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WOMAN
IN
SACRED HISTORY:
A SERIES OF SKETCHES
DRAWN FROM SCRIPTURAL, HISTORICAL, AND LEGENDARY SOURCES.
BY
HARRIET BEECHER STOWE.
Illustrated with Sixteen Chromo-Lithographs,
AFTER PAINTINGS BY RAPHAEL, BAFONI, HORACE VERNET, GOODALL, LANDELLE, KOEHLER,
PORTAELS, VERNET-LECOMTE, BAADER, MERLE, AND BOULANGER: PRINTED BY
MONROCQ, FROM STONES EXECUTED BY JEHENNE, PARIS.
NEW YORK:
seo vr 1) Aw NIe G OM PAN -Y..
1874.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1873,
BY J. B. FORD AND COMPANY,
in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
CAMBRIDGE, MASS,
CONTENTS.
INTRODUCTION.
J. WOMEN OF THE PATRIARCHAL AGES.
1. SaRAH THE PRINCESS.
2. HaGaR THE SLAVE.
3. REBEKAH THE BRIDE.
4,
LEAH AND RACHEL.
II. WOMEN OF THE NATIONAL PERIOD.
Miriam, SISTER OF Moszs.
DEBORAH THE PROPHETESS.
DELILAH THE DESTROYER.
JEPHTHA’S DAUGHTER.
ee eo
HANNAH THE Prayina MorTHER.
10. Ruta THE MOABITESS.
11. Tae Witcu or ENDpor.
12. QurEEN ESTHER.
13. JupITH THE DELIVERER.
III. WOMEN OF THE CHRISTIAN ERA.
14. THe Mytuican Maponna.
15. Mary THE MoTHER OF JESUS.
16. Tae DavcutTer or Heropias.
17. THe Woman oF SAMARIA.
18. Mary MaGpDALENE.
19. MarrHa anp Mary.
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THE ILLUSTRATIONS
OF THIS VOLUME.
HE notable characters among the women of Bible history present
le ZG 5nii| So attractive and variable a theme for pictorial representation, that
AAS: 1G) they have been several times grouped in book form, both in Europe
—=AS=% and America, within the past twenty years. The freshness of the
present publication, therefore, consists not in the subject but in its mode of
treatment.
In seeking material to illustrate Mrs. Stowe’s interesting sketches, two pur-
poses have been kept in view: first, the securing of a series of pictures which,
by a judicious selection among different schools and epochs of art, might give
a more original and less conventional presentation of the characters than
could be had were all the illustrations conceived by the same mind, or exe-
cuted by the same hand; and, secondly, the choice of such pictorial subjects as
were well adapted to reproduction in colors, so as to represent as perfectly as
possible, by the rapidly maturing art of chromo-lithography, the real ideas of
the painters. The guiding principles of selection have been aptness of design
and a rich variety of effect.
It will be seen that, in pursuit of this purpose, some pictures of world-wide
renown have been here reproduced in whole or in part, —the desirable being
always limited by the practicable; examples of these are the beautiful “ Mag-
dalen” of BATONI, and the main portion of that most wonderful of all pic-
tures, the “Sistine Madonna” of RAPHAEL. The only possible excuse for
mutilating this glorious design is the desire to give some slight idea of its
color-effect to thousands who have known it only through engravings, and
who could never know it otherwise, unless in some such way as this.
Among our illustrations are copies of celebrated paintings of more modern
date, by the great painters of France, Germany, and England;— such as
PauL DELAROCHE’s graceful scene on the Nile, where Miriam watches little
Moses, exposed in the bullrushes; Horack VERNET’s terrible “Judith”; Baa-
DER’S remorseless “Delilah”; and GooDALL’s lovely picture of “Mary, the
Mother of Our Lord,” with her offering of two doves in the Temple. Of
WOMAN IN SACRED HISTORY.
still another class are those which have been adapted, because of their appo-
siteness, to illustrate subjects which they were not originally painted for: of
these, LANDELLE’S “ Fellah Woman,” well shows the Oriental style and youth-
ful sweetness of “Rebekah” at the fountain, and the “ Dancing-Girl” of
VERNET-LECOMTE may fairly represent the costume and beauty of Salome, the
“Daughter of Herodias.” In addition to these varieties, the sixteen plates
include several which were designed and painted expressly for this work.
One of the most pleasing is “ Ruth,” by DEVEDEUx of Paris. It is accounted
also a peculiar advantage that the “Queen Esther” and the “Martha and
Mary ” —two very striking and effective pictures—are from the studio of
BOULANGER, who shares with Gérome the highest eminence as a delineator of
the peculiar and beautiful features of the Orient.
In order to give some idea of the care taken in the reproduction of these
subjects, it may be stated that (except where the original paintings them-
selves were accessible) in every case an accurate copy in oils was painted by
a skillful artist, and this, together with photographs from the original pic-
tures, the best impressions of the best engravings, etc., formed the basis on
which Jehenne, the artist-lithographer, founded jis conscientious work.
Each subject is produced by a series of color-printings, the average number of
stones to each picture being fifteen. The delicacy and difficulty of this
art may be the better appreciated by remembering that, while the painter has
always at hand his palette, with its numberless pigments of color and shades
of color, for the patient elaboration of the picture, the lithographer has to
’ analyze the work which has thus grown up by infinite touches under the
painter's brush, and must study to concentrate as much as possible the
effects of each single color in a single stone,—which can print or touch
the picture but once. The final effect is of course produced by the super-
position of colors and shades of color one upon another; but the art which
can thus transfer the painter's minute and painful toil to the breadth
and rapidity of mechanical reproduction, making accessible to thousands
the designs in form and ideas in color of the creating genius, instead of
leaving them imprisoned in the single copy which only the rich purchaser
may possess,—this is also a true art, and claims the recognition of true
lovers of art.
Below is given a descriptive list of the subjects, pictures, and artists of the
illustrations in the present publication.
7
No.1. Mary, the Mother of our Lord. Frep. Goopaut (England, b. 1822).
This presentation of the Virgin, going into the temple with her offering of two doves,
is one of the most delicate and beautiful of the entire series. The exceeding
simplicity of design and of coloring gives it an effect of purity, while the face is
tender, thoughtful, and in every way attractive. The softness of the drapery and
the gentle gradations of light are especial features.
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Wade
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ILLUSTRATIONS.
Hagar and Ishmael. Curtstian Kornuzr (Werben, Germany, b. 1809 ;
d. 1861).
This picture is strong and expressive rather than attractive. The depth of the greenish-
blue sky and the barrenness of the indicated landscape give an intensity to the
desolateness of the mother, clasping the form of her sturdy and unconscious little
outcast son. The original painting is now in the Civic Gallery, at Diisseldorf, on
the Rhine. It was painted at Leinwald in 1843.
Rebekah. Cuartes Lanpewe (Laval, France, b. 1815).
This is one of those charming subjects which the enterprise and graceful art of the
French have brought from the Orient. The original painting (1866) is entitled
“ Femme Fellah,” and represents one of the women of the Nubian tribe of Fellahs,
resting at the well before taking up the earthen jar which she has just filled with
water. This lovely face and figure may well be used to illustrate the maidenly grace
of ‘‘ Rebekah at the Fountain.”
Leah and Rachel. Jan Francois Portraits (Vilvorde, Belgium, b.
1820).
Leah the ‘‘tender-eyed”’ became the wife of Jacob seven years before he attained the
hand of his chosen love, Rachel the “‘ beautiful.” And with this, the picture must
tell its own story.
Miriam and Moses. Paut Duvarocue (France, b. 1797 ; d. 1856).
This is one of the most famous designs of one of the most fertile artists of France. The
original painting has been often engraved, but its freshness and beauty are best
shown by reproducing its soft and delicate coloring. The careful sister, watching
through the rushes, and the indistinct form of the mother on the bank above, are
in exquisite contrast to the quietude of the babe in his basket on th@swaters of the
placid Nile.
Deborah. Cuarirs LANDELLE (Laval, France, b. 1815).
This is one of the adaptations spoken of above. The original painting represents Vel-
leda, the Prophetess of the Gallic Druids. The grand form, noble face, and inspired
attitude of the original figure have been scrupulously retained, the background
only being somewhat modified, the better to suggest the locale of the Israelitish
prophetess.
Delilah. outs Maris Baaver (Lannion, France).
A most ungrateful and ungracious subject, but one portrayed with singular strength
and concentration of purpose, amid a studious interest of detail, in this effective
picture. The cold, hard look of the face, and the unrelenting will expressed by the
slender but steady arm and the supporting hand, half buried in the cushion, in-
stantly attract attention, while the harmonious variety of color in the accessory
draperies and furniture of the strange apartment supports the interest of the cen-
tral figure without detracting from its power.
ILLUSTRATIONS.
VII. Sephtha’s Daughter. Hueves Muruz. (St. Marcelin, France).
This illustration of the stern chieftain’s daughter among the mountains with her com-
panions, bewailing the desolate fate to which she was devoted, is an adaptation from
one of MERLE’s beautiful pictures. This artist is noted for his success in depicting
young girls and children. The general expression of face, figure, and surround-
ings, mark the aptness of this design for its present use.
IX. Ruth. Louis Duvepevx (Paris, France).
The author of this charming fancy of the gentle and faithful Moabite, which was
painted for this volume, is one of the rising and already recognized painters of France,
having taken several medals under the severe critical awards of the French annual
Salon. The tender grace and modesty of both face and figure are enhanced by the
delicacy of the color.
X. Queen Esther, Henri-ALEXanpReE Ernest BovunancEr (Paris, France,
b. 1815).
Having just returned from one of his trips to the Orient, whither he had gone with
his brilliant confrére Girome, to refill his portfolio with new faces and costumes
and scenes, to be wrought up into new pictures, Mons. BouLANGER was fortu-
nately able to respond promptly to the demand for two original designs and
paintings for the present work. ‘‘ Queen Esther” is one of these. The proud
and serene beauty of the face, the dignity of the form and bearing, and the simple
richness of the costume make this a notable picture. And, although the back-
ground is devoid of everything save the sombre shadow which gives relief to the
figure, the imagination easily supplies the haughty king, the throng of courtiers,
and the crowd of suppliant Jews behind their queen.
XI. Judith. Horace Verner (France, b. 1789; d. 1863).
Artists have always been fond of this strong subject, but none have so well succeeded
in rendering the beauty of the intrepid Jewess, combined with her resolution and
force of character. The horror of the old woman, who holds the dreadful basket to
receive the head, is finely contrasted with the superb sternness of Judith’s face and
action, just as the illuminated, gorgeous tapestry of the tyrant’s tent is rebuked by
the quiet sky and the steady shining of the stars. It is a grand composition, and
most effective in coloring.
XII. The Sistine Madonna. Rarnazt Sanzio (Urbino, Italy, b. 1483; d.
1520).
Originally painted as an altar-piece for the Sistine Chapel, in the Vatican at Rome
(whence its name), this grand picture is now in the Dresden Gallery. The paint-
ing has, below the Virgin’s figure, to the right and left, the kneeling figures of
Saint Barbara and Pope Gregory the Sixth, under whose reign both the chapel
and the picture were produced. The halo about the Virgin and Infant is filled
with indistinct cherub faces, and at the very bottom, apart from the main design,
are the two cherubs which appear in the plate. The original design is neces-
sarily shorn of many of these details in the combination given, but the more im-
portant portions of the painting are well shown.
ILLUSTRATIONS.
XII Zhe Daughter of Herodias. Emi Vernet-Lecoute (Paris, France,
b. 1821).
As stated in the remarks prefatory to this list, the plate taken to represent the Oriental
type of beauty, and one at least of the costumes of her class, is LEcomrr’s ‘‘ L’ Al-
mée” (Dancing-Girl). Travelers in the East find by investigation so little change
of dress or manners, boats, houses, tools, instruments, or modes of life in any form,
from those of twenty centuries ago, that we need not go far astray in taking a
dancing-girl of the present day in that ancient land, to suggest the dress which
the daughter of Herodias possibly assumed, in order to please the puissant king and
gain by his favor the request of her revengeful mother. The plate presents also,
from the simple view-point of art, a pleasing picture. (Original painted in 1866.)
