Return this book on or before the Latest Date stamped below. A charge is made on all overdue books. University of Illinois Library DEC 4 m L161 — H41 Mary the Mother of Jesus F. GOO DA LL PINX JEHEIMNF L IT 1 1 . Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2017 with funding from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Alternates https://archive.org/details/womaninsacredhis00stow_0 WOMAN IN SACRED HISTORY: illustrate In Utoknt %xt; A SERIES OF SKETCHES DRAWN FROM SCRIPTURAL , HISTORICAL , AND LEGENDARY SOURCES. JIlitstratRr feiftj SRtctn Cbromo-|^tt[xcrgr:rp|TS, AFTER PAINTINGS BY RAPHAEL, BATONI, BAADER, HORACE VERNET, PORTAELS, GOODALL, PAUL DELAROCHE, KOEHLER, LANDELLE, MERLE, VERNET-LECOMTE, DEVEDEUX AND BOULANGER. NEW YORK: J. B. FORD AND COMPANY. 1876. Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1873, by J. B. FORD & COMPANY, in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. - M. riarna CONTENTS. • INTRODUCTION. I. 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. 5. Miriam, Sister of Moses. 6. Deborah the Prophetess. 7. Delilah the Destroyer. 8. Jephtha’s Daughter. 9. Hannah the Praying Mother. 10. Ruth the Moabitess. 11. The Witch of Endor. 12. Queen Esther. 13. Judith the Deliverer. III. S3 tD bD i WOMEN OF THE CHRISTIAN ERA. 14. The Mythical Madonna. 15. Mary the Mother of Jesus. 16. The Daughter of Herodias. 17. The Woman of Samaria. 18. Mary Magdalene. 19. Martha and Mary. I THE ILLUSTRATIONS OF THIS VOLUME. HE notable characters among the women of Bible history present so attractive and variable a theme for pictorial representation, that they have been several times grouped in book form, both in Europe % 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 Baphael. 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; Horace Vernet’s terrible “Judith”; Baa- der’s remorseless “Delilah”; and Good all’s lovely picture of “Mary, the Mother of Our Lord,” with her offering of two doves in the Temple. Of WOMAN IN SACKED 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 “ Kebekah ” 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 “ Euth,” 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 G4rome 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 his 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. No. I. Mary , the Mother of our Lord. Fred. Good all (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. ILL US TEA TIOJSTS. II. Hagar and Ishmael. Christian Koehler (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. III. Rebekah. Charles Landelle (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.” IV. Leah and Rachel. Jean Francois Portaels (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. V. Miriam and Moses. Paul Delaroche (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 the waters of the placid Nile. VI. Deborah. Charles 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. VII. Delilah. Louis Marie Baader (Lannion, France). A most ungrateful and ungracious subject, but one portrayed with singular strengtli 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. ILL US TEA TIOJSrS . VIII. Jephthais Daughter . Hugues Merle. (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. Euth. Louis Devedeux (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-Alexandre Ernest Boulanger (Paris, France, b. 1815). Having just returned from one of his trips to the Orient, whither he had gone with his brilliant confrere Gerome, 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 Vernet (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. Raphael Sanzio (Urbino, Italy, b. 1483; d. 1520). Originally painted as an altar-piece for the Sistine Chapel, in the Yatican at Borne (whence its name), this grand picture is now in -the Dresden Gallery. The paint- ing has, below the Yirgin’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. ILL US TEA TIOJLS. XIII. The Daughter of Herodias. Emil Vernet-Lecomte (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 Lecomte’s “ L’Al- mee ” (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 . Emil Vernet-Lecomte (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. Pompeo Girolamo Batoni (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 w T ith 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. Henri- Alexandre Ernest Boulanger (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. 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. He 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. II. 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 INTll OD UOTION. 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, 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 Pome 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 : u 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. If a 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.” (Ex. 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 slialt 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 Grod 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 a man 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 Judaean 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 xxii. 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. For 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 IJST 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. NE woman in the Christian dispensation has received 1 a special crown of honor. Sarah, the wife of Abraham, mother of the Jewish nation, is to this day an object of traditional respect and homage in the Christian Church. Her name occurs in the marriage service as an ex- ample for the Christian wife, who is exhorted to meekness and obedience by St. Peter, “ Even as Sarah obeyed Abraham, call- ing him lord ; whose daughters ye are, so long as ye do well, and are not subject to a slavish fear.” In turning to the narrative of the Old Testament, however, we are led to feel that in setting Sarah before wives as a model of conjugal behavior, no very alarming amount of subjection or sub- mission is implied. The name Sarah means “ princess”; and from the Bible story we infer that, crowned with the power of eminent beauty,/ and fully understanding the sovereignty it gave her over man, Sarah was virtually empress and mistress of the man she called “lord.” She was a woman who understood herself and him, and was too wise to dispute the title when she possessed the reality of sway ; and while she called Abraham “lord,” it is quite apparent from certain little dramatic incidents that she expected him to use his authority in the line of her wishes. In going back to these Old Testament stories, one feels a cease- less admiration of the artless simplicity of the primitive period of 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 WOMAN IN SAC BED HI ST OB Y. 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. “ I will pay the tenth as of silk,” he replied. SABAH THE PBUSTCESS. “ Does it contain silver! ” they inquired. “ I will pay for it as silver,” answered Abraham. “Nay, then, it must contain gold.” “ I will pay for it as gold.” “ May be it contains most costly gems.” “ I will pay for it as gems,” he persisted. In the struggle the box was broken open, and in it was seated a beautiful woman whose countenance illumined all Egypt. The news reached the ears of Pharaoh, and he sent and took her. In comparing these Rabinnic traditions with the Bible, one is immediately struck with the difference in quality, — the dignified simplicity of the sacred narrative contrasts forcibly with the fan- tastic elaborations of tradition. The Rabbinic and Alcoranic stories are valuable, however, as showing how profound an impression the personality of these characters had left on mankind. The great characters of the Biblical story, though in themselves simple, seemed, like the sun, to raise around them many-colored and vaporous clouds of myth and story. The warmth of their humanity kept them enwreathed in a changing mist of human sympathies. The falsehoods which Abraham tells are to be estimated not by the modern, but by the ancient standard. In the earlier days of the world, when physical force ruled, when the earth was covered with warring tribes, skill in deception was counted as one of the forms of wisdom. “ The crafty Ulysses” is spoken of with honor through the “ Odyssey ” for his skill in dissembling ; and the Lace- demonian youth were punished, not for stealing or lying, but for performing these necessary operations in a bungling, unskillful manner. In a day when it was rather a matter of com*se 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 S. AC BED HISTORY. is not, therefore, so very far behind even the practice of modern Christians. That he should have employed the same fruitless stratagem twice, seems to show that species of infatuation on the one subject of a beloved woman, which has been the “ last infirm- ity ” of some otherwise strong and noble men, — wise everywhere else, but weak there. The Rabbinic legends represent Sarah as being an object of ardent admiration to Pharaoh, who pressed his suit with such vehemence that she cried to God for deliverance, and told the king that she was a married woman. Then — according to this representation — he sent her away with gifts, and even extended his complacency so far as to present her with his daughter Hagar as a handmaid, — a legend savoring more of national pride than of probability. In the few incidents related of Sarah she does not impress us as anything more than the beautiful princess of a nomadic tribe, with many virtues and the failings that usually attend beauty and power. With all her advantages of person and station, Sarah still wanted what every woman of antiquity considered the crowning glory of womanhood. She was childless. By an expedient common in those early days, she gives her slave as second wife to her hus- band, whose child shall be her own. The Rabbinic tradition says that up to this time Hagar had been tenderly beloved by Sarah. The prospect, however, of being mother to the heir of the family seems to have turned the head of the handmaid, and broken the bonds of 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 : u 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, SABAII T1IE 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 eaiiy 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 the trials of motherhood, and petted the little Ishmael till he grew too saucy to be endured. The Jewish mother nursed her child three years. The wean- ing was made a great fete, and Sarah’s maternal exultation at this crisis of her life, displayed itself in festal preparations. We hear her saying : u 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 thing was very grievous in Abraham’s sight because of his son.” But a higher power confirms the hasty, instinctive impulse of the mother. The God of nations saw in each of these infant boys the seed-forms of a race with a history and destiny apart from each other, and Abraham is comforted with the thought that a fatherly watch will be kept over both. Last of all we come to the simple and touching announcement of the death of this woman, so truly loved to the last. “ And Sarah was a hundred and seven and twenty years old : these were the years of the life of Sarah. And Sarah died in Kirjath-arba ; the same is Hebron in the land of Canaan ; and Abraham came to mourn for Sarah, and to weep for her.” It is a significant token of the magnificent physical vigor with which that early age was 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 : — SABAH 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. Hagar the Slave 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 : “ Lo ! one born in my house is mine heir.” In like manner there is a strong probability in the legend which represents Hagar as having been the confidential handmaid of Sarah, and treated by her with peculiar tenderness. When the fear of being childless seized upon her, Sarah was willing to exalt one, who was as a second self to her, to the rank of an inferior wife, according to the customs of those early days ; intending to adopt and treat as her own the child of her 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, — u 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, » 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 grief, doubtless after bitter words and hard usage from the once indulgent mistress. But now comes into the history the presence of the Father God, in whose eye all human beings are equal, and who looks down on the boiling strifes and hot passions of us all below, as a mother on the quarrels of little children in the nursery. For this was the world’s infancy, and each character in the drama represented a future nation for whom the All-Father was caring. So when the violent, desolate creature had sobbed herself weary in the lonesome desert, the story says: “And the angel of the Lord found her by a fountain of water, in the way to Shur. And he said, Hagar, Sarah’s maid, whence earnest thou ? and whither wilt thou sro ? And she said, I flee from the face of my mistress, Sarah.” IIA GAR 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 Islimael ; “And Abraham said unto God: 0 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 keej^ing 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 IIAG All 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 modem 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 Branch 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. HA GAR 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, 0 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. Rebekah the Bride REBEKAH THE BRIDE. N the pictures which the Bible opens to us of the 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 acres, when the thread of mortal life ran out to a hundred and O / 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 earnest ? 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 : — “ 0 Lord God of my master Abraham, I pray thee, send me good speed this day, and show kindness unto my master Abra- ham. 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 REBEKAH 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 Bebekah 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 Milcah, 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.” W e 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, I am 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 BE BEK All THE BRIBE OF THE GO LB EH 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 gen- 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 cle manage; 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 SAC BED 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 w^as 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 here 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, REBEKAH THE BRIDE OF THE GOLDEN AGE. that Isaac and Bebekah have been remembered in the wedding ritual of the catholic Christian churches as models of a holy marriage according to the Divine will. 11 Send thy blessing upon these thy servants, this man and this woman, whom we bless in thy name ; that as Isaac and Bebekah lived faithfully together, so these persons may surely perform and keep the vow and 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 Bebekah 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. Bebekah has heard the prophetic legend, that J acob, 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 Bebekah. 