apart, a peculiar people; the other living at this day in the deserts where Hagar wandered, and where she fainted--a never-conquered people. And while Assyrian, Greek, and Roman have swept the world and exacted tribute of the nations around them, and other tribes have been swept with the besom of destruction, the sons of Ishmael have still dwelt in the presence of their brethren, ever enforcing, but still refusing to pay tribute--free and wild as the lad who first became an archer in the wilderness. Unconsciously confirming prophecy, and still attesting the truth of a revelation which they contemn and deny,--thus strangely dwelling so different from all other nations,--preserving the initiatory rites and the mystic symbols of the faith of Abraham, the customs and traditions of the age of the patriarch,--these nations dwell distinct, separate from each other and from all other nations, awaiting the day when blindness shall be removed from the eyes of the children of promise, and the descendants of Sarah and of Hagar shall be both gathered with the fold of Christ.

There are Hagars of modern, as well as of ancient days,--of western as of eastern lands. She who is wedded from interest and convenience; she who forms a heartless union from pride and ambition; she who awakes from her dreams of bliss to find herself an unloved, and perhaps to become a deserted wife--all these prove the bitterness of the lot of the Egyptian Hagar. He who has ordained marriage has graciously implanted the affections which are to make it a source of happiness; and those who form this union under other motives and influences run fearful risks. There are many Hagars in the highest ranks of life, and even where the artificial distinctions of society are most highly regarded and carefully recognised.

When youth is wedded to age or sacrificed to decrepitude to promote some State policy, though the victims are not clothed in the garb of the Egyptian slave, but arrayed in the pomp of regal vestments, yet the diamond often rests upon an aching brow, and the pearls press a saddened bosom; and when the holiest of earthly institutions is thus violated, each relation of life is profaned; and polluted streams descend from the highest sources and diffuse their poison through all the ranks of life--through all the gradations of society.

There will still be Hagars--women who marry for a home, or a support; and especially while woman is educated to be helpless--unable to provide for her own wants; or while that prejudice is cherished which leads her to deem useful employment a degradation.

She fled, with one reproachful look On him who bade her go, And scarcely could the patriarch brook That glance of voiceless wo: In vain her quivering lips essay'd His mercy to implore; Silent the mandate she obey'd, And then was seen no more.

The burning waste and lonely wild Received her as she went; Hopeless, she clasp'd her fainting child, With thirst and sorrow spent. And in the wilderness so drear, She raised her voice on high, And sent forth that heart-stricken prayer "Let me not see him die!"

"Let me not see him die," and lo! The messenger of peace! Once more her tears forget to flow, Once more her sorrows cease. Life, strength, and freedom now are given With mighty power to one Who from his father's roof was driven, And he--the outcast's son.

How often we, like Hagar, mourn, When some unlook'd for blight Drives us away, no more to turn To joys we fancied bright! Forced from our idols to retreat, And seek the Almighty's care, Perchance we are sent forth to meet A desert-angel there.

THE PARTIAL AND INTRIGUING MOTHER--REBEKAH.

After the departure of Hagar and her son from the tents of Abraham, peace seems to have returned, and it became the abode of filial and parental as well as of conjugal affection. Sarah's days were still prolonged, that she might exercise the duties and enjoy the pleasures of a mother.

The heir of wealth, and the child of love and indulgence, the character of Isaac seems to have been the reverse of his brother, the restless, wandering Ishmael. The one, cast off from the care of the father and taught to rely upon his own energies, early distinguished himself, and became the leader of a band, and a prince among the nations around; while the other, cherished and cared for, was content to dwell in the peaceful enjoyment of wealth and prosperity. Thus do we find that trials are necessary to develope the higher qualities and to call them into action. The truly great and noble, the eminent in talent or usefulness, are never nursed in the bosom of ease.

Sarah died; and while the bereaved husband felt his loss, the son could not have been insensible. There was a dreary void in the home of the patriarch when the wife and the mother had been laid in the sepulchre. There was no one to fill the place of Sarah--no one to bless their simple meals. She no longer appears to welcome them as they returned from the field or the flock. The tribe is without a mother, the household without a mistress. Many considerations led Abraham to desire the marriage of his son, and he cast around his thoughts for a wife worthy of being the mother of the promised seed, and one who could well fulfil the duties which must devolve upon her as the head of his large household. The people around him would have courted his alliance, and as yet no command from God forbade his forming family ties with the inhabitants of the land. But Abraham too well knew the influence of the wife and the mother, to choose a wife for the child of promise from a race apostate from the religion of Jehovah. He knew the ensnaring influence which would there be brought to bear upon his family, and he resolved to seek a wife for Isaac among his far-distant kindred--those who yet retained the knowledge and clung to the worship of the God of Shem, of Noah, and of Adam. Though far separated from his brethren, yet communications seem to have passed, and Abraham had been told of the enlargement of the family of his brother; and he resolved, not only to seek a wife for his son from among his own kindred, but, while making arrangements for such a marriage, he solemnly guarded against the return of his descendants to the land from whence he had been called.