XIV. The Woman of Samaria. Emi Vervet-Lecomts (Paris, France,
b. 1821).
This is another of that artist’s admirable Eastern subjects, and has been deemed a
singularly apposite illustration of the woman at the well, to whom Jesus talked.
The easy poise of the figure, the steadiness of the head and right hand, and the
strength of the face, indicate the self-reliance and confidence of a woman who had
seen much of life; while the listless forgetfulness of the left hand, holding the
water-jar, and the earnest gaze of the eyes show the awakened mind and fixed
attention of the listener.
XV. Mary Magdalene. Pomrzo Grroramo Baroni (Lucca, Italy, b. 1708 ;
d. 1781).
This beautiful design and admirable piece of color is one of the pictures that the world
keeps alive in constant reproduction. It is one of the few paintings which fairly
compete with the masters of the sixteenth century on their own ground ; for, though
it is a picture of the eighteenth century, painted during the decadence of European,
and especially of Italian art, it is very much after the style of the older artists, and
is brought into direct comparison with the similar expression of this subject by Cor-
REGGIO, in the same gallery at Dresden. Every student knows that it easily holds
its own in the competition, if, indeed, it does not bear away the palm.
XVI. Martha and Mary. HeENRI-ALEXANDRE ErneEsT BovuLaNnceR (Paris,
France, b. 1815).
Of the entire list of illustrations taken from modern paintings, perhaps no one is
more thoroughly original and effective than this; the hand of a master is to be
seen in every line. The rich beauty and spirited action of Martha, the serene
repose of Mary’s figure, the sweetness of her face and the quietude of her look under
the fiery reproaches of the elder sister, the characteristic contrast of color in the
dresses of the two, the suggested coolness of the vine-embowered porch, and the
general harmony of line, design, and color, are well worthy of observation. The
fact that it was designed for this volume by the great Orientalist gives to the picture
an especial value and interest.
i
WOMAN IN SACRED HISTORY.
INTRODUCTION.
HE object of the following pages will be to show, in a
series of biographical sketches, a history of Woman-
HOOD UNDER DIvINE cULTURE, tending toward the de-
velopment of that high ideal of woman which we find
in modern Christian countries.
All the characters comprised in these sketches belong to one
nationality. They are of that mysterious and ancient race whose
records begin with the dawn of history; who, for centuries, have
been sifted like seed through all the nations of the earth, with-
out losing either their national spirit or their wonderful physical
and mental vigor.
By this nation the Scriptures, which we reverence, were writ-
ten and preserved. From it came all the precepts and teachings
by which our lives are guided in things highest and holiest; from
it came Her who is at once the highest Ideal of human perfec-
tion and the clearest revelation of the Divine.
We are taught that the Creator revealed himself to man, not
at once, but by a system progressively developing from age to
age. Selecting one man, he made of his posterity a sacerdotal
nation, through which should gradually unfold a religious litera-
ture, and from which should come a succession of religious teach-
ers, and the final development, through Jesus, of a religion whose
ultimate triumphs should bring complete blessedness to the race.
In tracing the Bible narrative from the beginning, it is in-
teresting to mark the effect of this great movement in its re-
lation to women. ‘The characters we have selected will be
WOMAN IN SACRED HISTORY.
arranged for this purpose in a series, under the following
divisions : —
I. WomEN OF THE PATRIARCHAL AGES.
Il. Women OF THE NATIONAL PERIOD.
III. Women OF THE CHRISTIAN PERIOD.
We understand by the patriarchal period the interval between
the calling of Abraham and the public mission of Moses. The
pictures of life at this time are interesting, because they give
the clearest idea of what we may call the raw material on
which the educational system of the Divine Being began to
work. We find here a state of society the elements of which are
in some respects peculiarly simple and healthful, and in others
exhibiting the imperfections of the earth’s childhood. Family
affection appears to be the strongest force in it, yet it is
family affection with the defects of an untaught, untrained
morality. Polygamy, with its well-known evils, was universal
in the world. Society was broken into roving tribes, and life
was a constant battle, in which artifice and deception were
the only refuge of the quiet and peace-loving spirit. Even
within the bounds of the family, we continually find fraud, artifice,
and deception. Men and women, in that age of the world, seem
to have practiced deceit and spoken lies, as children do, from
immaturity and want of deep reflection. A certain childhood of
nature, however, is the redeeming charm in all these pictures.
There is an honest simplicity in the narrative, which refreshes us
like the talk of children.
We have been so long in the habit of hearing the Bible read
In solemn, measured tones, in the hush of churches, that we are
apt to forget that these men and women were really flesh and
blood, of the same human nature with ourselves. A factitious
solemnity invests a Bible name, and some good people seem to
feel embarassed by the obligation to justify all the proceedings
of patriarchs and prophets by the advanced rules of Christian
morality. In this respect, the modern fashion of treating the
personages of sacred story with the same freedom of inquiry as
the characters of any other history has its advantages. It takes
INTRODUCTION.
them out of a false, unnatural light, where they lose all hold on
our sympathies, and brings them before us as real human beings.
Read in this way, the ancient sacred history is the purest natu-
ralism, under the benevolent guidance of the watchful Father of
Nations.
Pascal very wisely says, ‘‘The whole succession of men dur-
ing the long course of ages ought to be considered as a single
man, who exists and learns from age to age.” Considered in this
light, it is no more difficult to conceive of an infinite Father toler-
ating an imperfect childhood of morals in the whole human race,
than in each individual of that race. The patriarchs are to be
viewed as the first pupils in the great training-school whence the
world’s teachers in morals were to come, and they are shown
to us in all the crudity of early pupilage. The great virtue of
which they are presented as the pattern is the virtue of the child
and the scholar — FAITH.
Faith, the only true reason for weak and undeveloped natures,
was theirs, and as the apostle says, ‘it was counted to them for
righteousness.” However imperfect and uncultured one may be,
if he has implicit trust in an infallible teacher, he is in the way
of all attainment. |
The faith of which Abraham is presented as the example is not
the blind, ignorant superstition of the savage. Not a fetish, not
a selfish trust in a Patron Deity for securing personal advan-
tages, but an enlightened, boundless trust in the Supreme power,
wisdom, and rectitude. ‘‘The Judge of all the earth will do right.”
In this belief, Abraham trusts him absolutely. To him he is will-
ing to surrender the deepest and dearest hopes of his life, and
sacrifice even the son in whom center all the nerves of joy and
hope, ‘‘ accounting,” as the Apostle tells us, “that God was able
to raise him from the dead.”
Nor was this faith bounded by the horizon of this life. We
are informed by the Apostle Paul, who certainly well under-
stood the traditions of his nation, that Abraham looked forward
to the same heavenly home which cheers the heart of the
Christian. ‘By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out
into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance,
serena re
WOMAN IN SACRED HISTORY.
obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went. By
faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country,
dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him
of the same promise: for he looked for a city that hath foundations,
whose builder and maker is God. They —the patriarchs — de-
sired a better country, even an heavenly: wherefore God is not
ashamed to be called their God.” (Heb. xi. 8-10, 16.)
We are further told that this faith passed as a legacy through
the patriarchal families to the time of Moses, and that the inspir-
ing motive of his life was the invisible God and the future world
beyond the grave. ‘By faith Moses, when he was come to
years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choos-
ing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to
enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season; esteeming the reproach
of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt, for he
had respect unto the recompense of reward., By faith he forsook
Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the great king; for he endured
as seeing him who is invisible.” (Heb. xi. 24-27.) It has
been blindly asserted that the hope of a future life was no
part of the working force in the lives of these ancient patri-
archs. Certainly, no one ever sacrificed more brilliant prospects
of things seen and temporal, for the sake of things unseen and
eternal, than Moses.
Finally, one remarkable characteristic of all these old patri-
archs was the warmth of their affections. Differing in degree as
to moral worth, they were all affectionate men. So, after all that
Christianity has done for us, after all the world’s growth and pro-
gress, we find no pictures of love in family life more delicate and
tender than are given in these patriarchal stories. No husband
could be more loyally devoted to a wife than Abraham ; no lover
exhibit less of the eagerness of selfish passion and more of en-
during devotion than Jacob, who counted seven years of servi-
tude as nothing, for the love he bare his Rachael; and, for a
picture of parental tenderness, the story of Joseph stands alone
and unequalled in human literature.
In the patriarchal families, as here given, women seem to
have reigned as queens of the interior. Even when polygamy
INTRODUCTION.
was practiced, the monogamic affection was still predominant.
In the case of Abraham and Jacob, it appears to have been from
no wandering of the affections, but from a desire of offspring,
or the tyranny of custom, that a second wife was imposed.
Female chastity was jealously guarded. When a young prince
seduced Dinah, the daughter of Jacob, although offering honor-
able marriage, with any amount of dowry, the vengeance of
the brothers could only be appeased by blood; and the his-
tory of Joseph shows that purity was regarded as a virtue in
man as well as in woman. Such, then, was the patriarchal
stock, — the seed-form of the great and chosen nation. Let
us now glance at the influences which nourished it through
the grand growth of the prophetic or national period, up to
the time of its consummate blossom and fruit in the Christian
era.
Moses was the great lawgiver to mold this people into a na-
tion. His institutes formed a race of men whose vital force has
outlived conquest, persecution, dispersion, and every possible
cause which could operate to destroy a nationality; so that,
even to our time, talent and genius spring forth from the un-
wasted vigor of these sons and daughters of Abraham. The
remarkable vigor and vitality of the Jewish race, their power
of adaptation to every climate, and of bearing up under the
most oppressive and disadvantageous circumstances, have at-
tracted the attention of the French government, and two suc-
cessive commissions of inquiry, with intervals of three or four
years between, have been instituted, ‘on the causes of the
health and longevity of the Jewish race.”
In the “Israelite” of February 9, 1866, we have, on this sub-
ject, the report of M. Legoyt, chief of a division of the ministry
of commerce and public works, one of the first statisticians of
France. He says: “‘ We have seen that all the documents put
together are affirmative of an exceptional vitality of the Jews.
How can this phenomenon be explained? Dietrici, after having
demonstrated its existence in Prussia, thinks it is to be attributed
to greater temperance, a better regulated life, and purer morals.
This is likewise the opinion of Drs. Neufville, Glatter, and Meyer.
WOMAN IN SACRED HISTORY.
Cases of drunkenness, says Dietrici, frequent among the Chris-
tians, occur very rarely among the Jews. This regularity and
discipline, and greater self-control, of Jewish life is confirmed by
the criminal statistics of Prussia, which show fewer Jews con-
demned for crime.”
M. Legoyt goes on to account for this longevity and excep-
_ tional vitality of the Jews by the facts of their family life: that
early marriages are more common; that great care is taken to
provide for the exigencies of marriage; that there are fewer
children born, and thus they are better cared for; that family
feeling is more strongly developed than in other races; that the
Jewish mother is the nurse of her own infant, and that great
care and tenderness are bestowed on young children.
It is evident that the sanitary prescriptions of the Mosaic law
have an important bearing on the health. If we examine these
laws of Moses, we shall find that they consist largely in dietetic
and sanitary regulations, in directions for detecting those diseases
which vitiate the blood, and removing the subjects of them from
contact with their fellows.
But the greatest peculiarity of the institutes of Moses is their
care of family life. They differed from the laws of all other
ancient nations by making the family the central point of the
state. In Rome and Greece, and in antiquity generally, the
ruling purpose was war and conquest. War was the normal
condition of the ancient world. The state was for the most
part a camp under martial law, and the interests of the family
fared hardly. The laws of Moses, on the contrary, contemplated
a peaceful community of land-holders, devoted to agriculture
and domestic life. The land of Canaan was divided into home-
steads; the homestead was inalienable in families, and could be
sold only for fifty years, when it reverted again to the original
heirs. All these regulations gave a quality of stability and per-
petuity to the family. We have also some striking laws which
show how, when brought into immediate comparison, family life
is always considered the first; for instance, see Deuteronomy xxiv.