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 : u 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 Rebekali, 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. Leah and Rachel . 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 LEAH AND RACHEL . how did lie 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 lies 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 Lord God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac : the land whereon thou best, 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 Lord 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 IJST S. ACRED IIIST OB Y 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, suffering 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 J acob, 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 : u 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 SAC BED 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 u 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 LEAH 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 and Moses ! MIRIAM and MOSES i MIRIAM, SISTER OF MOSES. T has been remarked by Montalembert that almost all 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 jn’ophecy 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 Bed 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. niglit, and by stealth, on plantations, with solemn rhythmic move- ments, reminding one of old Egyptian times. It was the Mar- seillaise of a rude 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 MOSFS. 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. W e 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 SACKED 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 (Dent. 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, SISTER OF MOSES. it, lest lie cry unto the Lord against thee.” u 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 Egypt, and the Lord thy God redeemed thee, therefore I command thee to do this thing.” u 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 gatlierest 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 resume 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 Osaripli. 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 Musseus, 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 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- glyphics. 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, great exactness as to food, with strict dietetic regulations, were also a part of the training. 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 ; in 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, SISTER 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 tire 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 V 1 (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, u 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-n at ure d men, as men who live high up in the radiant air of the nobler feelings often are. How bring his great 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 specimen of that class of men — facile, 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 ! A solemn procession goes forth on the shores of the sea, and Moses leads the psalm of thanksgiv- ing. u And Miriam the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took a timbrel in her hand ; and all the women went out after her with timbrels and with dances. And Miriam answered them, saying, Sing ye to the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously ; the horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea.” The solemn union of man and woman in this great public act of worship and thanks- giving, which inaugurated a free nation, is indicative of the equality given to women by the Divine Being in all that per- tains to the spiritual and immortal. “ On your sons and your daughters ,” says the prophet Joel, “ I will pour out of my spirit, and they shall prophesy ” ; and the same passage is quoted by St. Peter as expressive of the genius of the opening Christian dispensation. Thus we find at the opening of the Mosaic, as well as the Christian dispensation, this announcement of the equality of the sexes in their spiritual nature. Many circumstances make it probable that as Moses and Miriam unitedly led the devotions of the people on this most solemn of national festivals, so they continued to be united in administrative station during that important period when the national code of laws and religious ritual were being crystal- lized and consolidated. We infer from a passage in the prophet Mi call,* that it was not in mere brotherly fondness that Moses would have consulted this sister, who had been to him as a mother, but that she was understood to be one of the divinely appointed leaders of the people, and that he was thus justified in leaning upon her for counsel. Moses was distinguished above all men we read of in his- tory by a singular absence of egoism. He was like a mother in the midst of the great people whose sins, infirmities, and sor- rows he bore upon his heart with scarcely a consciousness of * Micah, who prophesied in the reign of Hezekiah, represents the Divine Being as thus addressing his people : “ I brought thee up out of the land of Egypt ; I sent before thee Moses and Aaron and Miriam ” (Micah vi. 4). This is an indorsement more direct than any other prophetess ever received. WOMAN IN SACRED HISTORY. self. He had no personal interests. He was a man so lowly and gentle of demeanor that all his associates felt free to ad- vise him. Thus his father-in-law, Jethro, visiting him in the wilderness, expresses himself with perfect freedom in regard to the excessive toil he is undergoing in the care of the people, and suggests the appointment of elders who should share the work of management. The eighteenth chapter of Exodus is a beautiful picture of the character and demeanor of Moses to- wards his father-in-law, and of his meek readiness to take advice. It appears that in all the long, laborious journey through the wilderness, Moses felt the burden and the respon- sibility altogether more than the honor, and there is a despair- ing freedom in the complaints he sometimes pours out to his God. Thus in one of the periods of national discontent, when the people were all “ weeping and murmuring every man in his tent door,” Moses says, u Wherefore hast thou afflicted thy servant? and why have I not found favor in thine eyes, that thou layest the burden of all this people upon me ? Have I conceived all this people, — have I begotten them, that thou shouldst say, Carry them in thy bosom as a nursing father beareth the sucking child, unto the land which thou swarest unto their fathers? I am not able to bear all this people alone, because it is too heavy for me. And if thou deal thus with me, kill me, I pray thee, out of hand, if I have found favor in thy sight ; and let me not see my wretchedness.” The answer to this prayer is the appointment of seventy elders, under the care of God, to be sharers in the responsibilities of Moses. This division of responsibility seems to have relieved Moses, and he had not a thought of divided honor, though it at once occurred to others with regard to him. When the gift of prophecy descended upon some of these seventy elders, it seems to have been imagined by some that this honor would take from the dignity of Moses ; and we are told (Num. xi. 28, 29), “ Joshua, the son of Nun, the servant of Moses, one of his young men, answered and said, My lord Moses, forbid them. And Moses said unto him, Enviest thou for my sake ? Would God that all the Lord’s people were prophets ! ” If now MIRIAM, SISTER OF MOSES. we consider this singular meekness and unselfishness of Moses, we may easily see how it might be a temptation to an ambi- tious, self-asserting spirit to cross beyond the proper limit of advice and counsel into that of tyrannical dictation. We have seen, in the few scenes where Miriam has appeared, that she had a peculiar, prompt self-assertion and ready posi- tiveness which made leadership a necessity and a pleasure to her. She was a woman to court rather than shrink from re- sponsibility, and to feel to the full all the personal dignity and glory which her rank and position gave her; and, accord- ingly, the sacred narrative, which conceals no fault, informs us how gradually these unwatched traits grew up into the very worst form of selfish ambition. After all the trials and sor- rows of Moses, all the cabals and murmurings that wearied his soul and made him feel that life was a burden to him, we come at last to the severest trial of his life, when the sister and brother on whom he had leaned joined against him. The whole incident, recorded in Numbers xii., is most painful and most singular. “ And Miriam and Aaron spake against Moses on account of an Ethiopian woman whom he had married.” This is after the visit of his Midianite father-in-law, Jethro, who brought back to Moses his wife and two sons, from whom he had been long separated. It is supposed by some that this “woman of Cush” is the person referred to. If Moses had to this time been without a wife, he had been entirely devoted to his sister. Now another female influence comes in, — the wife of Moses may have felt disposed to assert her position among the women of Israel, and thus a broil may have arisen. One can easily imagine subjects of contention, and great vi- vacity of dissent, and the authority of Moses would naturally be referred to as the supreme one. Miriam and Aaron join together to repudiate that authority, and set themselves up as equals. “And they said, Hath the Lord indeed spoken only by Moses ? Hath he not spoken also by us ? And the Lord heard it. And the Lord spake sud- denly to Moses and Aaron and Miriam, Come out ye three unto the tabernacle of the congregation. And they three came WOMAN IN SACKED HISTORY. out. And tlie Lord came down in the pillar of cloud, and stood in the door of the tabernacle, and called forth Moses and Aaron and Miriam, and he said: Hear now my words. If there be a prophet among you, I the Lord will make myself known unto him in a vision, and will speak unto him in a dream. My ser- vant Moses is not so, who is faithful in all my house. With him I will speak mouth to mouth, even apparently, and not in dark speeches, and the similitude of the Lord shall he behold. Wherefore, then, were ye not afraid to speak against my servant Moses ? And the anger of the Lord was kindled, and the Lord departed from them, and the cloud departed from the tabernacle ; and behold Miriam became leprous, white as snow; and Aaron looked upon Miriam, and behold she was leprous. And Aaron said to Moses, Alas, my lord, lay not this sin upon us, wherein we have done foolishly and wherein we have sinned. Let her not be as one dead, of whom the flesh is half consumed when he cometh out of his mother’s womb. And Moses cried unto the Lord, saying, Heal her now, 0 Lord, I beseech thee.” The an- swer given to Moses draws a strong simile from the customs of those desert tribes where the father holds almost the sacred place of a god in the family. If her own father had expressed towards her the utmost extreme of mingled indignation and loathing at her conduct, would she not be ashamed for a while ? And the com- mand is given that she be shut out from the camp for seven days. It is evidence of the high position held by this woman, that the whole camp of Israel waited during those seven days, while she was suffering under this terrible rebuke. The severity of the rebuke and punishment which fell upon Miriam seems at first sight excessive. But we shall notice, in the whole line of the traditions with respect to the prophetic office, the most com- plete unselfishness is absolutely required. To use the prophetic gift in any manner for personal ambition or aggrandizement, was sacrilege. The prophet must be totally, absolutely without self. His divine gifts must never be used for any personal and indi- vidual purpose, even for the relief of utmost want. Thus the great prophets, Elijah and Elisha, gifted with miraculous power, wandered hungry in the desert, and waited to be fed by God. MIRIAM, SISTER OF MOSES. Thus Jesus, the Head of all the Prophets, when after wandering forty days he was an hungered, refused the suggestion to feed himself by his own miraculous power, and also the suggestion to glorify himself by a public display of that power. Miriam, as we have seen, had naturally a great many of those personal traits which easily degenerate into selfish ambition. She was self-confident, energetic, and self-asserting by nature, and she had been associating with a brother whose peculiar un- selfishness and disposition to prefer others in honor before him- self had given full scope to her love of dictation. Undoubtedly, in most things her influence and her advice had been good, and there had been, in her leadership among the women of Israel, much that was valuable and admirable. But one of the most fearful possibilities in our human experience is the silent manner in which the divine essence exhales from our virtues and they become first faults and afterward sins. Sacred enthusi- asms, solemn and awful trusts for noble purposes, may, before we know it, degenerate into mere sordid implements of personal ambition. In the solemn drama that has been represented in Scripture, the punishment that falls on the prophetess symbol- izes this corruption. Gfod departs from the selfish and self- seeking soul, and, with God, all spiritual life. The living, life- giving, inspired prophetess becomes a corrupt and corrupting leper. Such was the awful lesson spoken in this symbol of lep- rosy ; and, while the gifted leader of Israel waited without the camp, the nation pondered it in silence. One cannot but wonder at the apparent disproportion of the punishment upon Aaron. Yet, by careful observation, we shall find it to be a general fact in the Divine dealings, that the sins of weakness are less severely visited than the sins of strength. Aaron’s was evidently one of those weak and yielding natures that are taken possession of by stronger ones, as absolutely as a child is by a grown man. His was one of those sympathetic organizations which cannot resist the force of stronger wills. All his sins are the sins of this kind of temperament. To suffer bitterly, and to repent deeply, is also essential to this nature ; and in the punishment which fell on the sister who had tempted 10 WOMAN IN SACRED HISTORY. him, Aaron was more punished than in anything that could have befallen himself. There is utter anguish and misery in the cry which he utters when he sees his sister thus stricken. There seems to have been a deep purpose in thus appointing to the priestly office a man peculiarly liable to the sins and errors of an excess of sympathy. The apostle says, that the proper idea of a priest was one “ who could have compassion on the ignorant, and on them that are out of the way, for that he also is compassed with infirmity.” Among men such humility is only acquired by