Trying as might be the long journey, and uncertain as seemed the issue, no inferior motives were allowed to be put in competition with the perpetuity of the worship and knowledge of God. A connection with any of the families of the Canaanites would have been at once ensnaring to the household of Abraham and injurious in its influence upon the heart of Isaac. Had Isaac married the daughter of an idolater, irreligion and immorality would soon have pervaded the family of the patriarch, and the knowledge of the true God have departed from the earth. Thus the beacon light of nations had been extinguished, and the last altar erected to Jehovah had been broken down: for the other descendants of Shem were fast departing from the God of their fathers,--and if the children of Keturah and Ishmael for a period retained the faith of Abraham, the torch which kindled the fire on their altars was lighted at that which was kept burning on those of Isaac and Jacob, and the example of their families preserved alive the remembrance and the acts of the living God in the nations around them.

With a train which became the suitor of a prince, with costly presents of gold and ornaments according to the custom of both ancient and modern days, but more particularly conforming to Eastern usage, the confidential servant of Abraham was sent on his embassy to the kindred of his master, there to receive a bride for the son of the patriarch. We gain a delightful impression both of the piety and intelligence of the household of Abraham from the account of the messenger to whom this important transaction was intrusted. The faith of the patriarch animated the other members of his household, and a strong chain of love encircled all. After a long journey, the train reached the plains of Mesopotamia, and then the tents of Nahor appeared in view; and then, in the prospect of the immediate discharge of his commission, the messenger of the patriarch sought explicit direction from the God of Abraham.

While the description of the interview at the fountain, "without the gate of the city," gives a most beautiful view of the manners of the age and the people, and an unsurpassed picture of the freshness and simplicity of pastoral life, it proves at once the piety and the clear discrimination of the agent employed. The beauty of the youthful Rebekah caught his eye, while the test he devised afforded a safe criterion of the character of the woman. Weary with the labours of the sultry day, after tending her own flocks, had she been indolent or inactive, selfish or sullen, she had turned from his request, and suffered his attendants to administer to his wants. But as she looked upon them--dusty, weary, parched by thirst, worn down by long travel--the sympathies of a kind nature were awakened, as the servant ran to meet her, saying, "Let me, I pray thee, drink a little water from thy pitcher." She said, "Drink, my lord," and she let down the pitcher upon her hand and gave him to drink; and when he had done drinking, she said, "I will draw water for thy camels also, until they have done drinking." Thus did the maiden clearly prove that she possessed some of the qualities most necessary for a wife--that ready self-forgetfulness, that kindness, cheerfulness, and desire to promote the happiness of others, that sunshine of the heart which sheds its brightening beams over all the clouds that darken domestic life. Through all the ages of the world, in all the circumstances in which mankind are placed, the wife has ever need of them, and wisely may the suitor look for them. But the servant of the patriarch, "still wondering, held his peace." Not until assured that she was of the race of the true worshippers of the God of Abraham, that she had been trained in the fear of the Lord, did he feel assured that the fair and kind Syrian damsel was to be chosen for the wife of his master's son. He had felt that the prayer was answered. He had taken out the rich gifts intended for her, but he seems to hesitate as he says, "Whose daughter art thou! Tell me, I pray thee, is there room in thy father's house for us to lodge in?" And she answered, "I am the daughter of Bethuel, the son of Milcah, whom she bore unto Nahor."

"And the man bowed down and worshipped the Lord, and he said, Blessed be the Lord God of my master Abraham, who hath not left destitute my master of his mercy and his truth. I being in the way, the Lord hath led me to the house of my master's brethren."

The negotiation between the servant of Abraham and the father and brothers of Rebekah was soon concluded. They deferred not the answer to be given, when the messenger had laid before them his errand, and told them of the wealth and honour of his master; and the whole transaction impresses us with an idea of the piety and kindness of the family of Bethuel.

The thing is from the Lord--while the rich gifts, made to all the members of the family, proved the truth of the statements of the messenger, and perhaps enforced his plea. Yet, when he urged the immediate departure of the bride for the tent of her husband, the hearts of the mother and of the brothers yet clung to the youthful maiden. They shrank from a separation so sudden, so complete--and they said, Let the damsel stay with us a few days--at least ten. Oh, do not snatch her away from us so suddenly. But after that, she shall go.

And he said, "Hinder me not. Seeing that the Lord hath prospered me, send me away that I may go to my master." And they said, "We will call the maiden, and inquire at her mouth." And they called Rebekah, and said unto her, "Wilt thou go with this man?" And she said, "I will go."

Are we not, even at this period, taught lessons of parental wisdom, in the care displayed by the ancient patriarch respecting the choice of a wife for his son? In the care taken to secure an unstained parentage in one who had been early trained in the habits of piety and godly principles of action? The character of the family is often stamped upon each member, and the marked features are transmitted from generation to generation, even where the character of the woman may be modified by her new relations. As she advances in years she often returns to the habits of her youth, while she almost invariably adopts the practice of her own mother in the early nurture and training of her children.

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