5: “When a man hath taken a new wife he shall not go out to
war, neither shall he be charged with any business; but he shall
INTRODUCTION.
be free at home one year, and shall cheer up his wife which
he hath taken.” What can more strongly show the delicate care
of woman, and the high regard paid to the family, than this? It
was more important to be a good husband and make his wife
happy than to win military glory or perform public service of
any kind.
The same regard for family life is shown, in placing the father
and the mother as joint objects of honor and veneration, in the
Ten Commandments: ‘‘ Honor thy father and thy mother, that thy
days may be long in the land that the Lord thy God giveth thee.”
Among the Greeks, the wife was a nonentity, living in the seclu-
sion of the women’s apartments, and never associated publicly
with her husband as an equal. In Rome, the father was all in all
in the family, and held the sole power of life and death over his
wife and children. Among the Jews, the wife was the co-equal
queen of the home, and was equally honored and obeyed with
her husband. Lest there should be any doubt as to the position
of the mother, the command is solemnly reiterated, and the mother
placed first in order: ‘‘ And the Lord spake to Moses, speak unto
the children of Israel and say unto them, Ye shall be holy, for I
the Lord your God am holy. Ye shall fear every man his
MOTHER and his father. I am the Lord.” (Lev. xix. 3.) How
solemn is the halo of exaltation around the mother in this pass-
age, opened with all the authority of God, — calling to highest
holiness, and then exalting the mother and the father as, next
to God, objects of reverence !
Family government was backed by all the authority of the
state, but the power of life and death was not left in the parents’
hands. Ifa son proved stubborn and rebellious, utterly refusing
domestic discipline, then the father and the mother were to unite
in bringing him before the civil magistrates, who condemned him
to death. But the mother must appear and testify, before the
legal act was accomplished, and thus the power of restraining
the stronger passions of the man was left with her.
The laws of Moses also teach a degree of delicacy and con-
sideration, in the treatment of women taken captives in war, that
was unparalleled in those ages. With one consent, in all other
3
WOMAN IN SACRED HISTORY.
ancient nations, the captive woman was a slave, with no pro-
tection for chastity. Compare with this the spirit of the law of
Moses: ‘If thou seest among thy captives a beautiful woman,
and hast a desire unto her that thou wouldst have her to wife,
then thou shalt bring her to thy house, and she shall remain in
thy house and bewail her father and mother a full month; and
after that thou shalt go in unto her and be her husband, and she
shall be thy wife.” Here is consideration, regard to womanly
feeling, and an opportunity for seeking the affection of the captive
by kindness. The law adds, furthermore, that if the man change
his mind, and do not wish to marry her after this time for closer
acquaintance, then he shall give her her liberty, and allow her
to go where she pleases: ‘Thou shalt not sell her at all for
money, thou shalt not make merchandise of her, because thou
hast humbled her.”
The laws of Moses did not forbid polygamy, but they secured
to the secondary wives such respect and attention as made the
maintenance of many of them a matter of serious difficulty.
Everywhere we find Moses interposing some guard to the help-
lessness of the woman, softening and moderating the harsh cus-
toms of ancient society in her favor. Men were not allowed
to hold women-servants merely for the gratification of a tem-
porary passion, without assuming the obligations of a husband.
Thus we find the following restraint on the custom of buying a
handmaid or concubine: ‘If a man sell his daughter to be a
maid-servant, she shall not go out to work as the men-servants
do, and, if she please not her master which hath betrothed her
to himself, then shall he let her be redeemed; he shall have no
power to sell her unto a stranger, seeing he hath dealt deceitfully
with her. And if he have betrothed her to his son, he shall deal
with her as a daughter. And if he take another wife, her food
and her raiment, and her duty of marriage shall he not diminish.
And if he do not these three things unto her, then shall she go
out free without money.” (ix. xxi. 7.) This law, in fact, gave
to every concubine the rights and immunities of a legal wife, and
in default of its provisions she recovered her liberty. Thus,
also, we find a man is forbidden to take two sisters to wife, and
INTRODUCTION.
the feelings of the first wife are expressly mentioned as the rea-
son: “Thou shalt not take unto thy wife her sister to vex her
during her lifetime.”
In the same manner it was forbidden to allow personal favor-
itism to influence the legal rights of succession belonging to
children of different wives. (Deut. xxi. 15.) ‘If a man have
two wives, one beloved and the other hated, and they have both
borne him children, and if the firstborn son be hers that is
hated, then, when he maketh his sons to inherit, he may not
make the son of the beloved firstborn, but he shall acknowl-
edge the son of the hated for the firstborn.”
If a man slandered the chastity of his wife before marriage,
she or her relations had a right to bring him before a tribunal of
the elders, and, failing to substantiate his accusations, he was
heavily fined and the right of divorce taken from him.
By thus hedging in polygamy with the restraints of serious
obligations and duties, and making every concubine a wife, enti-
tled to claim all the privileges of a wife, Moses prepared the way
for its gradual extinction. For since it could not be a mere
temporary connection involving no duty on the man’s part, since
he could not sell or make merchandise of the slave when he was
tired of her, since the children had a legal claim to support, — it
became a serious matter to increase the number of wives. The
kings of Israel were expressly forbidden to multiply wives; and
the disobedience of Solomon, who followed the custom of Orien-
tal sovereigns, is mentioned with special reprobation, as calling
down the judgments of God upon his house.
The result of all this was, that in the course of time polygamy
fell into disuse among the Jews; and, after the Babylonian cap-
tivity, when a more strenuous observance of the laws of Moses
was enforced, it almost entirely ceased.* In the time of Christ
and the Apostles, the Jews had become substantially a mono-
gamic nation.
Another peculiarity in the laws of Moses is the equality of
the treatment of man and woman. Among other nations, adultery
was punished severely in the wife, and lightly, if at all, in the
* Michaelis, Laws of Moses, III. 5, § 95.
WOMAN IN SACRED HISTORY.
husband. According to the Jewish law, it was punished by the
death of both parties. If aman seduced a girl, he was obliged
to marry her; and forcible violation was punished by death.
While in many other nations, prostitution, in one form or
other, formed part of the services of the temple and the revenues
of the state, it was enacted that the wages of such iniquity
should not be received into the treasury of the Lord; and,
finally, it was enjoined that there should be no prostitute among
the daughters of Israel. (Deut. xxiii. 17, 18.)
In all that relates to the details of family life, the laws of
Moses required great temperance and government of the pas-
sions; and, undoubtedly, these various restraints and religious
barriers raised by the ceremonial law around the wife and
mother are one great reason of the vigor of the Jewish women
and the uncorrupted vitality of the race.
The law of Moses on divorce, though expressly spoken of by
Christ as only a concession or adaptation to a low state of
society, still was, in its day, on the side of protection to women.
A man could not put his wife out of doors at any caprice of
changing passion: a legal formality was required, which would,
in those times, require the intervention of a Levite to secure
the correctness of the instrument. This would bring the matter
under the cognizance of legal authority, and tend to check the
rash exercise of the right by the husband. The final result of
all this legislation, enforced from age to age by Divine judg-
ments, and by the warning voices of successive prophets, was,
that the Jewish race, instead of sinking into licentiousness,
and losing stamina and vigor, as all the other ancient nations
did, became essentially a chaste and vigorous people, and is so
to this day.
The comparison of the literature of any ancient nation with
that of the Jews strikingly demonstrates this. ‘The uncleanness
and obscenity of much of the Greek and Roman literature is in
wonderful contrast to the Jewish writings in the Bible and
Apocrypha, where vice is never made either ludicrous or attrac-
tive, but mentioned only with horror and reprobation.
If we consider now the variety, the elevation, and the number
INTRODUCTION.
of female characters in sacred history, and look to the corre-
sponding records of other nations, we shall see the results of this
culture of women. ‘The nobler, the heroic elements were devel-
oped among the Jewish women by the sacredness and respect
which attached to family life. The veneration which surrounded
motherhood, and the mystic tradition coming down through the
ages that some Judzean mother should give birth to the great
Saviour and Regenerator of mankind, consecrated family life
with a devout poetry of emotion. Every cradle was hallowed
by the thought of that blessed child who should be the hope of
the world.
Another cause of elevation of character among Jewish women
was their equal liability to receive the prophetic impulse. A
prophet was, by virtue of his inspiration, a public teacher, and
the leader of the nation, — kings and magistrates listened to his
voice; and this crowning glory was from time to time bestowed
on women.
We are informed in 2 Kings xxi. 14, that in the reign of
King Josiah, when a crisis of great importance arose with re-
spect to the destiny of the nation, the king sent a deputation
of the chief priests and scribes to inquire of the word of the Lord
from Huldah the prophetess, and, that they received her word
as the highest authority. This was while the prophet Jeremiah
was yet a young man.
The prophetess was always a poetess, and some of the earliest
records of female poetry in the world are of this kind. A lofty
enthusiasm of patriotism also distinguishes the Jewish women,
and in more than one case in the following sketches we shall see
them the deliverers of their country. Corresponding to these
noble women of sacred history, what examples have we in pol-
ished Greece? The only women who were allowed mental cul-
ture — who studied, wrote, and enjoyed the society of philoso-
phers and of learned men — were the courtesans. Jor chaste
wives and mothers there was no career and no record.
In the Roman state we see the influence upon woman of a
graver style of manhood and a more equal liberty in the cus-
toms of society. In Rome there were sacred women, devoted
WOMAN IN SACRED HISTORY.
to religion, and venerated accordingly. They differed, however,
from the inspired women of Jewish history in being entirely
removed from the experiences of family life. The vestal virgins
were bound by cruel penalties to a life of celibacy. So far as
we know, there is not a Jewish prophetess who is not also a
wife, and the motherly character is put forward as constituting
a claim to fitness in public life. ‘I, Deborah, arose a mother
in Israel.” That pure ideal of a sacred woman springing from
the bosom of the family, at once wife, mother, poetess, leader,
inspirer, prophetess, is peculiar to sacred history.
WOMEN OF THE PATRIARCHAL AGES,
SARAH THE PRINCESS.
7A 7 NE woman in the Christian dispensation has received
| Rot E 1 a special crown of honor. Sarah, the wife of Abraham,
=j-| 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 which 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
4
WOMAN IN SACRED HISTORY.
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 him,
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?” asked the officers.
“T will pay the tenth as of silk,” he replied.
SARAH THE PRINCESS.
“Does it contain silver?” they inquired.
“T will pay for it as silver,” answered Abraham.
“Nay, then, it must contain gold.”
“T will pay for it as gold.”
“May be it contains most costly gems.”
“TY 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
WOMAN 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 beg mother to the heir of the family
seems to have turned the head of the handmaid, and broken the |
bonds of friendship 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,
SARAH THE PRINCESS.
thy maid is in thy hand, to do as pleaseth thee.” 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
eaily 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 overwhelmed Hagar with
kindness, and helped her through tlie 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 féte, 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
WOMAN IN SACRED HISTORY.
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 ee was very grievous in Abraham’s er
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 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 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 : —
SARAH THE PRINCESS.
“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.
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HAGAR THE SLAVE.
STRIKING pendant to the picture of Sarah the Prin-
cess 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:
“To! 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. hand-
maid. But when the bondwoman found herself thus exalted, and
when the crowning honor of prospective motherhood was con-
ferred 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,
5
WOMAN IN SACRED HISTORY.
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, boun-
tiful 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 in-
scrutable 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
erief, 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.”
HAGAR THE SLAVE.
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 mis-
tress, 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 prom-
ises 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 sym-
pathy 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
WOMAN IN SACRED HISTORY.
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 an-
nounces 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 prom-
ised to him. But the dark woman and her wild son are of un-
tamable 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
HAGAR THE SLAVE.
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, put-
ting it on her shoulder, and sent her away with the child; and she
departed and wandered in the wilderness of Beersheba.” Prob-
ably 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 leop-
ardess, — 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 wilder-
ness 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 per-
WOMAN IN SACRED HISTORY.
fecting 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 Branca of this sacred tree. For the formation of
this race, we see a constant choice of the gentler and quieter ele-
ments 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 prom-
ise 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 Abra-
ham 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 be-
yond 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.
HAGAR THE SLAVE.