bitter failures. At the same time a nature so soft and yielding could not be smitten like a stronger one with- out being utterly destroyed. Aaron appears to have been so really crushed and humbled by the blow which struck his sister that he suffered all of which he was capable. The whole office of the priest was one of confession and humiliation. In every symbol and every ceremony he expressed a sense of utmost un- worthiness and need of a great expiation. It seems, therefore, in sympathy with the great and merciful design of such an office, that for its first incumbent should be chosen a man representing the infirmity rather than the strength of humanity. Our own experience in human nature is, that those who err from too sym- pathetic an organization, and a weak facility in receiving impres- sions from others, may yet have great hold on the affections of men, and be the most merciful counsellors of the sinful and tempted. The great Leader of Israel, wdio proclaimed his name through Moses as forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin, evidently fully forgave and restored both Miriam and Aaron, since he remained in the priestly office, and she is subsequently mentioned in Holy Writ as an ordained prophetess. After this scene in the desert we lose sight of Miriam entirely, and are only reminded of her in one significant passage, where it is said to Israel, “ Remember what the Lord thy God did to Miriam by the way, after ye were come forth from Egypt (Deut. xxiv. 9). Her death is recorded, Numbers xx. 1. Josephus gives an account of her funeral obsequies, which were celebrated in the most solemn manner for thirty days ; the MIRIAM, SISTER OF MOSES. same honor was shown to a woman endowed with the pro- phetic commission that was given to her brothers ; and not only so, but, as late as the time of St. Jerome, the tomb of Miriam was shown as an object of veneration. One thing in respect to the sacred and prophetic women of the Jewish race is peculiar. They were uniformly, so far as appears, married women and mothers of families, and not like the vestal virgins of antiquity, set apart from the usual family duties of women. Josephus mentions familiarly the husband of Miriam as being Hur, the well-known companion and assistant of Moses on a certain public occasion. He also refers to Bezaleel, one of the architects who assisted in the erec- tion of the tabernacle, as her grandson. We shall find, by subsequent examination of the lives of prophetic women who were called to be leaders in Israel, that they came from the bosom of the family, and were literally, as well as metaphori- cally, mothers in Israel. In the same year that Miriam died, Aaron, her brother, was also laid to rest, and, of the three, Moses remained alone. It is remarkable that while Jewish tradition regarded Miriam with such veneration, while we see her spoken of in Holy Writ as a divinely appointed leader, yet there are none of her writings transmitted to us, as in the case of other and less revered proph- etesses. The record of her fault and its punishment is given with the frankness with which the Bible narrates the failings of the very best ; and, after that, nothing further is said. But it is evident that that one fault neither shook her brother’s love nor the regard of the nation for her. Josephus expressly men- tions that the solemn funeral honors which were shown her, and which held the nation as mourners for thirty days, were ordered and conducted by Moses, who thus expressed his love and veneration for the sister who watched his infancy and shared his labors. The national reverence for Miriam is shown in the Rabbinic tradition, that, on account of her courage and devotion in saving her brother’s life at the Nile, a spring of living water, of which the people drank, always followed her footsteps through her wanderings in the wilderness. On her WOMAN IN SACRED HISTORY. death the spring became dry. No more touching proof of a nation’s affectionate memory can be given than a legend like this. Is it not in a measure true of every noble, motherly woman % Yet, like many of her sex who have watched the cradle of great men, and been their guardians in infancy and their confi- dential counsellors in maturity, Miriam is known by Moses more than by herself. As sunshine reappears in the forms of the plants and flowers it has stimulated into existence, so much of the power of noble women appears, not in themselves, but in the men who are gradually molded and modified by them. It was a worthy mission of a prophetess to form a lawgiver. We cannot but feel that from the motherly heart of this sister, associated with him in the prophetic office, Moses must have gained much of that peculiar knowledge of the needs and wants and feelings of women which in so many instances shaped liis administration. The law which protected the children of an unbeloved wife from a husband’s partiality, the law which secured so much delicacy and consideration to a captive woman, the law which secured the marriage-rights of the purchased slave and forbade making merchandise of her, the law which gave to the newly married wife the whole of the first year of her husband’s time and attention, are specimens of what we mean when we say that the influence of a noble-hearted woman passed into the laws of Moses. No man could be more chivalric or more ready to pro- tect, but it required a woman’s heart to show where protection was most needed, and we see in all these minute guardings of family life why the Divine Being speaks of a woman as being divinely associated with the great lawgiver: “I sent before you Moses and Aaron and Miriam.” Thus a noble womanly influence passed through Moses into permanent institutions. The nation identified her with the man who was their glory, and Miriam became immortal in Moses. Deborah the Prophetess * * 'fy y ■ ■ . - iH. -V ... '% -r & ' >:V V ■ • «• • ;, ' .sj ■P-- . 4 5 i I Y\ MIMOMM III ll/.iil ,iiKl ' •> y: - * - ■’V; i-ys .. 4 * . r- ***? / * V.- -u. ■ ' :-y;y ? . , • ■■ J ■■ •' * t • /y- ■ v* ■ t:'- . . * ' ^ . - : JEHENNE LI T H . CH. LAN DELLE PINX DEBORAH THE PROPHETESS. HE Book of Judges is the record of a period which may he called the Dark Ages of the Jewish Church, even as the mediaeval days were called the Dark Ages of Christianity. In both cases, a new system of purity and righteousness, wholly in advance of anything the world had ever before known, had been inaugurated by the visible power of God, — the system of Moses, and the system of Christ. But these p ure systems seem, in each case, to have been allowed to struggle their own way through the mass of human ignorance and sin. The ideal policy of Moses was that of an ultra-democratic community, so arranged that perforce there must be liberty, fraternity, and equality. There was no chance for overgrown riches or abject poverty. Landed property was equally divided in the outset, and a homestead allowed to each family. Real estate could not be alienated from a family for more than a generation ; after that period, it returned again to its original possessor. The supreme law of the land was love. Love, first, to the God and F ather, the invisible head of all ; and secondly, towards the neighbor, whether a Jewish brother or a foreigner and stranger. The poor, the weak, the enslaved, the old, the deaf, the blind, were protected by solemn and specific enactments. The person of woman was hedged about by re- straints and ordinances which raised her above the degradation of sensuality to the honored position of wife and mother. Motherhood was exalted into special honor, and named as equal with fatherhood in the eye of God. “ Ye shall fear every man his mother and his father, and keep my Sabbaths : I am the Lord.” (Lev. xix. 3.) Refinement of feeling, personal cleanliness, self-restraint, order, and purity were taught by a system of ordinances and observ- WOMAN IN SACRED HISTORY. ances, which were intertwined through all the affairs of life, so that the Jew who lived up to his law must of necessity rise to a noble manhood. But this system, so ideally perfect, encountered an age of darkness. Like all beautiful ideals, the theocratic re- public of Moses suffered under the handling of coarse human fingers. Without printed books or printing, or any of the thousand modern means of perpetuating ideas, the Jews were constantly tempted to lapse into the customs of the heathen tribes around. The question whether Jehovah or Baal were God was kept open for discussion, and sometimes, for long periods, idolatry prevailed. Then came the subjugation and the miseries of a foreign yoke, and the words of Moses were fulfilled: “Because thou servedst not the Lord thy God, with joyfulness, and with gladness of heart, for the abundance of all things, therefore shalt thou serve the enemy whom the Lord shall send against thee, in hunger and in thirst, and in nakedness, and in want of all things ; and he shall put a yoke of iron on thy neck, till he have destroyed thee.” The history of the Jewish nation, in the Book of Judges, pre- sents a succession of these periods of oppression, and of deliver- ance by a series of divinely inspired leaders, sent in answer to repentant prayers. It is entirely in keeping with the whole char- acter of the Mosaic institutions, and the customs of the Jewish people, that one of these inspired deliverers should be a woman. We are not surprised at the familiar manner in which it is an- nounced, as a thing quite in the natural order, that the chief magistrate of the Jewish nation, for the time being, was a woman divinely ordained and gifted. Thus the story is introduced : — “And the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord when Ehud was dead, and the Lord sold them into the hands of Jabin, King of Canaan, that reigned in Hasor, the captain of whose host was Sisera, which dwelt in Haroslieth of the Gentiles. And the children of Israel cried unto the Lord ; for he had nine hundred chariots of iron, and twenty years he mightily oppressed the children of Israel. And Deborah, the prophetess, the wife of Lapidoth, she judged Israel at that time. And she dwelt under the palm-tree of Deborah, between Hamah and Bethel, in DEBORAH THE PROPHETESS. Mount Epliraim, and the children of Israel came up to her for judgment. And she sent and called Barak, the son of Abinoam, and said unto him : Hath not the Lord God of Israel said, Go draw towards Mount Tabor, and take with thee ten thousand men of the children of Zebulun and the children of Naplitali? And I will draw unto thee, at the river Kishon, Sisera, the cap- tain of Jab in’s army, with his chariots and his multitude, and I will deliver him into thy hands. And Barak said : If thou wilt go with me, I will go ; but if thou wilt not go with me, I will not go. And she said : I will surely go with thee ; notwith- standing, the journey that thou takest shall not be for thine honor, for the Lord shall sell Sisera into the hand of a woman.” In all this we have a picture of the reverence and confi- dence with which, in those days, the inspired woman was re- garded. The palm-tree which shaded her house becomes a historical monument, and is spoken of as a well-known object. The warlike leader of the nation comes to her submissively, listens to her message as to a divine oracle, and obeys. He dares not go up to battle without her, but if she will go he will follow her. The prophetess is a wife, but her husband is known to posterity only through her. Deborah was the wife of Lapidoth, and therefore Lapidoth is had in remembrance even down to our nineteenth century. This class of prophetic and inspired women appear to have been the poets of their time. They were, doubtless, possessed of that fine ethereal organization, fit to rise into the higher regions of ecstasy, wherein the most exalted impressions and enthusiasms spring, as birds under tropic sunshine. The Jew- ish woman was intensely patriotic. She was a living, breathing impersonation of the spirit of her nation ; and the hymn of victory chanted by Deborah, after the issue of the conflict, is one of the most spirited specimens of antique poetry. In order to sympathize with it fully, we must think of the condition of woman in those days, when under the heel of the oppressor. The barriers and protections which the laws of Moses threw around the Jewish women inspired in them a sense of self- respect and personal dignity which rendered the brutal out- WOMAN IN SAC BED HISTORY. rages inflicted upon captives yet more intolerable. The law of Moses commanded the Jewish warrior who took a captive woman to respect her person and her womanhood. If he de- sired her, it must be as a lawful wife ; and even as a husband he must not force himself at once upon her. He must bring her to his house, and allow her a month to reconcile herself to her cap- tivity, before he took her to himself. But among the nations around, woman was the prey of whoever could seize and appro- priate her. The killing of Sisera by Jael has been exclaimed over by modern sentimentalists as something very shocking. But let us remember how the civilized world felt when, not long since, the Austrian tyrant Heynau outraged noble Hungarian and Italian women, subjecting them to brutal stripes and indignities. When the civilized world heard that he had been lynched by the brewers of London, — cuffed, and pommeled, and rolled in the dust, — shouts of universal applause went up, and the verdict of society was, u Served him right.” Deborah saw, in the tyrant thus overthrown, the ravisher and brutal tyrant of helpless women, and she extolled the spirit by which Jael had en- trapped the ferocious beast, whom her woman’s weakness could not otherwise have subdued. There is a beautiful commentary on the song of Deborah in Herder’s “ Spirit of Hebrew Poetry.” He gives a charming translation, to which we refer any one who wishes to study the oldest poem by a female author on record. The verse ascribed to Miriam seems to have been only the chorus of the song of Moses, and, for aught that appears, may have been composed by him ; but this song of Deborah is of herself alone. It is one of the noblest expressions of devout patriotism in literature. We subjoin a version of this poem, in which we have modi- fied, in accordance with Herder, some passages of our ordinary translation. “ Praise ye J ehovah for the avenging of Israel, When the people willingly offered themselves. Hear, 0 ye kings ; give ear, 0 ye princes. I will sing praise to Jehovah ; I will praise Jehovah, God of Israel. DEBORAH THE PROPHETESS. Jehovah, when thou wentest out from Seir, When thou marchedst from Edom, The earth trembled and the heavens dropped, The clouds also poured down water.” The song now changes, to picture the miseries of an enslaved people, who were deprived of arms and weapons, and exposed at any hour and moment to the incursions of robbers and murderers : — “ In the days of Shamgar, the son of Anath, In the days of Jael, The highways were unoccupied, And travelers walked through by-ways. The inhabitants ceased from the villages, Till I, Deborah, arose. I arose a mother in Israel. They went after strange gods ; Then came the war to their gates. Was there then a shield or a spear Among forty