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 re-
buked by the prophet Amos (ix.) when, denouncing the recre-
ant 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 seek-
ing. 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.
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REBEKAH THE BRIDE.
Wea N the pictures which the Bible opens to us of the
4; domestic life of the patriarchal ages, we have one per-
fectly 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 Ca-
naanites, among whom I dwell: but thou shalt go unto my coun-
try, 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;
6
WOMAN IN SACRED HISTORY.
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 con-
cerning the woman to whom he should marry Isaac. It is appar-
ently 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 : —
“Q Lord God of my master Abraham, I pray thee, send me
good speed this day, and show kindness unto my master Abra-
sham. 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
RHEBEKAH THE BRIDE OF THE GOLDEN AGE.
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 mas-
ter. ‘‘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 wonder-
ing at her, held his peace, to wit [know] whether the Lord had
made his journey prosperous or not.”
There -was wise penetration into life and the essentials. of
wedded happiness in this prayer of the old servant. What he
asked for his young master was not beauty or talent, but a ready
and unfailing outflow of sympathy and kindness. He sought not
merely for a gentle nature, a kind heart, but for a heart so
rich in kindness that it should run even beyond what was
asked, and be ready to anticipate the request with new devices
of helpfulness. The lively, light-hearted kindness that could not
be content with waiting on the thirsty old man, but with cheerful
alacrity took upon herself the care of all the ten camels, this
was a gift beyond that of beauty; yet when it came in the
WOMAN IN SACRED HISTORY.
person of a maiden exceedingly fair to look upon, no marvel
that the old man wondered joyously at his success. |
When the camels had done drinking, he produced from his
treasury a golden earring and bracelets, with which he adorned
the maiden. ‘And he said to her, Whose daughter art thou?
tell me, I pray thee; is there room in thy father’s house for us to
lodge in? And she said unto him, I am the daughter of Bethuel
the son of Mileah, which she bare to Nahor. She said, moreover,
unto him, We have both straw and provender enough, and room
to lodge in. And the man bowed down his head, and worshiped
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 led me to the house
of my master’s brethren.”
We may imagine the gay delight with which the pretty maiden
ran to exhibit the gifts of jewelry that had thus unexpectedly
descended upon her. Laban, her brother, does not prove either
a generous or hospitable person in the outcome of the story; but
the ambassador of a princely relative, traveling with a caravan
of ten camels, and showering gold and jewels, makes his own
welcome. ‘The narrative proceeds: — ‘And it came to pass
when he saw the earring, and the bracelets upon his sister's
hands, and when he heard the words of Rebekah his sister,
saying, Thus spake the man unto me; that he came unto the
man; and, behold, he stood by the camels at the well. And
he said, Come in, thou blessed of the Lord; wherefore stand-
est thou without? for I have prepared the house, and room
for the camels. And the man came into the house: and he
ungirded the camels, and gave straw and provender for the
camels, and water to wash his feet, and the men’s feet that
were with him. And there was set meat before him to eat: but
he said, I will not eat, till I have told my errand. And he said,
Speak on. And he said, Iam Abraham’s servant, and the Lord
hath blessed my master greatly, and he is become great: and
he hath given him flocks, and herds, and silver, and gold, and
men-servants, and maid-servants, and camels, and asses.”
After this exordium he goes on to tell the whole story of his
REBEKAH THE BRIDE OF THE GOLDEN AGE.
oath to his master, and the purport of his journey ; of the prayer
that he had uttered at the well, and of its fulfillment in a oen-
erous-minded and beautiful young maiden; and thus he ends his
story: ‘And I bowed down my head, and worshiped the Lord,
and blessed the Lord God of my master Abraham, which hath led
me in the right way to take my master’s brother’s daughter unto
his son. And now, if ye will deal kindly and truly with my
master, tell me: and if not, tell me; that I may turn to the right
hand or to the left. Then Laban and Bethuel answered and
said, The thing proceedeth from the Lord: we cannot 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 the Lord hath
spoken. And it came to pass, that when Abraham’s servant
heard their words, he worshiped the Lord, bowing himself to
the earth.”
And now comes a scene most captivating to female curiosity.
Even in patriarchal times the bridegroom, it seems, provided a
corbeille de mariage ; for we are told: ‘ And the servant brought
forth jewels of silver, and jewels of gold, and raiment, and gave
them to Rebekah; he gave also to her brother and to her mother
precious things.” ‘The scene of examining jewelry and garments
and rich stuffs in the family party would have made no mean
subject for a painter. No wonder such a suitor, sending such
gifts, found welcome entertainment. So the story goes on:
“And they did eat and drink, he and the men that were with
him, and tarried all night; and they rose up in the morning;
and he said, Send me away unto my master. And her brother
and her mother said, Let the damsel abide with us a few days, at
the least ten, and after that she shall go. And he said unto
them, Hinder me not, seeing the Lord hath prospered my way ;
send me away, that I may go to my master. And they said, We
will call the damsel 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. And they sent away Rebekah their sister,
and her nurse, and Abraham’s servant and his men. And they
blessed Rebekah, and said unto her, Thou art our sister; be thou
the mother of thousands of millions, and let thy seed possess
WOMAN IN SACRED HISTORY.
the gate of those which hate them.” ‘The idea of being a mother
of nations gives a sort of dignity to the married life of these
patriarchal women, —it was the motherly instinct made sublime.
Thus far, this wooing seems to have been conceived and con-
ducted in that simple religious spirit recognized in the words of
the old prayer: “Grant that all our works may be begun, con-
tinued, and ended in thee.” The Father of Nations has been a
never-failing presence in every scene.
The expectant bridegroom seems to have been a youth of
a pensive, dreamy, meditative nature. Brought up with the
strictest notions of filial submission, he waits to receive his wife
dutifully from his father’s hand. Yet, as the caravan nears the
encampment, he walks forth to meet them. ‘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 veil, and covered
herself.”
In the little that is said of Rebekah, we see always that alert
readiness, prompt to see and do what is to be done at the moment.
No dreamer is she, but a lively and wide-awake young woman,
who knows her own mind exactly, and has the fit word and fit
action ready for each short turn in life.. She was quick, cheerful,
and energetic in hospitality. She was prompt and unhesitating
in her resolve; and yet, at the moment of meeting, she knew the
value and the propriety of the veil. She covered herself, that she
might not unsought be won. ?
With a little touch of pathos, the story ends: ‘ And Isaac
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.” We see liere one of those delicate and
tender natures that find repose first in the love of a mother, and,
when that stay is withdrawn, lean upon a beloved wife.
So ideally pure, and sweet, and tenderly religious has been the
whole inception and carrying on and termination of this wedding,
KREBEKAH THE BRIDE OF THE GOLDEN AGE.
that Isaac and Rebekah have been remembered in the w edding
ritual of the catholic Christian churches as models of a Hole
marriage according to the Divine will. ‘Send thy blessing upon
these be servants, this man and this woman, whom we bless in
thy name; that as Isaac and Rebekah lived faithfully together,
so these persons may surely perform and keep the vow “sath cove-
nant between them.”
In the subsequent history of the family, the dramatic individu-
ality of the characters is kept up: Isaac is the gentle, thoughtful,
misty dreamer, lost in sentiment and contemplation; and Rebekah
the forward, cheerful, self-confident manager of external things.
We can fancy it as one of the households where all went as the
mother said. In‘fact, in mature life, we see these prompt and
managing traits, leading the matron to domestic artifices which
could only be justified to herself by her firm belief that the end
pursued was good enough to sanctify the means. Energetic,
lively, self-trustful young women do sometimes form just such
managing and diplomatic matrons.
Isaac, the husband, always dreamy and meditative, becomes
old and doting; conceives an inordinate partiality for the turbu-
lent son Esau, whose skill in hunting supplies his table with the
meat he loves. Rebekah has heard the prophetic legend, that
Jacob, the younger son, is the chosen one to perpetuate the sacred
race; and Jacob, the tender, the care-taking, the domestic,.is the
idol of her heart.
Now, there are some sorts of women that, if convinced there
was such a Divine oracle or purpose in relation to a favorite son,
would have rested upon it in quiet faith, and left Providence to
work out its ends in its own way and time. Not so Rebekah.
The same restless activity of helpfulness that led her to offer water
to all the camels, when asked to give drink for the servant, now
led her to come to the assistance of Providence. She proposes
to Jacob to make the oracle sure, and obtain the patriarchal
blessing by stratagem. When Jacob expresses a humble doubt
whether such an artifice may not defeat itself and bring on him
the curse rather than the blessing of his father, the mother
characteristically answers: ‘‘ Upon me be the curse, my son:
WOMAN IN SACRED HISTORY.
only obey my voice.” Pages of description could not set a char-
acter before us more sharply and distinctly than this one incident,
and nothing can show more dramatically in whose hands was the
ruling power in that family.
_ The managing, self-reliant Rebekah, ready to do her full
share in every emergency, and to run before every occasion
with her busy plannings, is not a character of patriarchal ages
merely. Every age has repeated it, and our own is no excep-
tion. There are not wanting among us cheerful, self-confident,
domestic managers, who might take a lesson from the troubles
that befell the good-hearted, but too busy and officious Rebekah,
in consequence of the success of her own schemes. The ac-
count of this belongs to our next chapter.
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;
LEAH AND RACHEL.
*>|N the earlier portions of the Old Testament we have,
very curiously, the history of the deliberate formation
of an influential race, to which was given a most im-
portant mission in the world’s history. The principle
of selection, much talked of now in science, is the principle which
is represented in the patriarchal history as operating under a di-
rect Divine guidance. From the calling of Abraham, there seems
to have been this continued watchfulness in selecting the party
through whom the chosen race was to be continued. Every
marriage thus far is divinely appointed and guided. While the
Fatherly providence and nurture is not withdrawn from the re-
jected ones, still the greatest care is exercised to separate from
them the chosen. ‘The latter are selected apparently not so
much for moral excellence in itself considered, as for excellence
in relation to stock. ‘The peaceable, domestic, prudent, and con-
servative elements are uniformly chosen, in preference to the
warlike and violent characteristics of the age.
The marriage of Isaac and Rebekah was more like the type
of a Christian marriage than any other on record. No other
wife shared a place in his heart and home; and, even to old
age, Isaac knew no other than the bride of his youth. From
this union sprang twin boys; between whom, as is often the
case, there was a remarkable difference. The physical energy
and fire all seemed to go to one, the gentler and more quiet
traits to the other. Esau was the wild huntsman, the ranger
of the mountains, delighting in force, — precisely adapted to
become the chief of a predatory tribe. Jacob, the patient, the
prudent, the submissive, was the home child, the darling of his
mother. Now, with every constitutional excellency and virtue is
inevitably connected, in our imperfect humanity, the liability to
WOMAN IN SACRED HISTORY.
a fault. The peace-loving and prudent, averse to strife, are liable
to sins of artifice and deception, as stronger natures are to those
of force and violence. Probably, in the calm eye of Him who
sees things just as they are, the one kind of fault is no worse than
the other. At all events, the sacred narrative is a daguerreo-
type of character; it reflects every trait and every imperfection
without comment. The mild and dreamy Isaac, to save his wife
from a rapacious king, undertakes to practice the same artifice
that his father used before him, saying, ‘She is my sister”; and
the same evil consequence ensues. The lesson of artifice once
taught in the family, the evil spreads. Rebekah, when Isaac is
old and doting, commands Jacob to personate his older brother,
and thus gain the patriarchal blessing, which in those days had
the force of a last will and testament in our times. Yet, through
all the faults and errors of the mere human actors runs the
thread of a Divine guidance. Before the birth of Jacob it was
predicted that he should be the chosen head of the forming nation;
and by his mother’s artifice, and his own participation in it, that
prediction is fulfilled. Yet the natural punishment of the action
follows. Esau is alienated, and meditates murder in his heart;
and Jacob, though the mother’s darling, is driven out from his
home a hunted fugitive, parted from her for life. He starts on
foot to find his way to Padan-Aram, to his father’s kindred, there ~
to seek and meet and woo the wife appointed for him.
It is here that the history of the patriarch Jacob becomes im-
mediately helpful to all men in all ages. And its usefulness con-
sists in just this, — that Jacob, at this time in his life, was no saint
or hero. He was not a person distinguished either by intellect or
by high moral attainment, but simply such a raw, unformed lad as
life is constantly casting adrift from the shelter of homes. He is
no better and no worse than the multitude of boys, partly good
and partly bad, who, for one reason or another, are forced to leave
their mothers and their fathers; to take staff in hand and start
out on the great life-journey alone. He had been religiously
brought up; he knew that his father and his mother had a God,
—the Invisible God of Abraham and Isaac; but then, other gods
and lords many were worshiped in the tribes around him, and
LHAH AND RACHEL.
how did he know, after all, which was the right one? He wan-
ders on over the wide, lonesome Syrian plains, till dark night
comes on, and he finds himself all alone, an atom in the great
silent creation, —alone, as many a sailor-boy has found himself on
the deck of his ship, or hunter, in the deep recesses of the forest.
The desolate lad gathers a heap of stones for a pillow and lies
down to sleep. Nothing could be more sorrowfully helpless than
this picture ; the representative portrait of many a mother’s boy
to-day, and in all days. We cannot suppose that he prayed or
commended his soul to God. We are told distinctly that he
did not even remember that God was in that place. He les
down, helpless and forlorn, on his cold stone pillow, and sinks,
overcome with fatigue, to prayerless slumber. And now, in his
dreams, a glorious light appears; a luminous path opens upward
to the skies, —angels are passing to and fro upon it, and above, in
bright benignity, stands a visible form, and says: ‘“‘I am the Lorp
God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac: the land
whereon thou liest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed; and
thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth; and thou shalt spread
abroad to the west, and to the east, and to the north, and to the
south; and in thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the
earth be blessed. And, behold, I am with thee, and will keep
thee in all places whither thou goest, and will bring thee again
unto this land; for I will not leave thee, until I have done that
which I have spoken to thee of. And Jacob awaked out of his
sleep, and he said, Surely the Lord is in this place; and I knew
it not. And he was afraid, and said, How dreadful is this place !
This is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of
heaven. And Jacob arose up early in the morning, and took the
stone that he had put for his pillow, and set it up for a pillar,
and poured oil upon the top of it. And Jacob vowed a vow, say-
ing, If God will be with me, and will keep me in this way that I
go, and will give me bread to eat, and raiment to put on, so that
I come again to my father’s house in peace, then shall the Lorp
be my God: and this stone, which I have set for a pillar, shall be
God’s house: and of all that Thou shalt give me I will surely
give the tenth unto thee.”
WOMAN IN SACRED HISTORY.
In one night how much is born in that soul! The sentiment
of reverence, awe of the Divine, —a conviction of the reality of
God and an invisible world, — and the beginning of that great
experiment by which man learns practically that God is his
father. For, in the outset, every human being’s consciousness
of God must be just of this sort. Have I a Father in heaven?
Does he care for me? Will he help me? Questions that each
man can only answer as Jacob did, by casting himself upon God
in a matter-of-fact, practical way in the exigencies of this present
life. And this history is the more valuable because it takes
man in his earlier stages of imperfection. We are apt to feel
that it might be safe for Paul, or Isaiah, or other great saints, to
expect God to befriend them; but here a poor, untaught shep-
herd boy, who is not religious, avows that, up to this time, he
has had no sense of God; and yet between him and heaven
there is a pathway, and about him in his loneliness are minister-
ing spirits; and the God of Abraham and of Isaac is ready to
become his friend. In an important sense, this night dream,
this gracious promise of God to Jacob, are not merely for him,
but for all erring, helpless, suffermg sons of men. In the fa-
therly God thus revealed to the patriarch, we see the first fruits
of the promise that through him all nations should be blessed.
The next step of the drama shows us a scene of sylvan sim-
plicity. About the old well in Haran, shepherds are waiting —
with their flocks, when the stripling approaches: ‘And Jacob
said unto them, My brethren, whence be ye? And they said, Of
Haran are we. And he said unto them, Know ye Laban the son
of Nahor? And they said, We know him. And he said unto
them, Is he well? And they said, He is well: and, behold,
Rachel his daughter cometh with the sheep. And he said, Lo,
it is yet high day, neither is it time that the cattle should be
gathered together. Water ye the sheep, and go and feed them.
And they said, We cannot, until all the flocks be gathered to-
gether, and till they roll the stone from the well’s mouth; then
we water the sheep. And while he yet spake with them Rachel
came with her father’s sheep; for she kept them. And it came
to pass, when Jacob saw Rachel, the daughter of Laban, his
LEAH AND RACHEL.
mother’s brother, and the sheep of Laban, his mother’s brother,
that Jacob went near, and rolled the stone from the well’s mouth,
and watered the flock of Laban, his mother’s brother. And .
Jacob kissed Rachel, and lifted up his voice, and wept; and
Jacob told Rachel that he was her father’s brother, and that
he was Rebekah’s son: and she ran and told her father. And it
came to pass, when Laban heard the tidings of Jacob, his sister’s
son, that he ran to meet him, and embraced him, and kissed
him, and brought him to his house.” |
In the story of Isaac, we have the bridegroom who is simply
the submissive recipient of a wife at his father’s hands; in that
of Jacob, we have the story of love at first sight. The wanderer,
exiled from home, gives up his heart at once to the keeping of
his beautiful shepherdess cousin, and so, when the terms of
service are fixed with the uncle, the narrative says: ‘ And
Laban had two daughters; the name of the elder was Leah, and
the name of the younger was Rachel. Leah was tender-eyed ;
but Rachel was beautiful and well-favored. And Jacob loved
Rachel, and said, I will serve thee seven years for Rachel, thy
younger daughter. And Jacob served seven years for Rachel,
and they seemed unto him but a few days, for the love he had
to her.”
But when the wedding comes, in the darkness and secrecy of
the night a false bride is imposed on the lover. And Jacob
awoke, and behold it was Leah. Not the last man was he who
has awakened, after the bridal, to find his wife was not the
woman he had taken her to be. But the beloved one is given
as a second choice, and seven years more of service are imposed
as her price.
The characteristics of these two sisters, Leah and Rachel, are
less vividly given than those of any of the patriarchal women.
Sarah, Hagar, and Rebekah are all sharply defined characters,
in and of themselves; but of Leah and Rachel almost all that can
be said is that they were Jacob’s wives, and mothers of the
twelve tribes of Israel.
The character of their father Laban was narrow, shrewd,
and hard, devoid of any generous or interesting trait, and the
WOMAN IN SACKED HISTORY.
daughters appear to have grown up under a narrowing and re-
pressing influence. What we learn of them in the story shows
the envies, the jealousies, the bickerings and heart-burnings of
poorly developed natures. Leah, the less beloved one, exults over
her handsomer and more favored sister because she has been
made a fruitful mother, while to Rachel the gift of children is
denied. Rachel murmurs and pines, and says to her husband,
‘Give me children, or I die.” The desire for offspring in those
days seemed to be an agony. ‘To be childless, was disgrace and
misery unspeakable. At last, however, Rachel becomes a mother
and gives birth to Joseph, the best-beloved of his father. The
narrative somehow suggests that charm of personal beauty and
manner which makes Rachel the beloved one, and her child
dearer than all the rest. How many such women there are,
pretty and charming, and holding men’s hearts like a fortress, of
whom a biographer could say nothing only that they were much
beloved! |
When Jacob flees from Laban with his family, we find Rachel
secretly taking away the images which her father had kept as
household gods. The art by which she takes them, the effront-
ery with which she denies the possession of them, when her father
comes to search for them, shows that she had little moral eleva-
tion. The belief in the God of her husband probably was mixed
up confusedly in her childish mind with the gods of her father.
Not unfrequently in those dim ages, people seemed to alternate
from one to the other, as occasions varied. Yet she seems to have
held her husband’s affections to the last; and when, in giving birth
to her last son, she died, this son became the darling of his father’s
old age. The sacred poet has made the name of this beloved
wife a proverb, to express the strength of the motherly instinct,
and ‘‘ Rachel weeping for her children” is a line that immortal-
izes her name to all time.
Whatever be the faults of these patriarchal women, it must be
confessed that the ardent desire of motherhood which inspired
them is far nobler than the selfish, unwomanly spirit of modern
times, which regards children only as an encumbrance and a
burden. The motherly yearning and motherly spirit give a
LHAH AND RACHEL.
certain dignity to these women of primitive ages, which atones
for many faults of imperfect development.
Twenty-one years elapse, and Jacob, a man of substance, father
of a family of twelve children, with flocks and herds to form a
numerous caravan, leaves the service of his hard master to go
back to his father. The story shows the same traits in the man
as in the lad. He is the gentle, affectionate, prudent, kindly,
care-taking family-man, faithful in duty, and evading oppression
by quiet skill rather than meeting it with active opposition. He
has become rich, in spite of every effort of an aggressive master
to prevent it.
When leaving Laban’s service, he thus appeals to him: ‘These
twenty years have I been with thee: thy ewes and thy she-goats
have not cast their young, and the rams of thy flock have I not
eaten. ‘That which was torn of beasts I brought not unto thee;
I bare the loss of it. Thus was I: in the day the drought con-
sumed me, and the frost by night, and my sleep departed from
mine eyes. Thus have I been twenty years in thy house. I
served thee fourteen years for thy two daughters, and six years
for thy cattle; and thou hast changed my wages ten times. [Ex-
cept the God of my father, the God of Abraham, and the fear of
Isaac, had been with me, surely thou hadst sent me away now
empty. God hath seen my affliction and the labor of my hands,
and rebuked thee yesternight.”
To the last of the history of Jacob, we see the same man,
—careful, patient, faithful, somewhat despondent, wrapped up in
family ties and cares, and needing at every step to lean on a
superior power. And the Father on whom he seeks to lean is
never wanting to him, as he will never be to any of us, however
weak, or faulty, or blind. As the caravan nears home, news
is brought that Esau, with an army of horsemen, is gallop-
ing to meet him. Then says the record: ‘Jacob was greatly
afraid and distressed: and Jacob said, O God of my father
Abraham, the God of my father Isaac, the Lord which saidst
unto me, Return unto thy country and to thy kindred, and
I will deal well with thee: I am not worthy of the least of
all the mercies and of all the truth which thou hast showed
WOMAN IN SACRED HISTORY.
unto thy servant: for with my staff I passed over this Jor-
dan; and now I am become two bands. Deliver me, I pray
thee, from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau; for
I fear him, lest he will come and smite me, and the mother with
the children. And thou saidst, I will surely do thee good, and
make thy seed as the sand of the sea, which cannot be numbered
for multitude.” The prayer is not in vain. That night a mys-
terious stranger meets Jacob in the twilight shadows of morning.
He seeks to detain him; but, as afterwards, when the disciples
met an unknown Friend on the way to Emmaus, he made as
though he would go farther. So now this stranger struggles in
the embrace of the patriarch. Who, then, is this? —is it the
Divine One? The thought thrills through the soul as Jacob
strives to detain him. There is something wildly poetic in the
legend. ‘And he said, Let me go, for the day breaketh. And
he said, I will not let thee go, except thou bless me. And he said
unto him, What is thy name? And he said, Jacob. And he
said, Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel: for as
a prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast pre-
vailed. And Jacob asked him: Tell me, I pray thee, thy name.
And he said, Wherefore dost thou ask after my name? And he
blessed him there. And Jacob called the name of the place
Peniel, for he said, I have seen God face to face, and my life is
preserved.” God’s love to man, the power of man’s weakness
and sorrow over the Father-heart, were never more beautifully
shown than in this sacred idyl. The God of Abraham, Isaac,
and Jacob; the God of the weak, the sinful, the despondent,
the defenceless; the helper of the helpless, —He is the God
of this sacred story; and so long as man is erring, and con-
sciously frail, so long as he needs an ever-present and ever-
loving Friend and Helper, so long will this story of Jacob be
dear to the human heart.
WOMEN OF THE NATIONAL PERIOD.
MIRIAM, SISTER OF MOSES.