thousand in Israel ? ” The theme then changes, to celebrate those whose patriotic bravery had redeemed their country : — “ My heart throbs to the governors of Israel That offered themselves willingly among the people. Bless ye Jehovah ! Speak, ye that ride on white asses, Ye that sit in judgment, and ye that walk by the way, They that are delivered from the noise of archers In the place of drawing water, There shall they rehearse the righteous acts of Jehovah, His righteous acts towards the inhabitants of the villages. Then shall the people go down to the gates. Awake ! awake ! Deborah, Awake ! awake ! utter a song ! Arise, Barak, and lead captivity captive, Thou son of Abinoam ! ” After this, another change : she reviews, with all a woman’s fiery eloquence, the course which the tribes have taken in the contest, giving praise to the few courageous, self-sacrificing patriots, and casting arrows of satire and scorn on the cowardly and selfish. For then, as in our modern times, there were all sorts of men. There were those of the brave, imprudent, gen- WOMAN IN SACRED HISTORY. erous, “do-or-die” stamp, and there were the selfish conser- vatives, who only waited and talked. So she says : — “ It was but a small remnant that went forth against the mighty. The people of Jehovah went with me against the mighty. The march began with Ephraim, The root of the army was from him ; With him didst thou come, Benjamin ! Out of Machir came down the leaders ; Out of Zebulun the marshals of forces ; And the princes of Issachar were with Deborah. Issachar, the life-guard of Barak, Sprang like a hind into the battle-field ! ” It appears that the tribe of Reuben had only been roused so far as to talk about the matter. They had been brought up to the point of an animated discussion whether they should help or not. The poetess thus jeers at them : — “ By the brooks of Eeuben there were great talkings and inquiries. Why abodest thou in thy sheepfolds, Reuben ? Was it to hear the bleating of the flocks 1 By the brooks of Reuben were great talks [but nothing more], Gilead, too, abode beyond Jordan ; And why did Dan remain in his ships ? Asher stayed on the sea-shore and remained in his harbor. Zebulun and Naphtali risked their lives unto the death In the high places of the field of battle.” Now comes the description of the battle. It appears that a sudden and violent rain-storm and an inundation helped to rout the enemy and gain the victory ; and the poetess breaks forth : — “ The kings came and fought ; The kings of Canaan in Taanach, by the waters of Megiddo ; They brought away no treasure. They fought ; from heaven the stars in their courses They fought against Sisera. The river Kishon swept them down, That ancient river, Kishon. O my soul ! walk forth with strength ! Then was the rattling of hoofs of horses ! They rushed back, — the horses of the mighty.” And now tlie solemn sound of a prophetic curse : — “ Curse ye Meroz, saith the angel of Jehovah, Curse ye bitterly the inhabitants thereof, DEBORAH THE PROPHETESS. Because they came not to the help of J ehovah, To the help of Jehovah against the mighty ! ” Then follows a burst of blessing on the woman who had slain the oppressor ; in which we must remember, it is a woman driven to the last extreme of indignation at outrages practiced on her sex that thus rejoices. When the tiger who has slain help- less women and children is tracked to his lair, snared, and caught, a shout of exultation goes up ; and there are men so cruel and brutal that even humanity rejoices in their destruction. There is something repulsive in the thought of the artifice and treachery that beguiled and betrayed the brigand chief. But woman cannot meet her destroyer in open, hand-to-hand conflict. She is thrown perforce on the weapons of physical weakness ; and Deborah exults in the success of the artifice with all the warmth of her indignant soul. “ Blessed above women be Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite ! Blessed shall she be above women in the tent ! He asked water and she gave him milk ; She brought forth butter in a lordly dish. She p ;t her hand to the nail, Her right hand to the workman’s hammer. With the hammer she smote Sisera, She smote off his head. When she had stricken through his temple, At her feet he bowed, he fell, he lay prostrate. At her feet he bowed, he fell. Where he bowed, there he fell down dead ! ” The outrages on wives, mothers, and little children, during twenty years of oppression, gives energy to this blessing on the woman who dared to deliver. By an exquisite touch of the poetess, we are reminded what must have been the fate of all Judaean women except for this nail of Jael. “ The mother of Sisera looked out at a window. She cried through the lattice, Why delay the wheels of his chariot 1 Why tarries the rattle of his horse-hoofs ? Her wise ladies answered : yea, she spake herself. Have they not won ? Have they not divided the prey ? To every man a virgin or two ; WOMAN IN SACRED HISTORY. To Sisera a prey of divers colors, of divers colors and gold embroidery, Meet for the necks of them that take the spoil.” In the reckoning of this haughty princess, a noble Judaean lady, with her gold embroideries and raiment of needle-work, is only an ornament meet for the neck of the conqueror, — a toy, to be paraded in triumph. The song now rises with one grand, solemn swell, like the roll of waves on the sea-shore : — “ So let all thine enemies perish, 0 J ehovah ! But let them that love thee shine forth as the sun in his strength.” And as this song dies away, so passes all mention of Deborah. No other fragment of poetry or song from her has come down from her age to us. This one song, like a rare fragment of some deep-sea flower, broken off by a storm of waters, has floated up to tell of her. We shall see, as we follow down the line of history, that women of this lofty poetic inspiration were the natural product of the Jewish laws and institutions. They grew out of them, as certain flowers grow out of certain soils. To this class belonged Hannah, the mother of Samuel, and Huldah, the prophetess, and, in the fullness of time, Mary, the mother of Jesus, whose Magnificat was the earliest flower of the Christian era. Mary was prophetess and poet, the last and greatest of a long and noble line of women, in whom the finer feminine nature had been kindled into a divine medium of in- spiration, and burst forth in poetry and song as in a natural language. Delilah the Destroyer * 5? ■ > V\, $ * -•< ">,S . 1 ?: : "i 5 % : fcMf ■it ':'?:■■ -. -I *•*>' -r,. ' . ."V « ^ -c, T - - Ji •: ■■ 5 I* H '/(Wi ^Kl HIT ! ](\ v -*i >- .1 i- f i i V i DELILAH THE DESTROYER. pictures of womanhood in the Bible are not con- fined to subjects of the better class. There is always a shadow to light ; and shadows are ^ deep, intense, in proportion as light is vivid. There is in bad women a terrible energy of evil which lies over against the angelic and prophetic power given to them, as Hell against Heaven. In the long struggles of the Divine Lawgiver with the idol- atrous tendencies of man, the evil as well as the good influence of woman is recognized. There are a few representations of loath- some vice and impurity left in the sacred records, to show how utterly and hopelessly corrupt the nations had become whom the Jews were commanded to exterminate. Incurable licentious- ness and unnatural vice had destroyed the family state, trans- formed religious services into orgies of lust, and made woman a corrupter, instead of a saviour. The idolatrous temples and groves and high places against which the prophets continually thunder were scenes of abominable vice and demoralization. No danger of the Jewish race is more insisted on in sacred history and literature than the bad power of bad women, and the weakness of men in their hands. Whenever idolatry is intro- duced among them it is always largely owing to the arts and devices of heathen women. The story of Samson seems to have been specially arranged as a warning in this regard. It is a picture drawn in such exag- gerated colors and proportions that it might strike the lowest mind and be understood by the dullest. As we have spoken of the period of the Judges as corresponding to the Dark Ages of Christianity, so the story of Samson corresponds in some points with the mediaeval history of St. Christopher. In both is pre- WOMAN IN SACRED HISTORY. sented the idea of a rugged animal nature, the impersonation of physical strength, without much moral element, but seized on and used by a divine impulse for a beneficent purpose. Samson had strength, and he used it to keep alive this sacerdotal nation, this race from whom were to spring the future apostles and prophets and teachers of our Christianity. Like some unknown plant of rare flower and fruit, cast out to struggle in ungenial soil, nipped, stunted, browsed down by cattle, trodden down by wild beasts, the Jewish race, in the times of the Book of Judges showed no capability of producing such men as Isaiah and Paul and John, much less Jesus. Yet, humanly speaking, in this stock, now struggling for bare national existence, and constantly in danger of being trampled out, was contained the capacity of unfolding, through Divine culture, such heavenly blossoms as Jesus and his apostles. In fact, then, the Christian religion, with all its possibilities of hope and happiness for the human race, lay at this period germi- nant, in seed form, in a crushed and struggling race. Hence the history of Samson ; hence the reason why he who possessed scarcely a moral element of character is spoken of as under the * guidance of the Spirit of the Lord. A blind impulse inspired him to fight for the protection of his nation against the barbarous tribes that threatened their destruction, and with this impulse came rushing floods of preternatural strength. With the history of this inspired giant is entwined that of a woman whose name has come to stand as a generic term for a class, — Delilah ! It is astonishing with what wonderful dramatic vigor a few verses create before us this woman so vividly and so perfectly that she has been recognized from age to age. Delilah ! not the frail sinner falling through too much love ; not the weak, downtrodden woman, the prey of man’s superior force ; but the terrible creature, artful and powerful, who triumphs over man, and uses man’s passions for her own ends, without an answering throb of passion. As the strength of Samson lies in his hair, so the strength of Delilah lies in her hardness of heart. If she could love, her power would depart from her. Love brings weakness and tears that make the hand tremble and the DELILAII THE DESTROYER. eye dim. But she who cannot love is guarded at all points; her hand never trembles, and no soft, fond weakness dims her eye so that she cannot see the exact spot where to strike. Delilah has her wants, — she wants money, she wants power, — and men are her instruments ; she will make them her slaves to do her pleasure. Samson, like the great class of men in whom physical strength predominates, appears to have been constitutionally good-natured and persuadable, with a heart particularly soft towards woman. He first falls in love with a Philistine woman whom he sees, surrendering almost without parley. His love is animal passion, with good-natured softness of temper ; it is inconsiderate, insisting on immediate gratifica- tion. Though a Nazarite, vowed to the service of the Lord, yet happening to see this woman, he says forthwith: “I have seen a woman in Timnath, of the daughters of the Philistines ; therefore get her for me for a wife. Then said his father and his mother, Is there never a woman of the daughters of thy people, that thou goest to take a Philistine woman to wife ? But he said, Get her for me ; for she pleaseth me well.” She is got; and then we find the strong man, through his passion for her, becoming the victim of the Philistines. He puts out a riddle for them to guess. u And they said to Sam- son’s wife, Entice thy husband that he may declare unto us the riddle. And Samson’s wife wept before him, and said, Thou dost but hate me, and lovest me not: thou hast put forth a riddle unto the children of my people and hast not told me. And she wept before him seven days, and on the seventh day he told her.” A picture this of what has been done in kings’ palaces and poor men’s hovels ever since, — man’s strength was overcome and made the tool of woman’s weakness. # We have now a record of the way this wife was taken from him, and of the war he declared against the Philistines, and of exploits which caused him to be regarded as the champion of his nation by the Hebrews, and as a terror by his enemies. He holds them in check, and defends his people, through a WOMAN IN SACRED HISTORY. course of years ; and could he have ruled his own passions, he might have died victorious. The charms of a Philistine woman were stronger over the strong man than all the spears or swords of his enemies. The rest of the story reads like an allegory, so exactly does it describe that unworthy subservience of man to his own passions, wherein bad women in all ages have fastened poisonous roots of power. The man is deceived and betrayed, with his eyes open, by a woman whom he does not respect, and who he can see is betraying him. The story is for all time. The temptress says : u How canst thou say, I love thee, when thy heart is not with me ? Thou hast mocked me these three times, and hast not told me wherein thy great strength lieth. And it came to pass when she pressed him daily with her words, and urged him so that his soul was vexed to death, that he told her all his heart.” Then Delilah runs at once to her em- ployers. u She sent and called the lords of the Philistines, saying, Come up this once, he hath told me all his heart. And she made him sleep upon her knees ; and called for a man, and bade him shave off the seven locks, and his strength went from him. And she said, The Philistines be upon thee, Samson, and he awoke and said, I will go out and shake my- self, as at other times, and he wist not that the Lord was de- parted from him. But the Philistines took him, and put on him fetters of brass, and he did grind in their prison house.” Thus ignobly ends the career of a deliverer whose birth was promised to his parents by an angel, who was vowed to God, and had the gift of strength to redeem a nation. Under the wiles of an evil woman he lost all, and sunk lower than any slave into irredeemable servitude. The legends of ancient history have their parallels. Her- cules, the deliverer, made the scoff and slave of Omphale, and Antony, become the tool and scorn of Cleopatra, are but repe- titions of the same story. Samson victorious, all-powerful, carrying the gates of Gaza on his back, the hope of * his countrymen and the terror of his enemies ; and Samson shorn, degraded, bound, eyeless, grinding in the prison-house of those DELILAH THE DESTROYER. lie might have subdued, — such was the lesson given to the Jews of the power of the evil woman. And the story which has repeated itself from age to age, is repeating itself to-day. There are women on whose knees men sleep, to awaken shorn of manliness, to be seized, bound, blinded, and made to grind in unmanly servitude forever. “ She hath cast down many wounded, Yea, many strong men hath she slain ; Her house is the way to Hell, Going down to the chambers of Death.” 