7 T has been remarked by Montalembert that almost all
et the great leading men in history have been intimately
associated with superior women. If we look on Moses
in a merely human light, and judge him by what he
accomplished, as we do other historic characters, he is in certain
respects the greatest man of antiquity. The works of the legis-
lators, kings, and conquerors of ancient history were perish-
able. Their cities have crumbled, their governments and com-
monwealths have dissolved as waves of the sea. Moses alone -
founded a nation that still lives with an imperishable vitality,
—a people whose religious literature still expresses the highest
aspirations of the most cultivated nations of the earth.
His advent, therefore, forms an era in the history of humanity,
and the very opening of his career presents us with pictures
of imposing and venerable female characters. The mother of
Moses is mentioned, in the epistle to the Hebrews, as one of
those worthies of ancient time, who triumphed over things seen
by the power of a sublime faith in the invisible God and his
promises. ‘The very name of the mother (Exodus vi. 20), Joche-
bed, —‘“‘the glory of Jehovah,” — shows that a deep spirit of
religious enthusiasm and trust was the prevailing impulse in the
family. She was of that moral organization whence, through
the laws of descent, might spring the prophet and prophetess.
By faith she refused to obey the cruel order of the king, and
for three months hid the beautiful child.
And here comes in the image of the first, and one of the most
revered, of the race of Hebrew prophetesses, Miriam, the elder
sister of Moses. According to the Rabbinic tradition, the gift
of prophecy descended upon her even in childhood. ‘The story
is that Miriam’s mother, Jochebed, was one of the midwives to
WOMAN IN SACRED HISTORY.
whom Pharaoh gave the command to destroy the children, and
that when the child Miriam heard it, being then only five years
old, her face flushed scarlet, and she said in anger: ‘‘ Woe to this
man! God will punish him for his evil deeds.” After this the
tradition says that when the decree went forth for the destruction
of every male child, Amram separated himself from his wife
Jochebed, lest he should bring on her the anguish of fruitless
motherhood. After three years, the spirit of prophecy came on
Miriam as she sat in the house, and she cried out suddenly:
‘My parents shall have another son, who shall deliver Israel out
of the hands of the Egyptians.” The angel Gabriel guided Am-
ram back to find his wife, whom he found blooming in all the
beauty of youth, though more than a hundred years old. When
she found herself with child, she feared that it might prove a
boy, to be cruelly slain. Then the Eternal One spake in a
dream to the father, bidding him be of good cheer, for he would
protect the child, and all nations should hold him in honor.
The tradition goes on to say that the boy was born without
pain, and that when he was born the whole house was filled with
a light as of bright sunshine. The mother’s anxiety was in-
creased when she saw the beauty of the child, who was lovely
as an angel of God. The parents called him Tobias, ‘God is
good,” to express their thankfulness, and Amram kissed Miriam
on the brow and said: “‘ Now know I that thy prophecy is come
true.”
In contrast to this ornate narrative is the grave and chaste sim-
plicity of the Scripture story. It is all comprised in two or three
verses of the second chapter of Exodus. “And there went a man
of the house of Levi, and took to wife a daughter of Levi. And
the woman conceived, and bare a son: and when she saw him
that he was a goodly child she hid him three months. And when
she could no longer hide him, she took for him an ark of bul-
rushes, and daubed it with slime and with pitch, and put the
child therein and laid it in the flags by the river’s brink. And
his sister stood afar off to see what would be done to him. And
the daughter of Pharaoh came down to wash herself at the river ;
and her maidens walked along the river’s side: and when she
MIRIAM, SISTER OF MOSES.
saw the ark among the flags, she sent her maid to fetch it. And
when she had opened it, she saw the child: and behold, the babe
wept. And she had compassion on him and said: This is one of
the Hebrew children. Then said his sister to Pharaoh’s daughter,
Shall I go and call to thee a nurse of the Hebrew women, that
she may nurse the child for thee? And Pharaoh’s daughter said
unto her, Go. And the maid went and called the child’s mother.
And Pharaoh’s daughter said, Take this child away, and nurse it
for me, and I will give thee thy wages; and the woman took the
child and nursed it. And the child grew, and she brought him
unto Pharaoh’s daughter, and she called his name Moses: and
she said, Because I drew him out of the water.”
To this, we may add the account which St. Stephen gives when
standing before the Jewish council. ‘In which time Moses was
born, who was exceeding fair,* and nourished up in his father’s
house three months. And when he was cast out, Pharaoh’s
daughter took him up and nourished him for her own son. And
Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and was
mighty in words and deeds.”
Such are the extremely brief notices of a great event and of a
group of characters whose influence on mankind every one of us
feels to-day. For, the Jewish nation, in being chosen of God to
be a sacerdotal race, was to pass through a history which should
embody struggles, oppressions, agonies, victories, and deliver-
ances, such as should represent to all time the sorrows and joys,
the trials and hopes, of humanity. To this day, the events of
- Jewish history so well express universal experiences, that its lit-
erature in all languages, and under all difference of climate and
_ custom, has an imperishable hold on the human heart. It has
been well said that nations struggling for liberty against power-
ful oppressors flee as instinctively to the Old Testament as they
do to mountain ranges. The American slave universally called
his bondage Egypt, and read the history of the ten plagues
and the crossing of the Red Sea as parts of his own experience.
In the dark days of slavery, the history of Moses was sung at
* The marginal translation reads “fair to God.”
WOMAN IN SACRED HISTORY.
night, and by stealth, on plantations, with solemn rhythmic move-
ments, reminding one of old Egyptian times. It was the Mar-
seillaise of a mie people, forbidden by the master, and all the
dearer to the slave.
We must take the full force of the anguish, the ignominy,
the oppression of slavery acting on noble and sensitive natures,
elevated by faith in a high national destiny, and looking with
earnestness and prayer for its evolution, in order to get a full
idea of the character of Miriam. Such periods produce children
with that highly exalted organization which is predisposed to re-
ceive the prophetic impulse. The Rabbinic traditions with regard
to Miriam, which we have added, are detailed at length by Jose-
phus in his history, and show how strong is the impression which
the personality of this woman made on those of her time, in con-
nection with the life of their great lawgiver.
The Bible account of the birth and preservation of Moses has
the usual quality of Scripture narratives; it is very brief and
very stimulating to the imagination. Who of us has not seen
in childhood the old Nile with its reeds and rushes, its back-
- ground of temples and pyramids? We have shared the tremors
of the mother and sister while the little one was launched in the
frail ark. Probably some report of the kindness of the Princess
had inspired a trembling hope. ‘The mother dares not stay to
guard her treasure, lest she draw cruel eyes upon it; but the little
Miriam, as a child playing among the tall reeds, can remain on
the watch without attracting attention. In the scene where the
helpless stranger is discovered by the Princess, we have, in the
movements of the sister, all the characteristics, in miniature, of
the future leader of Israel. Prompt, fearless, with an instanta-
neous instinct as to the right thing to be done at the critical
moment, we can see the little Hebrew maid press forward amid
the throng surrounding the alarmed and crying child. The
tradition is that an Egyptian woman, at the command of the
Princess, tried to quiet him at her breast, and that the young
prophet indignantly rejected the attempt,—a statement which
we who know babies, whether prophetic or otherwise, may deem
highly probable. Then spoke up the little Miriam: “Shall I go
MIRIAM, SISTER OF MOSES.
and call thee a nurse of the Hebrew women, that she may nurse
the child for thee? This was a bold proposal, but it succeeded.
Perhaps the small speaker had some of the wonderful beauty of
her infant brother to set off her words: at all events, the Princess
seems at once to have trusted her with the commission. We may
readily believe the little feet had not far to go. The child comes
back to his mother’s bosom as a royal ward.
We see here in the child Miriam great self-poise and self-confi-
dence. She is not afraid of royalty, and, though of an enslaved
and despised race, is ready to make suggestions to a queen.
These are the traits of a natural leader, and we shall see them
reappearing later in the history of Miriam. It was customary
among the Oriental races to prolong the period of nursing two
or three years, and Moses was thus in the care of his mother
and elder sister for a long time.
Josephus gives the tradition current among the Jews, that the
child was a wonderfully attractive one, — so beautiful, that every
one who beheld him turned to look at him. The mother and
sister looked upon him as the visible pledge of God’s mercy to
their suffering people, as well as the visible answer to prayer.
The God of Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in whose hand are
all hearts, had made a refuge for the young Deliverer in the
very family of the destroying tyrant !
The intercourse thus established between the court of Pharaoh
and these two women must have materially advanced their posi-
tion. We see in the Princess indications of a gracious and affable
nature, and in Miriam a quick readiness to turn every favorable
indication to good account. It is, therefore, quite probable that
Miriam may have shared the liberal patronage of the Princess.
Evidently she continued to influence the mind of her brother
after he had gone into the family of Pharaoh, since we see her
publicly associated with him at the great period of the national
deliverance.
In the history of Moses,and in his laws and institutes, we see
a peculiar and almost feminine tenderness and consideration for
whatever is helpless and defenceless. Perhaps the history of his
own life, —the story of the forlorn helplessness of his own cradle,
WOMAN IN SACRED HISTORY.
and the anguish of his mother and sister, — operating on a large
and generous nature, produced this result. For example, among
the laws of the great lawgiver, we find one which forbids the
caging of a.free bird (Deut. xxii. 6, 7); thus it was allowed to
take the young who might easily be reconciled to captivity, but
forbidden to take those accustomed to freedom. Whoever has
seen the miserable struggles of a free bird brought suddenly
into captivity, can appreciate the compassionateness of the man
who made such a law for a great people. In the same spirit
another law forbids the muzzling of the ox when he treads the
grain, and commands every man to stop and help an overbur-
dened ass that falls beneath his load; and it particularly adds,
that the ass of an enemy shall be helped, no matter how great
the unwillingness.
In fact, the strongest impulse in the character of Moses appears
to have been that of protective justice, with regard to every help-
less and down-trodden class. The laws of Moses, if carefully
examined, are a phenomenon, — an exception to the laws of either
ancient or modern nations in the care they exercised over women,
widows, orphans, paupers, foreigners, servants, and dumb animals.
Of all the so-called Christian nations there is, none but could ad-
vantageously take a lesson in legislation from them. There is a
plaintive, pathetic tone of compassion in their very language, which
seems to have been learned only of superhuman tenderness. Not —
the gentlest words of Jesus are more compassionate in their spirit
than many of these laws of Moses. Some of them sound more like
the pleadings of a mother than the voice of legal statutes. For
example: “If thou lend money to any that is poor by thee, thou
shalt not lay upon him usury. If thou at all take thy neighbor's
garment to pledge, thou shalt deliver it unto him by that the sun
goeth down, for that is his covering, it is his raiment for his
skin; wherein shall he sleep? and it shall come to pass that
when he crieth unto me I will hear, for I am gracious.” ‘Thou
shalt not oppress a hired servant that is poor and needy, whether
he be of thine own brethren or of strangers that are within thy
gates. At his day shalt thou give him his wages, neither shall
the sun go down upon it, for he is poor and setteth his heart upon
MIRIAM, SISTHR OF MOSES.
it, lest he ery unto the Lord against thee.” ‘Thou shalt not per-
vert the judgment of the stranger nor of the fatherless, nor take
the widow’s raiment as pledge; thou shalt remember that thou
wast a bondman in Heypt, and the Lord thy God redeemed thee,
therefore I command thee to do this thing.” ‘‘ When thou cuttest
down thy harvest and hast forgot a sheaf in the field, thou shalt
not go again to fetch it, it shall be for the stranger, the fatherless,
and the widow. When thou beatest thine olive-tree, thou shalt
not go over it again; when thou gatherest the grapes of thy vine-
yard, thou shalt not glean it afterward, it shall be for the stranger,
the fatherless, and the widow.”
In all this, we see how deep was the impression made on the
mind of Moses by the enslaved and helpless condition of his peo-
ple. He had felt for the struggles of the enslaved, and it made
him tender to the wild bird of the desert beating against its cage,
to the overloaded ass fainting under his burden, to the hungry ox
toiling to procure food which he was restricted from enjoying.