12 Jephtha’s Daughter - >i j ii.) 1 / (1 27 imml • , . n i HA' augth; JEPHTHA’S DAUGHTER. HIS story, which has furnished so many themes for the poet and artist, belongs, like that of Samson, to the stormy and unsettled period of Jewish history which is covered by the Book of Judges. Jephtha, an illegitimate son, is cast out by his brethren, goes off into a kind of border-land, and becomes, in that turbulent period, a leader of a somewhat powerful tribe. These times of the Judges remind us forcibly, in some re- spects, of the chivalric ages. There was the same oppor- tunity for an individual to rise to power by personal valor, and become an organizer and leader in society. A brave man was a nucleus around whom gathered others less brave, seeking protection, and the individual in time became a chieftain. The bravery of Jephtha was so great, and his power and consider- ation became such, that when his native land was invaded by the Ammonites, he was sentsfor by a solemn assembly of his people, and appointed their chief. Jephtha appears, from the story, to have been a straightforward, brave, generous, God- fearing man. The story of his vow is briefly told. “And Jephtha vowed a vow unto the Lord and said, If thou wilt without fail deliver the children of Ammon into my hands, then it shall be that whatsoever cometh first out of my door to meet me, when I return, shall be the Lord’s, and I will offer it as a whole offering unto the Lord.” The vow was recorded, a great victory was given, and the record says, “And Jephtha came to Mizpah, unto his house, and behold, his daughter came out to meet him with timbrels. She was his only child, and beside her he had neither son nor daughter. And it came to pass, when he saw her, that he rent his clothes, and said, Alas ! my daughter, thou WOMAN IN SACKED IIIS TOBY. hast brought me very low ; for I have opened my mouth to the Lord, and cannot go back. And she said, My father, if thou hast opened thy mouth to the Lord, do to me according to that which hath proceeded out of thy mouth ; forasmuch as the Lord hath taken vengeance for thee of thine enemies, even the children of Ammon. And she said unto her father, Let this thing be done for me : Let me alone two months, that I may go up and down upon the mountains to bewail my virginity, I and my fellows. And he said, Go. And he sent her away for two months, and she went with her companions and be- wailed her virginity upon the mountains. And it came to pass at the end of two months, that she returned to her father, who did with her according to his vow.” And what was that I The popular version generally has been that Jeplitlia killed his daughter, and offered her a burnt sacrifice. Josephus puts this interpretation upon it, saying that “he of- fered such an oblation as was neither conformable to the law nor acceptable to God ; not weighing with himself what opinion the hearers would have of such a practice.” A large and very learned and respectable body of commentators among the Jews, both ancient and modern, deny this interpretation, and, as ap- pears to us, for the best of reasons. Jephtlia was a Jew, and human sacrifice was above all things abhorrent to the Jewish law and to the whole national feeling. There is full evidence, in other pictures of life and manners given in the Book of Judges, that in spite of the turbulence of the times, there were in the country many noble, God-fearing men and women who intelligently understood and practiced the wise and merciful system of Moses. Granting that Jeplitha, living in the heathen border-land, had mingled degrading superstitions with his faith, it seems im- probable that such men as Boaz, the husband of Ruth, Elkanah, the husband of Hannah, Manoali and his wife, the parents of Samson, and the kind of people with whom they associated, could have accepted, as Judge of Israel, a man whom their laws would regard as guilty of such a crime. Besides, the Jewish law contained direct provisions for such vows. In three or four JEPHTHA'S DAUGHTER. places in the Jewish law, it is expressly stated that where a human being comes into the position of a whole offering to God, the life of that human being is not to be taken; and a process of substitution and redemption is pointed out. Thus the first- born of all animals and the first-born of all men were alike commanded to be made whole offerings to the Lord: the ani- mals were slain and burnt, but the human being was redeemed. No one can deny that all these considerations establish a strong probability. Finally, when historians and commentators are divided as to a fact, we are never far out of the way in taking that solution which is most honorable to our common human nature, and the most in accordance with our natural wishes. We suppose, there- fore, that the daughter of Jephtha was simply taken from the or- dinary life of woman, and made an offering to the Lord. She could be no man’s wife ; and with the feelings which were had in those days as to marriage, such a lot was to be lamented as the cutting off of all earthly hopes. It put an end to the house of J ephtha, as besides her he had no son or daughter, and it accounts for the language with which the account closes, u She knew not a man,” — a wholly unnecessary statement, if it be meant to say that she was killed. The more we reflect upon it, the more probable it seems that this is the right view of the matter. The existence from early times among the Jews of an order of women who renounced the usual joys and privileges of the family state, to devote themselves to religious and charitable duties, is often asserted. Walter Scott, a learned authority as to antiquities, and one who seldom made a representation with- out examination, makes Rebecca, in Ivanhoe, declare to Rowena that from earliest times such an order of women had existed among her people, and to them she purposes to belong. We cannot leave the subject without pausing to wonder at the exquisite manner in which the historian, whoever he was, has set before us a high and lovely ideal of womanhood in this Judaean girl. There is but a sentence, yet what calm- ness, what high-mindedness, what unselfish patriotism, are in the words ! u My father, if thou hast opened thy mouth to WOMAN IN SAC BED HISTORY. the Lord, do to me according to thy promise, forasmuch as the Lord hath taken vengeance on thine enemies, the chil- dren of Ammon.” Whatever it was to which she so calmly acceded, it was to her the death of all earthly hope, calmly accepted in the very flush and morning tide of victory. How heroic the soul that could meet so sudden a reverse with so unmoved a spirit ! HANSAH THE PRAYING MOTHER. HE story of Hannah is a purely domestic one, and is most valuable in unveiling the intimate and trust- ful life of faith that existed between the Jehovah re- vealed in the Old Testament and each separate soul, however retired and humble. It is not God the Lawgiver and King, but, if we may so speak, God in his private and con- fidential relations to the individual. The story opens briefly, after the fashion of the Bible, whose brevity in words is such a contrast to the tediousness of most professed sacred books. “There was a man,” says the record, “named Elkanali, and he had two wives ; and the name of the one was Hannah, and the name of the other Peninnah, and Peninnah had children, but Hannah had none.” Hannah, from the story, appears to have had one of those intense natures, all nerve and sensi- bility, on which every trouble lies with double weight. The lack of children in an age when motherhood was considered the essential glory of woman, was to her the climax of anguish and mortification. Nor was there wanting the added burden of an unfriendly party to notice and to inflame the hidden wound by stinging commentaries; for we are told that “her adversary provoked her sore, to make her fret.” And thus, year by year, as the family went up to the sacred feast at Shiloh, and other exultant mothers displayed their fair sons and daughters, the sacred feast was turned into gall for the unblest one, and we are told that Hannah “wept and did not eat.” “ Then said Elkanah unto her, Hannah, why weep- est thou? and why eatest thou not? and why is thy heart grieved ? Am I not better to thee than ten sons ? ” Hannah was one of a class of women in whom genius and a poetic nature are struggling with a vague intensity, giving WOMAN IN SAC BED HISTORY. the keenest edge to desire and to disappointment. All Judaean women desire children, but Hannah had that vivid sense of nationality, that identification of self with the sublime future of her people, that made it bitter to be excluded from all share in those hopes and joys of motherhood from which the earth’s deliverer was to spring. She desired a son, as poets desire song, as an expression of all that was heroic and unex- pressed in herself, and as a tribute to the future glories of her people. A poet stricken with paralysis might suffer as she suffered. But it was a kind and degree of sorrow, the result of an exceptional nature, which few could comprehend. To some it would afford occasion only for vulgar jests. Even her husband, devoted as he was, wondered at rather than sympathised with it. It appears that there rose at last one of those flood-tides of feeling when the soul cries out for relief, and must have a Helper ; and Hannah bethought her of the words of Moses, “ What nation is there that hath their God so nigh unto them as the Lord our God is unto us, for all that we call unto him for ? ” It is pre- cisely for such sorrows — intimate, private, personal, and not to be comprehended fully by any earthly friend — that an All-see- ing, loving Father is needed. And Hannah followed the teach- ings of her religion when she resolved to make a confidant of her God, and ask of him the blessing her soul fainted for. She chose the sacred feast at Shiloh for the interview with the gracious Helper ; and, after the festival, remained alone in the holy place in an ecstasy of fervent prayer. The narrative says: “ And she was in bitterness of soul and prayed unto the Lord and wept sore. And she vowed a vow and said, 0 Lord of Hosts, if thou wilt indeed look on the affliction of thine handmaid, and re- member me, and not forget thine handmaid, but will give unto thine handmaid a man-child, then will I give him unto the Lord all the days of his life. And it came to pass as she continued praying before the Lord, that Eli marked her mouth. Now Hannah she spake in her heart, only her lips moved, but her voice was not heard ; therefore Eli thought she had been drunken.” HANNAH THE PRAYING MOTHER. He — dear, kind-hearted, blundering old priest — reproved her with about as much tact as many similar, well-meaning, obtuse people use nowadays in the management of natures whose heights and depths they cannot comprehend. Hannah meekly answers: “No, my lord, I am a woman of a sorrowful spirit; I have drunk neither wine nor strong drink, but have poured out my soul before the Lord. Count not thy handmaid for a daugh- ter of Belial, for out of the abundance of my complaint and grief have I spoken hitherto. Then Eli answered and said, Go in peace, the God of Israel grant thee thy petition thou hast asked of him. And she said, Let thine handmaid find grace in thy sight. So the woman went her way and did eat, and her counte- nance was no more sad.” This experience illustrates that kind of prevailing prayer that comes when the soul, roused to the full intensity of its being by the pressure of some anguish, pours itself out like a wave into the bosom of its God. The very outgush is a relief; there is healing in the very act of self-abandonment, as the whole soul casts itself on God. And though there be no present fulfillment, yet, in point of fact, peace and rest come to the spirit. Hannah had no voice of promise, no external sign, only the recorded promise of God to hear prayer; but the prayer brought relief. All the agony of desire passed away. Her countenance was no more sad. In due time, the visible answer came. Hannah was made the happy mother of a son, whom she called Samuel, or “Asked of God.” This year, when the family went up to Shiloh, Hannah re- mained with her infant; for she said to her husband, “ I will not go up until the child be weaned ; and then will I bring him that he may appear before the Lord, and there abide forever.” The period of weaning was of a much later date among Jewish women than in modern times ; and we may imagine the little Samuel three or four years old when his mother prepares, with all solemnity, to carry him and present him in the temple as her offering to God. “And when she had weaned him she took him up with her, with three bullocks, and one ephah of flour, and a bottle of wine, and brought him unto the house of the Lord in 13 WOMAN IN SACRED HISTORY. Shiloh ; and the child was young. And they slew a bullock, and brought the child to Eli. And she said, 0 my lord, as thy soul liveth, my lord, I am the woman that stood by thee here praying unto the Lord. For this child I prayed, and the Lord hath given me my petition which I asked of him. Therefore also have I lent him to the Lord ; as long as he liveth he shall be lent to the Lord. And she worshiped the Lord there.” And now the depths of this silent woman’s soul break forth into a song of praise and thanksgiving. Hannah rises before us as the inspired poetess, and her song bears a striking resem- blance in theme and in cast of thought to that of Mary the mother of Jesus, years after. Indeed, there is in the whole history of this sacred and consecrated child, a foreshadowing of that more celestial flower of Nazareth that should yet arise from the Judaean stock. This idea of a future Messiah and King permeated every pious soul in the nation, and gave a solemn intensity to the usual rejoicings of motherhood ; for who knew whether the auspicious child might not spring from her lineage ! We see, in the last verse of this poem, that Hannah’s thoughts in her hour of joy fix themselves on the glorious future of the coming King and Anointed One as the climax of her joy. It will be interesting to compare this song of Hannah with that of Mary, and notice how completely the ideas of the earlier mother had melted and transfused themselves into the heart of Mary. Years after, when the gathering forces of the Church and State were beginning to muster themselves against Martin Luther, and he stood as one man against a world, he took refuge in this song of the happy woman ; printed it as a tract, with pointed commentaries, and spread it all over Europe; and in thousands of hamlets hearts were beating to the heroic words of the Judaean mother: — “ My heart rejoiceth in Jehovah, My horn is exalted in Jehovah ; My speech shall flow out over my enemies, Because I rejoice in thy salvation. There is none holy as J ehovah : For there is none beside thee : Neither is there any rock like our God. HANNAH THE P BAYING MOTHER. Talk no more so exceeding proudly ; Let not arrogance come out of thy