Of the period including the time that Moses left his mother and
sister to dwell in the palace of the Pharaohs, and receive the edu-
cation of an Egyptian prince, we have no record in the sacred
narrative, except the declaration of Stephen in the book of Acts,
that he was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and
mighty in word and deed.
In Smith’s Dictionary of the Bible there is a brief résumé of what
is said by ancient authors of this period of his life. According to
Strabo, he was educated at Heliopolis, and grew up there as a
priest, under his Egyptian name of Osariph. According to Philo,
he was taught the whole range of Greek, Chaldee, and Assyrian
literature. From the Egyptians, especially, he learned mathe-
matics, to train his mind for the unprejudiced reception of truth.
He invented boats, engines for building, instruments of war and
of hydraulics, and also understood hieroglyphics and mensuration
of land. He taught Orpheus, and is thence called by the Greeks
Muszeus, and by the Egyptians Hermes. According to Josephus,
he was sent as general of the Egyptian army on an expedition
against Ethiopia. He got rid of the serpents, in the countries
through which he was to march, by turning basketfuls of ibises
9 :
WOMAN IN SACRED HISTORY.
upon them. Tharbis, the daughter of the King of Ethiopia, fell
in love with him, and induced her father to surrender to him;
and he returned in triumph with her to Egypt as his wife, and
founded the city of Hermopolis to celebrate his victory. We see
here, that if Moses remained true to the teachings of his mother
and sister, and the simple faith of Israel, it was not for want of
the broadest culture the world afforded. Egypt was the cradle
of arts and letters, and the learned men of Greece traveled there
to study the mysteries which were concealed under her hiero-
elyphics. Moses was a priest of Egypt in virtue of being a
prince of a royal house. According to the Egyptian tradition,
although a priest of Heliopolis, he always performed his devo-
tions outside the walls of the city, in the open air, turned towards
the sunrising. According to the language of St. Paul, “he en-
dured as seeing Him that is invisible.”
In Wilkinson’s “ Egypt,” we have some interesting sugges-
tions as to the life and training of the Egyptian priest, which
go far to show what manner of education must have been given
to Moses. The utmost purity of person was enjoined. Daily
and nightly bathing of the whole person, a dress of pure linen,
ereat exactness as to food, with strict dietetic regulations, were
also a part of the trainnmg. The Egyptians were the fountains
of physiological and medical knowledge to the nations of antiq-
uity, and undoubtedly these studies were a part of the “wisdom”
of the priests. Moses must also have passed through the lesser
and the greater initiation into the mysteries of Egypt; im which
were taught the unity of God, the immortality of the soul, and
the retributions of a future life. Thus he had an opportunity of
comparing that portion of the Divine teaching and traditions which
had descended through Egypt, with the pure stream which had
flowed down through the patriarchal families. ~
It thus appears that the Divine Being, in choosing the teacher
and lawgiver to form his chosen nation, did not disdain the
existing wisdom of the world up to that time. Moses had before
him the results of all the world’s experience in thought and
culture. Egypt was the best there was to know, and he knew
Egypt thoroughly. While, however, he often took suggestions
MIRIAM, SISTHR OF MOSES.
from the ritual and philosophy of the Egyptians, the general
bent of his institutes in reference to them was jealous and an-
tagonistic.
At the end of such a training and such varied experience, —
as priest, as general, as conqueror, — Moses returns to Egypt
and meets again his sister, in whose heart the prophetic fire is
still burning; and the sight of the oppression and misery of
his people leads him to seek to interpose for their deliverance.
The first act is the simple, unadvised movement of indignation
at injustice; he sees a Hebrew slave writhing under the lash
of an Egyptian; he kills the tyrant and delivers the slave.
He next tries to rouse a national spirit of union among his
people, and separates two who are fighting, with the words,
‘Ye are brethren, and should not contend.” St. Stephen fur-
ther interprets the heart of Moses at this crisis: “‘ For he sup-
posed that his brethren would have understood how that God
by his hand would deliver them: but they understood not. But
he that did his neighbor wrong thrust him away, saying, Who
made thee a ruler and a judge over us? Wilt thou kill me as
thou didst the Egyptian yesterday?” (Acts vii. 25, 27, 28.)
According to Josephus, there were at this time envious and
jealous plots hatching against Moses in the court of Pharaoh,
and his life was threatened.
He fled to the land of Midian, where, with characteristic
chivalry, his first act was to interfere for the protection of
some women who were prevented by the brutality of the
shepherd herdsmen from watering their flocks.
Still we see in him the protector of the weak and defenseless.
In this case his interference procures for him the gratitude of the
priest of the shepherd tribe, and the exiled Egyptian prince be-
comes a shepherd in the wilderness of Midian. He marries and
settles down, apparently content with the life of a simple herds-
man. ‘This seems to have been one of those refluent tides to
which natures of great sensibility are liable, after a short ex-
perience of the realities of life. At once ardent and tender,
Moses had been ready to cast in his fortunes with his oppressed
and suffering people; but he found them unwilling to listen to
WOMAN IN SACRED HISTORY.
him, and unworthy of freedom. His heart sinks, —the grandeur
of courts, military renown, the wisdom of Egypt, are all less in
his eyes than even the reproach of a good cause; but he feels
himself powerless and alone, rejected by the very people whom
he came to serve. Like the Greater Prophet of whom he was
the type, ‘“‘He came unto his own, and his own received him
not.”
In sinking of heart and despair, the solitude of the wilder-
ness, its loneliness and stern simplicity, are a refuge and rest
to him. In the great calm of nature he draws near to Him
who is invisible. What is most peculiar in the character of
Moses, with all his advantages of beauty, rank, station, educa-
tion, and military success, is a singular absence of self-esteem and
self-reliance. When the God of his fathers appears in flaming
fire and commissions him to go and lead forth his oppressed
people, Moses shrinks from the position, and prays that it may
_be given to another. He is not eloquent; he says, he is of stam-
mering speech and a slow tongue, and he prays the Lord to
choose another. How often it happens that the work of the
world is thus put upon men who shrink from it, — not from
indolence, but from an exalted ideality, a high conception of
the work to be done! Moses was dumb and stammering with
low-minded, vulgar-natured men, as men who live high up in
the radiant air of the nobler feelings often are. How bring his ©
ereat thoughts and purer feelings down to their conceptions?
He must have a spokesman, and evidently regards his brother
Aaron as better fitted to take the lead than himself.
Aaron seems to be a
sympathetic, easily moved, and with a ready gift of words —
whom greater natures often admire for a facility and fluency
which their very greatness denies to them. And yet it is this
Aaron who, when Moses had been more than a month absent on
the mount, was carried away by the demand of the people to
make them a visible god; and who, if his brother had not cast
himself down in agony of intercession, would have been swept
away by the Divine anger.
In the great scene of the national deliverance, after the passage
MIRIAM, SISTER OF MOSES.
of the Red Sea, behold Moses and Miriam once more reunited in
a grand act of national triumph! Tl
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THE DAUGHTER OF HERODIAS.
AWN the great drama of the history of Jesus many subor-
dinate figures move across the stage, indicated with
more or less power by the unconscious and artless sim-
plicity of the narrative. Among these is the daughter
of Herodias, whose story has often been a favorite subject
among artists as giving an opportunity of painting female
beauty and fascination in affinity with the deepest and most
dreadful tragedy.
Salome was the daughter of Herodias, who was a woman
of unbridled passions and corrupt will. This Herodias had
eloped from her husband Philip, son of Herod the Great, to
marry her step-uncle, Herod Antipas, who forsook for her his
lawful wife, the daughter of the king of Arabia. Herod ap-
pears in the story of the Gospels as a man with just enough
conscience and aspiration after good to keep him always un-
easy, but not enough to restrain from evil.
When the ministry of John powerfully excited the public
mind, we are told by St. Mark that ‘ Herod feared John, know-
that he was a just man and holy, and he observed him, and
when he heard him he did many things and heard him gladly.”
The Jewish religion strongly cultivated conscience and a
belief in the rewards and punishments of a future life, and
the style of John’s preaching was awful and monitory. ‘ Be-
hold the axe is laid at the root of the tree, and whatsoever
tree doth not bring forth good fruit shall be hewn down and
cast into the fire.” There was no indulgence for royal trees;
no concession to the divine right of kings to do evil. John
was a prophet in the spirit and power of Elijah; he dwelt in
the desert, he despised the power and splendor of courts, and
appeared before kings as God’s messenger, to declare his will
WOMAN IN SACRED HISTORY.
and pronounce sentence of wrath on the disobedient. So with-
out scruple he denounced the adulterous connection of his
royal hearer, and demanded that Herod should put away the
guilty woman as the only condition of salvation. Herod re-
plied, as kings have been in the habit of replying to such
inconvenient personal application of God’s laws: he shut John
up in prison. It is said in St. Mark that Herodias had a
quarrel against him, and would have killed him, but she could
not. The intensity of a woman’s hatred looks out through
this chink of the story as the secret exciting power to the
man’s slower passions. She would have had him killed had
she been able to have-her way; she can only compass his im-
prisonment for the present, and she trusts to female importu-
nities and blandishments to finish the vengeance. The hour
of opportunity comes. We are told in the record: ‘‘ And when
a convenient day came, Herod on his birthday made a supper
to his lords and high captains and chief estates of Galilee.”
One of the entertainments of the evening was the wonderful
dancing of Salome, the daughter of his paramour. We have
heard in the annals of the modern theatre into what inconsid-
erate transports of rapture crowned heads and chief captains
and mighty men of valor have been thrown by the dancing
of some enthroned queen of the ballet; and one does not feel
it incredible, therefore, that Herod, who appeared to be ner-
vously susceptible to all kinds of influences, said to the en-
chantress, ‘‘Ask me whatsoever thou wilt, and I will give it
thee; and he sware unto her after the pattern of Ahasuerus to
Esther, saying, Whatsoever thou shalt ask of me I will give it
thee, to the half of my kingdom.” And now the royal tigress,
who has arranged this snare and watched the king’s entrance
into the toils, prepares to draw the noose. Salome goes to
her mother and says, ‘ What shall I ask?” The answer is
ready. Herodias said, with perfect explicitness, ‘‘ Ask for the
head of John the Baptist.” So the graceful creature trips back
into the glittering court circle, and, bowing her flower-like head,
says in the sweetest tones, ‘‘Give me here John the Baptist’s
head in a charger” :
THH DAUGHTER OF HERODIAS.
The narrative says very artlessly, “And the king was sorry,
but for his oath’s sake, and for the sake of them that sat with
him at meat, he would not refuse her, and immediately the
king sent an executioner and commanded his head to be
brought, and he went and beheaded him in prison!”
What wonderful contrasted types of womanhood the Gospel
history gives! We see such august and noble forms as Elis-
abeth, the mother of the Baptist, and Mary, the mother of
Jesus, alongside of this haughty royal adulteress and her
beautiful daughter. The good were the lower, and the bad
the higher class of that day. Vice was enthroned and _tri-
umphant, while virtue walked obscure by hedges and byways;
a dancing girl had power to take away the noblest life in
Judea, next to that which was afterward taken on Calvary.
No throb of remorse that we know of ever visited these
women, but of Herod we are told that when afterwards he
heard of the preaching and mighty works of Jesus, he said,
“Tt is John the Baptist that I slew. He is risen from the
dead, therefore mighty works do show forth themselves in
him.”
In the last scenes of our Lord’s life we meet again this cred-
ulous, superstitious, bad man. Pilate, embarrassed by a pris-
oner who alarmed his fears and whom he was troubled to dis-
pose of, sent Jesus to Herod. ‘Thus we see the licentious tool
and slave of a bad woman has successively before his judg-
ment-seat the two greatest men of his age and of all ages. It
is said Herod received Jesus gladly, for he had a long time been
desirous to see him, for he hoped some miracle would be done
by him. But he was precisely of the class of whom our Lord
spoke when he said, ‘“‘ An adulterous generation seeketh a sign,
and there shall no sign be given them.” God has no answer
to give to wicked, unrepentant curiosity, and though Herod
questioned Jesus in many words he answered him nothing.
Then we are told, ‘Herod with his men of war set Jesus at
naught, and mocked him, and arrayed him in a gorgeous robe,
and sent him again to Pilate.” And this was how the great
ones of the earth received their Lord.