mouth : For Jehovah is a God of knowledge, By him are actions weighed. The hows of mighty men are broken, But the weak are girded with strength. The rich have hired out for bread ; But the hungry cease from want. The barren woman hath borne seven ; The fruitful one hath grown feeble. Jehovah killeth and maketh alive ; He bringeth down to the grave and bringeth up. Jehovah maketh poor and maketh rich ; He bringeth low, and lifteth up. He raiseth the poor out of the dust, He lifteth the beggar from the dunghill, To set them among princes, To make them inherit the throne of glory ; For the pillars of the earth are Jehovah’s, He hath set the world upon them. He will keep the feet of his saints, The wicked shall be silent in darkness ; For by strength no man shall prevail. The adversaries of J ehovah shall be broken to pieces ; Out of heaven shall he thunder upon them. Jehovah shall judge the ends of the earth ; He shall give strength unto his King, And exalt the horn of his Anointed.” This song shows the fire, the depth, the fervency of the nature of this woman, capable of rising to the sublimest conceptions. It is the ecstasy of the triumph of conscious weakness in an om- nipotent protector. Through her own experience, as it is with every true soul, she passes to the experience of universal hu- manity; in her Deliverer she sees the Deliverer and Helper of all the helpless and desolate ; and thus, through the gate of per- sonal experience, she comes to a wide sympathy with all who live. She loves her God, not mainly and only for what he is to her, but for what he is to all. How high and splendid were these conceptions and experiences that visited and hallowed the life of the simple and lowly Jewish woman in those rugged and unsettled periods, and w r hat beautiful glimpses do we get of the good and honest-hearted people that lived at that time in Pales- tine, and went up yearly to worship at Shiloh ! WOMAN IN SACRED HISTORY. After this we have a few more touches in this beautiful story. The little one remained in the temple; for it is said, “And Samuel ministered before the Lord, being a child, girded with a linen epliod. Moreover, his mother made him a little coat and brought it to him from year to year, when she came up with her husband to offer the yearly sacrifice.” How the little one was cared for the story does not say. In some passages of the Bible, we have intimations of an order of consecrated women who de- voted themselves to the ministries of the temple, like Anna the prophetess, “who departed not from the temple, but served God with fasting and prayer, night and day.” Doubtless from the hands of such were motherly ministries. One rejoices to hear that the Gracious Giver blessed this mother abundantly more than she asked or thought ; for we are told that a family of three sons and two daughters were given to her. We cannot forbear to add to this story that of the sacred little one, who grew fair as the sheltered lily in the house of God. Child of prayer, born in the very ardor and ecstasy of a soul uplifted to God, his very nature seemed heavenly, and the benignant Father early revealed himself to him, choosing him as a medium for divine messages. One of the most thrilling and poetic passages in the Bible describes the first call of the Divine One to the consecrated child. The lamps burning in the holy place ; the little one lying down to sleep ; the mysterious voice calling him ; his innocent wonder, and the slow perception of old Eli of the true significance of the event, — all these form a beautiful introduction to the life of the last and most favored of those prophetic magistrates who interpreted to the Jewish people the will of God. Samuel was the last of the Judges, — the strongest, the purest, and most blameless, — the worthy son of such a mother. . . . . RUTH ■■■■■nMaHMMnMi RUTH THE MOABITESS. HE story of Ruth is a beautiful idyl of domestic life, opening to us in the barbarous period of the Judges. In reading some of the latter chapters of that book, one might almost think that the system of Moses had proved a failure, and that the nation was lapsing back into the savage state of the heathen world around them ; just as, in reading the history of the raids and feuds of the Middle Ages, one might consider Christianity a failure. But in both cases there were nooks and dells embosomed in the wild roughness of unsettled society, where good and honest hearts put forth blossoms of immortal sweetness and perfume. This history of Ruth unveils to us pictures of the best people and the best sort of life that were formed by the laws and institutes of Moses, — a life pastoral, simple, sincere, reverential, and benevolent. The story is on this wise : A famine took place in the land of Judah, and a man named Elimelech went with his wife and two sons to sojourn in the land of Moab. The sons took each of them a wife of the daughters of Moab, and they dwelt there about ten years. After that, the man and both the sons died, and the mother, with her two widowed young daughters, pre- pared to return to her kindred. Here the scene of the little drama opens. The mother, Naomi, comes to our view, a kind-hearted, com- monplace woman, without any strong religious faith or possi- bility of heroic exaltation, — just one of those women who see the hard, literal side of a trial, ungilded by any faith or hope. We can fancy her discouraged and mournful air, and hear the melancholy croak in her voice as she talks to her daughters, when they profess their devotion to her, and their purpose to share her fortunes and go with her to the land of Israel. WOMAN IN SACRED HISTORY. “ Turn again, my daughters ; why will ye go with me ? Are there yet any more sons in my womb, that they may be your husbands ? Turn again, my daughters, go your way, for I am too old to have an husband. If I should say that I have hope to-night that I should have an husband, and bear sons, would ye tarry for them till they were grown ? Would ye stay from having husbands ? Nay, my daughters, it grieveth me for your sake that the hand of the Lord hath gone out against me.” This pre-eminently literal view of the situation seemed to strike one of the daughters as not to be gainsaid ; for we read : “ And they lifted up their voices and wept again, and Orpah kissed her mother-in-law, but Ruth clave unto her.” All the world through, from that time to this, have been these two classes of friends. The one weep, and kiss, and leave us to our fate, and go to seek their own fortunes. There are plenty of that sort every day. But the other are one with us for life or death. The literal-minded, sorrowful old woman has no thought of inspiring such devotion. Orpah, in her mind, has done the sensible and only thing in leaving her, and she says to Ruth: “ Behold, thy sister has returned unto her people and unto her gods ; return thou after thy sister-in-law.” We see in this verse how devoid of religious faith is the mother. In a matter-of-course tone she speaks of Orpah hav- ing gone back to her gods, and recommends Ruth to do the like. And now the fair, sweet Ruth breaks forth in an uncon- scious poetry of affection, which has been consecrated as the language of true love ever since: “ Entreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee ; for whither thou goest I will go, and where thou lodgest I will lodge : thy peo- ple shall be my people, and thy God my God. Where thou diest I will die, and there will I be buried : the Lord do so to me, and more also, if aught but death part thee and me.” Troth-plight of fondest lovers, marriage-vows straitest and most devoted, can have no love-language beyond this ; it is the very crystallized and diamond essence of constancy and RUTH THE MOABITESS. devotion. It is thus that minds which have an unconscious power of enthusiasm surprise and dominate their literal fellow- pilgrims. It is as if some silent dun-colored bird had broken out into wondrous ecstasies of silver song. Naomi looked on her daughter, and the narrative says, “ When she saw that she was steadfastly minded to go with her, then she left speak- ing to her.” But Ruth is ignorant of the beauty of her own nature ; for Love never knows herself or looks in a mirror to ask if she be fair ; and though her superior moral and emotive strength prevail over the lower nature of the mother, it is with a sweet, unconscious, yielding obedience that she follows her. When they came back to their kindred, the scene is touch- ingly described. In her youth the mother had been gay and radiant, as her name, Naomi, “ pleasant,” signifies. “ And it came to pass that when they came in, all the village was moved about them, and they said : Is this Naomi ? And she said : “ Call me not Naomi, call me Marah [bitterness] ; for the Almighty hath dealt very bitterly with me. I went out full, and the Lord hath brought me again empty. Why then call ye me Naomi, seeing the Lord hath testified against me, and the Almighty hath afflicted me ? ” We see here a common phase of a low order of religion. Naomi does not rebel at the Divine decree. She thinks that she is bitterly dealt with, but that there is no use in complain- ing, because it is the Almighty that has done it. It does not even occur to her that in going away from the land of true religion, and encouraging her sons to form marriages in a hea- then land, she had done anything to make this affliction need- ful ; and yet the whole story shows that but for this stroke the whole family would have settled down contentedly among the Moabites, and given up country and religion and Grod. There are many nowadays to whom just such afflictions are as needful, and to whom they seem as bitter and inexplic- able. The next scene shows us the barley-field of the rich pro- prietor, — u a mighty man, a man of wealth,” the narrative WOMAN IN SACRED HISTORY. calls him. Young men and maidens, a goodly company, are reaping, binding, and gathering. In the shade are the parched corn and sour wine, and other provisions set forth for the noontide rest and repast. The gracious proprietor, a noble-minded, gentle old man, now comes upon the scene. “ And behold, Boaz came from Bethlehem, and said to the reapers, The Lord be with you ; and they answered, The Lord bless thee.” The religious spirit of the master spread itself through all his hands, and the bless- ing that he breathes upon them was returned to him. The sacred simplicity of the scene is beyond praise. He inquires of his men the history of this fair one who modestly follows the reapers, and, finding who she is, says : “ Hearest thou, my daughter, go not to glean in any other field, but abide here with my maidens. Let thine eyes be upon the field that they reap, and go after them : have I not charged the young men not to touch thee ? and when thou art athirst, go to the vessels and drink of that that the young men have drawn.” Then she bowed herself and said : “ Why have I found grace in thine eyes, that thou shouldst take knowledge of me, seeing I am a stranger?” And he said: “It hath been fully shown unto me all that thou hast done to thy mother-in-law since the death of thy husband ; how thou hast left tliy father and thy mother, and the land of thy nativity, and art come to a people that thou knewest not heretofore. The Lord recompense thy work, and a full reward be given thee of the God of Israel, under whose wings thou art come to trust.” We have afterwards the picture of the young gleaner made at home at the noontide repast, where the rich proprietor sat with his servants in parental equality, — “ And she sat beside the reapers, and he did reach her parched corn, and she did eat and was sufficed.” There is a delicacy in the feeling inspired by the timid, modest stranger, which is expressed in the orders given by Boaz to the young men. “ And it came to pass when she rose to glean, that Boaz commanded his young men, saying : BUT II THE MO ABIT ESS. Let her glean even among the sheaves, and reproach her not ; and let fall also some handfuls of purpose for her, that she may glean them, and rebuke her not.” Gleaning, by the institutes of Moses, was one of the allotted privileges of the poor. It was a beautiful feature of that sys- tem that consideration for the poor was interwoven with all the acts of common life. The language of the laws of Moses reminded the rich that they were of one family with the poor. u Thou shalt not harden thy heart nor shut thy hand from thy poor "brother . Thou shalt surely give to him, and thy heart shall not be grieved when thou givest, because for this the Lord thy God shall bless thee.” “ And when ye reap the harvest of your land thou shalt not wholly reap the corners of the field, neither shalt thou gather the gleanings of thy harvest ; and thou shalt not glean thy vineyard, neither shalt thou gather every grape of thy vineyard ; thou shalt leave them for the poor and the stranger. I am the Lord.” This provision for the unfortunate operated both ways. It taught consideration and thoughtfulness to the rich, and industry and self-respect to the poor. They were not humbled as paupers. They were not to be beggars, but gleaners, and a fair field for self-respecting labor was opened to them. In the spirit of these generous laws the rich proprietor veils his patronage of the humble maid. Ruth was to be abundantly helped, as it were, by a series of fortunate accidents. We see in the character of Boaz the high-minded, chivalrous gentleman, devout in his religion Godward, and considerately thoughtful of his neighbor ; especially mindful of the weak and helpless and unprotected. It was the working out, in one happy instance, of the ideal of manhood the system of Moses was designed to create. And now the little romance goes on to a happy termina- tion. The fair gleaner returns home artlessly triumphant with the avails of her day’s toil, and tells her mother of the kind patronage she has received. At once, on hearing the name, the prudent mother recognizes the near kinsman of the family, bound, by the law of Moses and the custom of the land, 14 WOMAN IN SACRED HISTORY. to become the husband and protector of her daughter. In the eye of Jewish law and Jewish custom Ruth already belonged to Boaz, and had a right to claim the position and protection of a wife. The system of Moses solved the problem of woman by allotting to every woman a man as a protector. A widow had her son to stand for her ; but if a widow were left without a son, then the nearest kinsman of the former husband was bound to take her to wife. The manner in which Naomi directs the simple-minded and obedient daughter to throw her- self on the protection of her rich kinsman is so far removed from all our modern ideas of propriety that it cannot be judged by them. She is directed to seek the threshing-floor at night, to lie down at his feet, and draw over her his mantle; thus, in the symbolic language of the times, asserting her humble right to the protection of a wife. Ruth is shown to us as one of those artless, confiding natures that see no evil in what is purely and rightly intended. It is enough for her, a stranger, to understand that her mother, an honored Judaean matron, would command nothing which was not considered decorous and proper among her people. She obeys without a question. In the same spirit of sacred simplicity in which the action was performed it was received. There is a tender dignity and a chivalrous delicacy in the manner in which the bold yet humble advance is accepted. “ And Boaz awoke, and, behold, a woman lay at his feet. And he said, Who art thou ? And she said, I am Ruth, thy handmaid. Spread thy skirt over me, for thou art my near kinsman. And he said, Blessed art thou of the Lord, my daughter, for thou hast shown more kindness at the end than in the beginning, inasmuch as thou followedst not the young men, poor or rich. And now, my daughter, fear not; I will do for thee all that thou requirest, for all the city of my peo- ple doth know that thou art a virtuous woman.” The very crucial test of gentlemanly delicacy and honor is the manner in which it knows how to receive an ingenuous and simple-hearted act of confidence. As in the fields Boaz did not ostentatiously urge alms upon the timid maiden, but RUTH THE MOABITESS. suffered her to have the pleasure of gleaning for herself, so now he treats this act by which she throws herself upon his protection as an honor done to him, for which he is bound to be grateful. He hastens to assure her that he is her debtor for the preference she shows him. That courtesy and chivalric feeling for woman which was so strong a feature in the char- acter of Moses, and which is embodied in so many of his laws and institutes, comes out in this fine Hebrew gentleman as perfectly, but with more simplicity, than in the Sir Charles Grandison of the eighteenth century. And so, at last, the lovely stranger, Ruth the Moabitess, becomes the wife of the rich landed proprietor, with the universal consent of all the people. “ And all the people that were in the gates and the elders said, We are witnesses. The Lord make this woman that is come into thy house like Rachel and like Leah, which two did build the house of Israel.” From this marriage of the chivalrous, pious old man with the devoted and loving Ruth the Moabitess, sprang an aus- picious lineage. The house of David, the holy maiden of Judaea and her son, whom all nations call blessed, were the illustrious seed of this wedding. In the scene at the birth of the first son of Ruth, we have a fine picture of the manners of those days. “And the women said unto Naomi, Blessed be the Lord which hath not left thee this day without a kinsman, that his name may be famous in Israel. And he shall be unto thee a restorer of thy life and a nourisher of thy old age: for thy daughter-in-law, which loveth thee, and is better to thee than seven sons, hath borne him. And Naomi took the child and laid it in her bosom, and became nurse unto it. And the women her neighbors gave it a name, saying, There is a son bom to Naomi, and they called his name Obed ; he is the father of Jesse, the father of David.” In all this we see how strong is the impression which the loving nature of Ruth makes in the narrative. From the union of this woman so tender and true, and this man so gracious and noble and chivalric, comes the great heart-poet of the world. No other songs have been so dear to mankind, so WOMAN IN SACRED HISTORY. cherished in the heart of high and low, rich and poor, in every nation and language, as these Psalms of David. “ It is that music to whose tone The common pulse of man keeps time, In cot or castle’s mirth or moan, In cold or fervid clime.” In the tender friendship of David for Jonathan, we see again the loving constancy of Ruth in a manly form, — the love be- tween soul and soul, which was “ wonderful, passing the love of women.” In the ideal which we form of Mary, the mother of Jesus, lowly, modest, pious, constant, rich in the power of love and in a simple, trustful faith, we see the transmission of family traits through generations. Dante, in his “ Paradise,” places Ruth among the holy women who sit at the feet of the glorified Madonna. The Providence that called a Moabitish ancestress into that golden line whence should spring the Messiah was a sort of morning star of intimation that He should be of no limited nationality ; that he was to be the Son of Man, the Lord and brother of all mankind. THE WITCH OF ENDOR. HAT was a witch, according to the law of Moses, and why was witchcraft a capital offense ? A witch was the dark shadow of a prophetess. A prophetess was a holy woman drawing near to the spiritual world by means of faith and prayer, and thus in- spired by God with a knowledge beyond the ordinary power of mortals. Her prophecies and her guidance were all from the only true source of knowledge ; the spirits that attended her were true and heavenly spirits, and she became a medium by whom the will of God and the perplexed path of duty were made plain to others. A witch, on the contrary, was one who sought knowledge of the future, not from the one supreme God, but through all those magical charms, incantations, and ceremonies by which the spirits of the dead were sought for interference in the affairs of men. The guilt and the folly of seeking these con- sisted in the fact that there was another and a legitimate supply for that craving of the human heart. Man is consciously weak, helpless, burdened with desires and fears which he knows not how to supply or allay. Moses dis- tinctly stated to the Jews that their God was u nigh unto them for all they should call upon him for.” The examples of holy men and women in sacred history show that, even for private and personal griefs, and intimate sorrows and perplexities, there was immediate access to the gracious Jehovah, there were direct answers to prayer. Had Hannah, in her childless longings and misery, sought a woman who had a familiar spirit, she would have broken the law of the land, and committed an act of rebel- lion against her King and Father. But she went directly to God, and became a joyful mother. Besides the personal access of the individual by prayer, there WOMAN IN SACRED HISTORY. were always holy mediums raised up from time to time in the nation, who were lawful and appointed sources of counsel and aid. There were always the prophet and prophetess, through whom there was even nearer access to the guardian God, and we repeatedly read of application made to these sources in case of sickness or sorrow or perplexity. The high-priest, by virtue of his office, was held to possess this power. Exactly what the Urim and Thummim were, the learned do not seem to agree ; it is sufficient to know that they were in some way the instru- ments of a lawful mode appointed by God, through which ques- tions asked of the high-priest might be answered, and guidance given in perplexing cases. And now, on the other hand, as to the witch, and how her unlawful processes were carried on, we get more help from one vivid, graphic picture than by all the researches of archaeologists. We therefore give entire the singular and poetic story in the First Book of Samuel. “Now Samuel was dead, and all Israel had lamented him, and buried him in Ramah, even in his own city. And Saul had put away those that had familiar spirits, and the wizards, out of the land. And the Philistines gathered themselves together, and came and pitched in Shunem : and Saul gathered all Israel to- gether, and they pitched in Gilboa. And when Saul saw the host of the Philistines, he was afraid, and his heart greatly trembled. And when Saul inquired of the Lord, the Lord answered him not, neither by dreams, nor by Urim, nor by prophets. Then said Saul unto his servants, Seek me a woman that hath a familiar spirit, that I may go to her, and inquire of her. And his servants said to him, Behold, there is a woman that hath a familiar spirit at Endor. And Saul disguised himself, and put on other raiment, and he went, and two men with him, and they came to the woman by night : and he said, I pray thee, divine unto me by the familiar spirit, and bring me him up whom I shall name unto thee. And the woman said unto him, Behold, thou knowest what Saul hath done, how he hath cut off those that have familiar spirits, and the wizards, out of the land : where- fore then layest thou a snare for my life, to cause me to die ? THE WITCH OF END OR. And Saul sware to lier by the Lord, saying, As the Lord liveth, there shall no punishment happen to thee for this thing. Then said the woman, Whom shall I bring up unto thee ? And he said, Bring me up Samuel. And when the woman saw Samuel, she cried with a loud voice : and the woman spake to Saul, say- ing, Why hast thou deceived me ? for thou art Saul. And the king said unto her, Be not afraid ; for what sawest thou ? And the woman said unto Saul, I saw gods ascending out of the earth. And he said unto her, What form is he of? And she said, An old man cometh up ; and he is covered with a mantle. And Saul perceived that it was Samuel, and he stooped with his face to the ground, and bowed himself. And Samuel said to Saul, Why hast thou disquieted me, to bring me up ? And Saul answered, I am sore distressed ; for the Philistines make war against me, and God is departed from me, and answereth me no more, neither by prophets, nor by dreams : therefore I have called thee, that thou mayest make known unto me what I shall do. Then said Samuel, Wherefore then dost thou ask of me, seeing the Lord is departed from thee, and is become thine enemy ? And the Lord hath done to him, as he spake by me : for the Lord hath rent the kingdom out of thine hand, and given it to thy neighbor, even to David : Because thou obeyedst not the voice of the Lord, nor executedst his fierce wrath upon Amalek, therefore hath the Lord done this thing unto thee this day. Moreover the Lord will also deliver Israel with thee into the hand of the Philistines : and to-morrow shalt thou and thy sons be with me : the Lord also shall deliver the host of Israel into the hand of the Philistines. Then Saul fell straightway all along on the earth, and was sore afraid, because of the words of Samuel : and there was no strength in him ; for he had eaten no bread all the day, nor all the night. And the woman came unto Saul, and saw that he was sore troubled, and said unto him, Behold, thine handmaid hath obeyed thy voice, and I have put my life in my hand, and have hearkened unto thy words which thou spakest unto me : now therefore, I pray thee, hearken thou also unto the voice of thine handmaid, and let me set a morsel of bread before thee ; and eat, that thou mayest have strength, when thou goest on thy way. But he refused, and said, WOMAN IN SAC BED HISTORY. I will not eat. But his servants, together with the woman, com- pelled him, and he hearkened unto their voice. So he arose from the earth, and sat upon the bed. And the woman had a fat calf in the house, and she hasted, and killed it, and took flour, and kneaded it, and did bake unleavened bread thereof. And she brought it before Saul, and before his servants ; and they did eat. Then they rose up, and went away that night.” We do not need to inquire what a witch was, or why she was forbidden, further than this story shows. She is placed here as exactly the contrary alternative to God, in the wants and sorrows of life. The whole tenor of instruction to the Jews was, that there was no Divine anger that might not be appeased and turned away by deep, heartfelt repentance and amendment. In the great name revealed to Moses, the Jehovah declares himself u merciful and gracious, slow to anger, of great kindness, forgiv- ing iniquity, transgression, and sin,” — there is but a single clause added on the side of admonitory terror, — “ who will by no means clear the guilty.” A favorite mode in which the guar- dian God is represented as speaking is that he “ repenteth of the evil ” he thought to do, in response to penitent prayer. Saul had broken with his God on the score of an intense self- will, and he did not repent. The prophet Samuel had announced wrath, and threatened final rejection, but no humiliation and no penitence followed. In this mood of mind, when his fear came as desolation, all the avenues of knowledge or aid which belonged to God’s children were closed upon him, and he voluntarily put himself in the hands of those powers which were his declared enemies. The scene as given is so exactly like what is occurring in our day, like incidents that so many among us have the best reason for knowing to be objectively facts of daily occurrence, that there is no reason to encumber it with notes and comments as to the probability of the account. The woman was a medium who had the power of calling up the spirits of the dead at the desire of those who came to her. She is not represented at all as a witch after the Shakespearean style. There is no “ eye of newt and toe of frog,” no caldron or grimaces to appall. From all that appears, THE WITCH OF END OR. she was a soft-hearted, kindly, cowardly creature, turning a penny as she could, in a way forbidden by the laws of the land ; quite ready to make up by artifice for any lack of reality ; who cast her line into the infinite shadows, and was somewhat appalled by what it brought up. There is a tone of reproof in the voice of the departed friend : “ Why hast thou disquieted me, to bring me up?” And when Saul says, “ God hath forsaken us, and will not answer,” the reproving shade replies, “ Wherefore come to me , seeing God hath become thine enemy ? ” In all this is the voice of the true and loyal prophet, who from a child had sought God, and God alone, in every emergency, and ever found him true and faithful. This story has its parallel in our days. In our times there is a God and Father always nigh to those who diligently seek him. There is communion with spirits through Jesus, the great High- Priest. There are promises of guidance in difficulties and sup- port under trials to all who come to God by Him. In our days, too, there are those who propose, for the relief of human perplexities and the balm for human sorrows, a recourse to those who have familiar spirits, and profess to call back to us those who are at rest with God. Now, while there is no objection to a strict philosophical inves- tigation and analysis and record of these phenomena considered as psychological facts, while, in fact, such investigation is loudly called for as the best remedy for superstition, there is great dan- ger to the mind and moral sense in seeking them as guides in our perplexities or coynforters in our sorrows. And the danger is just this, that they take the place of that communion with God and that filial intercourse with him which is alone the true source of light and comfort. Most especially, to those whose souls are weakened by the anguish of some great bereavement, is the seeking of those that have familiar spirits to be dreaded. Who could bear to expose to the eye of a paid medium the sanctuary of our most sacred love and sorrow? and how fearful is the thought that some wandering spirit, in the voice and with the tone and manner of those dearest to us, may lead us astray to trust in those who are not God ! 