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THE WOMAN OF SAMARIA.
“SMA E are struck, in the history of our Lord, with the
GN 0. unworldliness of his manner of living his daily life
and fulfilling his great commission. It is emphat-
ically true, in the history of Jesus, that his ways
are not as our ways, and his thoughts as our thoughts. He
did not choose the disciples of his first ministry as worldly
wisdom would have chosen them. Though men of good and
honest hearts, they were neither the most cultured nor the
most influential of his nation. We should have said that men
of the standing of Joseph of Arimathea or Nicodemus were
preferable, other ‘things being equal, to Peter the fisherman |
or Matthew the tax-gatherer; but Jesus thought otherwise.
And furthermore, he sometimes selected those apparently
most unlikely to further his ends. Thus, when he had a mis-
sion of mercy in view for Samaria, he called to the work a
woman; not such as we should suppose a divine teacher
would choose, —not a pre-eminently intellectual or a very
good woman,—but, on the contrary, one of a careless life
and loose morals and little culture. The history of this per-
son, of the way in which he sought her acquaintance, ar-
rested her attention, gained access to her heart, and made of
her a missionary to draw the attention of her people to him,
is wonderfully given by St. John. We have the image of a
woman — such as many are, social, good-humored, talkative, and
utterly without any high moral sense —approaching the well,
where she sees this weary Jew reclining to rest himself. He
introduces himself to her acquaintance by asking a favor, —
the readiest way to open the heart of a woman of that class.
She is evidently surprised that he will speak to her, being a
Jew, and she a daughter of a despised and hated race. ‘‘ How
WOMAN IN SACRED HISTORY.
is it,” she says, “that thou, a Jew, askest drink of me, a woman
of Samaria?” Jesus now answers her in that symbolic and
poetic strain which was familiar with him: “If thou knewest
the gift of God, and who this is that asketh drink of thee,
thou wouldst ask of him, and he would give thee living water.”
The woman sees in this only the occasion for a lively re-
joinder. ‘Sir, thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well
is deep; from whence then hast thou that living water?”
With that same mysterious air, as if speaking unconsciously
from out some higher sphere, he answers, ‘“ Whosoever drink-
eth of this water shall thirst again; but whosoever shall drink
of the water that I shall give, shall never thirst. The water
that I shall give shall be a well in him springing up to ever-
lasting life.”
Impressed strangely by the words of the mysterious stranger,
she answers confusedly, ‘Sir, give me this water, that I thirst
not, neither come hither to draw.” There is a feeble attempt
at a jest struggling with the awe which is growing upon her.
Jesus now touches the vital spot in her life. ‘Go, call thy
husband and come hither.” She said, “I have no husband.”
He answers, “ Well hast thou said I have no husband; thou
hast had five husbands, and he thou now hast is not thy hus-
band ; in that saidst thou truly.”
The stern, grave chastity of the Jew, his reverence for mar-_
riage, strike coldly on the light-minded woman accustomed to
the easy tolerance of a low state of society. She is abashed,
and hastily seeks to change the subject: “Sir, I see thou art a
prophet”; and then she introduces the controverted point of the
two liturgies and temples of Samaria and Jerusalem, — not the
first nor the last was she of those who seek relief from con-
science by discussing doctrinal dogmas. Then, to our aston-
ishment, Jesus proceeds to declare to this woman of light mind
and loose morality the sublime doctrines of spiritual worship,
to predict the new era which is dawning on the world: ‘“ Wo-
man, believe me, the hour cometh when neither in this moun-
tain nor yet in Jerusalem shall ye worship the Father. The
hour cometh and now is when the true worshiper shall wor-
THE WOMAN OF SAMARIA.
ship the Father in spirit and in truth, for the Father seeketh
such to worship him. God is a spirit, and they that worship
him must worship him in spirit and in truth.” Then, in a sort
of confused awe at his earnestness, the woman says, ‘I know
that Messiah shall come, and when he is come he will tell us
all things. Jesus saith unto her, I that speak unto thee am
he.”
At this moment the disciples returned. With their national
prejudices, it was very astonishing, as they drew nigh, to see
that their master was in close and earnest conversation with a
Samaritan woman. Nevertheless, when the higher and god-
like in Jesus was in a state of incandescence, the light and fire
were such as to awe them. They saw that he was in an ex-
alted mood, which they dared not question. All the infinite
love of the Saviour, the shepherd of souls, was awaking within
him; the soul whom he has inspired with a new and holy call-
ing is leaving him on a mission that is to bring crowds to his
love. The disciples pray him to eat, but he is no longer hun-
ery, no longer thirsty, no longer weary; he exults in the gifts
that he is ready to give, and the hearts that are opening to
receive.
The disciples pray him, ‘“ Master, eat.” He said, “I have
meat to eat that ye know not of.” They question in an un-
dertone, ‘‘Hath any one brought him aught to eat?” He
answers, ‘‘My meat and my drink is to do the will of Him
that sent me, and to finish his work.” Then, pointing towards
the city, he speaks impassioned words of a harvest which is
at hand; and they wonder.
But meanwhile the woman, with the eagerness and bright,
social readiness which characterize her, is calling to her towns-
men, ‘‘Come, see a man that told me all that ever I did. Is
not this the Christ ?” :
What followed on this? A crowd press out to see the won-
der. Jesus is invited as an honored guest; he spends two
days in the city, and gathers a band of disciples.
After the resurrection of Jesus, we find further fruits of the
harvest sown by a chance interview of Jesus with this woman.
22
WOMAN IN SACRED HISTORY.
In the eighth of Acts we read of the ingathering of a church
in a city of Samaria, where it is said that ‘the people, with
one accord, gave heed to the things spoken by Philip, and
there was great joy in that city.”
One thing in this story impresses us strongly, — the power
which Jesus had to touch the divinest capabilities in the un-
likeliest subjects. He struck at once and directly for what was
highest and noblest in souls where it lay most hidden. As
physician of souls he appealed directly to the vital moral force,
and it acted under his touch. He saw the higher nature in
this woman, and as one might draw a magnet over a heap
of rubbish and bring out pure metal, so he from this careless,
light-minded, good-natured, unprincipled creature, brought out
the suppressed and hidden yearning for a better and higher
life. She had no prejudices to keep, no station to preserve ;
she was even to her own low moral sense consciously a sin-
ner, and she was ready at the kind and powerful appeal to
leave all and follow him.
We have no further history of her. She is living now some-
where; but wherever she may be, we may be quite sure she
never has forgotten the conversation at the well in Samaria,
and the man who “told her all that ever she did.”
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MARY MAGDALENE.
NE of the most splendid ornaments of the Dresden
Gallery is the Magdalen of Batoni. The subject has
| been a favorite among artists, and one sees, in a
tour of the various collections of Europe, Magdalens
by every painter, in every conceivable style. By far the
greater part of them deal only with the material aspects of
the subject. The exquisite pathos of the story, the passionate
anguish and despair of the penitent, the refinement and dignity
of Divine tenderness, are often lost sight of in mere physical
accessories. Many artists seem to have seen in the subject
only a chance to paint a voluptuously beautiful woman in
tears. Titian appears to have felt in this wonderful story
nothing but the beauty of the woman’s hai, and gives us a
picture of the most glorious tresses that heart could conceive,
perfectly veiling and clothing a very common-place weeping
woman. Correggio made of the study only a charming effect
of light and shade and color. A fat, pretty, comfortable little
body lying on the ground reading, is about the whole that he
sees in the subject.
Batoni, on the contrary, seems, by some strange inspiration,
to set before us one of the highest, noblest class of women, —
a creature so calm, so high, so pure, that we ask involuntarily,
How. could such a woman ever have fallen? The answer is
ready. ‘There is a class of women who fall through what is
highest in them, through the noblest capability of a human
being, — utter self-sacrificing love. ‘True, we cannot flatter our-
selves that these instances are universal, but they do exist.
Many women fall through the weakness of self-indulgent pas-
sion, many from love of luxury, many from vanity and pride,
too many from the mere coercion of hard necessity ; but among
the sad, unblest crowd there is a class who are the victims of
WOMAN IN SACRED HISTORY.
a power of self-forgetting love, which is one of the most an-
gelic capabilities of our nature.
We have shown all along that in the dispensation which
prepared the way for the great Messiah and the Christian Era,
woman was especially cared for. In all that pertained to the
spiritual and immortal nature she was placed on an equality
with man, — she could be the vehicle of the prophetic inspira-
tion; as mother she was equally with man enthroned queen
of the family; and her sins against chastity were treated pre-
cisely as those of man, —as the sin, not of sex, but of a per-
sonal moral agent.
The Christian Era, unfolding out of the Mosaic like a rare
flower from a carefully cultured stock, brought, in a still higher
degree, salvation to woman. The son of Mary was the pro-
tector of woman, and one of the earliest and most decided
steps in his ministry was his practical and authoritative asser-
tion of the principle, that fallen woman is as capable of res-
toration through penitence as fallen man, and that repentance
should do for a fallen woman whatever it might do for fallen
man.
The history of the woman taken in adultery shows how com-
pletely that spirit of injustice to woman, which still shows itself
in our modern life, had taken possession of the Jewish aris-
tocracy. We hear no word of the guilty man who was her
partner in crime; we see around Jesus a crowd clamoring for
the deadly sentence of the Mosaic law on the woman. Jesus,
by one lightning stroke of penetrative omniscience, rouses the
dead sense of shame in the accusers, and sends them humbled
from his presence, while the sinful woman is saved for a bet-
ter future.
The absolute divinity of Jesus, the height at which he stood
above all men, is nowhere so shown as in what he dared and
did for woman, and the godlike consciousness of power with
which he did it. It was at a critical period in his ministry,
when all eyes were fixed on him in keen inquiry, when many
of the respectable classes were yet trembling in the balance
whether to accept his claims or no, that Jesus in the calmest
and most majestic manner took ground that the sins of a fallen
MARY MAGDALENE.
woman were like any other sins, and that repentant love en-
titled to equal forgiveness. The story so wonderful can be
told only in the words of the sacred narrative.
“And one of the Pharisees desired him that he would eat
with him, and he went into the Pharisee’s house and sat down
to meat. And behold a woman in that city which was a sin-
ner, when she knew that Jesus sat at meat in the Pharisee’s
house, brought an alabaster box of ointment, and stood at his
feet behind him, weeping, and began to wash his feet with
tears, and did wipe them with the hairs of her head, and
kissed his feet and anointed them with the oimtment. Now
when the Pharisee which had bidden him saw it, he spake
within himself, saying, This man, if he were a prophet, would
have known who and what manner of woman this is, for she
is a sinner. And Jesus answering said unto him, Simon, I
have somewhat to say unto thee. He said unto him, Master,
say on. There was a certain creditor had two debtors; the
one owed him five hundred pence and the other fifty, and
when they had nothing to pay he frankly forgave them both.
Tell me, therefore, which will love him most. Simon an-
swered and said, I suppose he to whom he forgave most.
And he said unto him, Thou hast rightly judged. And he
turned to the woman and said unto Simon, Seest thou this
woman. I entered into thy house and thou gavest me no
water for my feet, but she hath washed my feet with tears
and wiped them with the hairs of her head. Thou gavest
me no kiss, but this woman, since the time I came in, hath
not ceased to kiss my feet. My head with oil thou didst not
anoint, but she hath anointed my feet with ointment. Where-
fore, I say unto you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven
her, for she loved much; but to whom little is forgiven the
same loveth little. And he said unto her, Thy sins are for-
given. And they that sat at meat began to say within them-
selves, Who is this that forgiveth sins also? And he said to
the woman, Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace.”
Nothing can be added to the pathos and solemn dignity of
this story, in which our Lord assumed with tranquil majesty
the rights to supreme love possessed by the Creator, and his
a
WOMAN IN SACRED HISTORY.
soverelon power to forgive sins and dispense favors. The re-
pentant Magdalene became henceforth one of the characteristic
figures in the history of the Christian Church. Mary Magda-
lene became eventually a prominent figure in the mythic
legends of the medizval mythology. t
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