15 WOMAN IN SAC BED HISTORY. The most dangerous feature we know of in these professed spirit-messages is their constant tendency to place themselves before our minds as our refuge and confidence rather than God. “ Seek us, trust us, believe in us, rely on us,” — such is always the voice that comes from them. In Isaiah viii. 19, the prophet describes a time of great affliction and sorrow coming upon the Jews, when they would be driven to seek supernatural aid. He says : “ And when they shall say unto you, Seek unto them that have familiar spirits, and to wizards that peep and mutter ; should not a nation seek unto their God ? should the living seek unto the dead ? To the law, and to the testimony ; if they speak not according to this word, there is no light in them.” The prophet goes on to say that those who thus turn from God to these sources of comfort “ shall be hardly bestead and hungry, and shall fret themselves.” All our observation of those who have sought to these sources of comfort has been that they fall into just this restless hunger of mind, an appetite forever growing and never satisfied ; and as their steps go farther and farther from the true source of all com- fort, the hunger and thirst increase. How much more beautiful, safe, and sure that good old way of trust in God ! The writer has had a somewhat large observation of the very best and most remarkable phenomena of that which is claimed to be spirit communion ; she does not doubt the reality of many very re- markable appearances and occurrences ; she has only respectful and tender sympathy for those whose heart-sorrows they have consoled. But when this way of guidance and consolation is put in the place of that direct filial access to God through Jesus which the Bible reveals, it must be looked upon as the most illu- sive and insidious of dangers. The phenomena, whatever they are, belong to forces too little understood, to laws too much un- known, that we should trust ourselves to them in the most delicate, critical, and sacred wants of our life. Better than all is the way spoken of by Jesus when he, the Comforter, Guide, Teacher, Friend, will manifest himself to the faithful soul as he does not to the world : “If a man love me, he will keep my words, and my Father will love him, and we will come and make our abode with him.” Esther the Queen . . ' # . - . BOULLANGEP PiN'X. OUEEN ESTHER . QUEEN ESTHER. HE story of Esther belongs to that dark period in Jew- ish history when the national institutions were to all human view destroyed. The Jews were scattered up and down through the provinces captives and slaves, with no rights but what their conquerors might choose to give them. Without a temple, without an altar, without a priesthood, they could only cling to their religion as a memory of the past, and with some dim hopes for the future. In this depressed state, there was a conspiracy, armed by the regal power, to exterminate the whole race, and this terrible danger was averted by the beau- ty and grace, the courage and prudence, of one woman. The portrait of this heroine comes to us in a flush of Oriental splen- dor. Her story reads like a romance, yet her memory, in our very prosaic days, is embalmed as a reality, by a yearly festival devoted to it. Every year the festival of Purim in every land and country whither the Jews are scattered, reminds the world that the romance has been a reality, and the woman whose beauty and fascination were the moving power in it was no creation of fancy. The style of the book of Esther is peculiar. It has been held by learned Jews to be a compilation made by Mordecai from the Persian annals. The name of Jehovah nowhere occurs in it, although frequent mention is made of fasting and prayer. The king Ahasuerus is supposed by the best informed to be the Xerxes of Herodotus, and the time of the story previous to the celebrated expedition of that monarch against Greece. The hun- dred and twenty-seven provinces over which he reigned are pic- turesquely set forth by Herodotus in his celebrated description of the marshaling of this great army. The vanity, ostentation, childish passionateness, and disregard of human life ascribed to WOMAN IN SACKED HISTORY. the king in this story are strikingly like other incidents related by Herodotus. When a father came to him imploring that he would spare one of his sons from going to the war, Xerxes immediately com- manded the young man to be slain and divided, and the wretched father was obliged to march between the mangled remains. This was to illustrate forcibly that no human being had any rights but the king, and that it was presumptuous even to wish to retain anything from his service. The armies of Xerxes were not led to battle by leaders in front, but driven from behind with whips like cattle. When the king’s bridge of boats across the Hellespont was destroyed by a storm, he fell into a fury, and ordered the sea to be chastised with stripes, and fetters to be thrown into it, with the admonition, u O thou salt and bitter water, it is thus that thy master chastises thy insolence ! ” We have the picture, in Herodotus, of the king seated at ease on his royal throne, on an eminence, beholding the various ranks of his army as they were driven like so many bullocks into battle. When the battle went against him, he would leap from his throne in furies of impotent rage. It is at the court of this monarch, proud, vain, passionate, and ostentatious, that the story opens, with a sort of dazzle of East- ern splendor. “Now it came to pass, in the days of Ahasuerus, which reigned from India even unto Ethiopia, over an hundred and twenty and seven provinces, that in those days, when King Ahasuerus sat on the throne of his kingdom, which was in Shushan the palace, in the third year of his reign, he made a feast unto all his princes and his servants ; the powers of Persia and Media, the nobles and princes of the provinces, being' before him : when he showed them the riches of his glorious kingdom and the honor of his excellent majesty.” On the last seven days of the feast the royal palace is thrown open to the populace of Shushan. The writer goes on to am- plify and give particulars : In the courts of the king’s garden were couches of gold and silver, on a pavement of colored marbles, with hangings of white, green, and blue, fastened by cords of purple and fine linen to silver rings in marble pillars. QUEEN ESTHER. There was wine poured forth in costly goblets of very quaint and rare device. Vashti, the queen, at the same time made a feast to all the women in the royal house which belonged to the king. In the year 1819 Sir Robert Ker Porter visited and explored the ruins of this city of Shushan. His travels were printed for private circulation, and are rare and costly. They contain elegant drawings and restorations of the palace at Per- sepolis which would well illustrate this story, and give an idea of the architectural splendor of the scenery of the drama here presented. Of Shushan itself, — otherwise Susa, — he gives only one or two drawings of fragmentary ruins. The “satyrs have long danced and the bitterns cried” in these halls then so gay and glorious, though little did the king then dream of that. At the close of the long revel, when the king was inflated to the very ultimatum of ostentatious vanity, he resolves, as a last glorification of self, to exhibit the unveiled beauty of his Queen Yashti to all the princes and lords of his empire. Now, if we consider the abject condition of all men in that day before the king, we shall stand amazed that there was a woman found at the head of the Persian empire that dared to disobey the command even of a drunken monarch. It is true that the thing required was, according to Oriental customs, an indecency as great as if a modern husband should propose to his wife to exhibit her naked person. Yashti was reduced to the place where a woman deliberately chooses death before dishonor. The naive account of the counsel of the king and princes about this first stand for woman’s rights — their fear that the example might infect other wives with a like spirit, and weaken the authority of husbands — is certainly a most delightful specimen of ancient simplicity. It shows us that the male sex, with all their force of physical mastery, hold everywhere, even in the undeveloped states of civilization, an almost even-handed conflict with those subtler and more ethereal forces which are ever at the disposal of women. It appears that the chief councilors and mighty men of Persia could scarcely hold their own with their wives, and felt as if the least toleration would set them all out into open WOMAN IN SACRED HISTORY. rebellion. So Vasliti is deposed, nem. con., by the concurrent voice of all the princes of the Medes and Persians. Then comes the account of the steps taken to secure another queen. All the beautiful virgins through all the hundred and twenty-seven provinces are caught, caged, and sent traveling to- wards Shushan, and delivered over to the keeping of the chief eunuch, like so many birds and butterflies, waiting their turn to be sent in to the king. Among them all a Jewish maiden, of an enslaved, oppressed race, is the favored one. Before all the beau- ties of the provinces Esther is preferred, and the crown royal is set upon her head. What charmed about Esther was, perhaps, the reflection of a soul from her beautiful face. Every one of the best class of J ewish women felt secretly exalted by her conception of the dignity of her nation as chosen by the one true Grod, and destined to bring into the world the great prince and Messiah who should reign over the earth. These religious ideas inspired in them a lofty and heroic cast of mind that even captivity could not subdue. At all events there was something about Esther that gave her a power to charm and fix the passions of this voluptuous and ostentatious monarch. Esther is the adopted daughter of her kinsman Mordecai, and the narrative says that “ Esther did the commandment of Mordecai, like as when she was brought up with him.” At his command she forbears to declare her nationality and lineage, and Mordecai refrains from any con- nection with her that would compromise her as related to an obscure captive, though the story says he walked every day before the court of the woman’s house to know how Esther did, and what should become of her. In these walks around the palace he overhears a conspiracy of two chamberlains to murder the king, and acquaints Esther of the danger. The conspirators are executed, and the record passes into the Persian annals with the name of Mordecai the Jew, but no particular honor or reward is accorded to him at that time. Meanwhile, a foreign adventurer named Hainan rises suddenly to influence and power, and becomes prime minister to the king. This story is a sort of door, opening into the interior of a despotic court, showing the strange and sudden reverses of for- QUEEN ESTHER. tune which attended that phase of human existence. Haman, inflated with self-consequence, as upstart adventurers generally are, is enraged at Mordecai for neglecting to prostrate himself before him as the other hangers-on of the court do. Safe in his near relationship to the queen, Mordecai appears to have felt himself free to indulge in the expensive and dangerous luxury of quiet contempt for the all-powerful favorite of the king. It is most astounding next to read how Haman, having re- solved to take vengeance on Mordecai by exterminating his whole nation, thus glibly and easily wins over the king to his scheme. “There is a nation,” he says, “scattered abroad throughout all the provinces of the king’s kingdom, and their laws are diverse from all people, neither keep they the king’s laws, therefore it is not for the king’s profit to suffer them.” “If it please the king let it be written that they may be de- stroyed, and I will pay ten thousand talents of silver to the hands of them that have the charge of the business, to bring it into the king’s treasury.” It is fashionable in our times to speak of the contempt and dis- regard shown to women in this period of the world among Orien- tal races, but this one incident shows that women were held no cheaper than men. Human beings were cheap. The massacre of hundreds of thousands was negotiated in an easy, off-hand way, just as a gardener ordains exterminating sulphur for the green bugs on his plants. The king answered to Haman, “ The silver is given thee, and the people also, to do as seemeth to thee good.” Then, says the story, “ the king’s scribes were called on the thirteenth day of the first month, and there was written according to all that Haman had commanded, and the letters were sent by post into all the provinces, to destroy and to kill and cause to perish all Jews, both old and young, little children and women, in one day, of the twelfth month, which is the month Adar, to take the spoil of them for a prey. The posts went out, being hastened by the king’s commandment, and the king and Haman sat down to drink , but the city of Shushan was perplexed . 11 And when Mordecai heard this he rent his clothes and put on sackcloth with ashes, and went into the midst of the city, and came even before WOMAN IN SACRED HISTORY. the king’s gate, for none might enter into the king’s gate clothed in sackcloth. The Oriental monarch was supposed to dwell in eternal bliss and joyfulness : no sight or sound of human suffering or weakness or pain must disturb the tranquility of his court ; he must not even suspect the existence of such a thing as sorrow. Far in the luxurious repose of the women’s apartments, sunk upon embroidered cushions, listening to the warbling of birds and the plash of fountains, Esther the queen knew nothing of the decree that had gone forth against her people. The report was brought her by her chamberlain that her kinsman was in sack- cloth, and she sent to take it away and clothe him with costly garments, but he refused the attention and persisted in his mourn- ing. Then the queen sent her chief chamberlain to inquire what was the cause of his distress, and Mordecai sent a copy of the de- cree, with a full account of how and by whom it had been ob- tained, and charging her to go and make supplication to the king for her people. Esther returned answer : “ All the king’s servants do know that whosoever, man or woman, shall come in to the king in the inner court, who is not called, there is one law to put them to death, except those to whom the king shall hold out the golden scepter that he may live, but I have not been called to appear before the king for thirty days.” We have here the first thoughts of a woman naturally humble and timid, knowing herself one of the outlawed race, and fearing, from the long silence of the king, that his heart may have been set against her by the enemies of her people. Mordecai sent in reply to this a sterner message ; u Think not with thyself that thou shalt escape in the king’s house more than all the Jews. For if thou altogether boldest thy peace at this time, then shall there enlargement and deliverance arise to the J ews from another quar- ter, but thou and thy father’s house shall be cut off ; and who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this ? ” And Esther sends this reply : 11 Go, gather together all the J ews that are in Shushan, and fast ye for me ; neither eat nor drink for three days, night or day ; and I and my maidens will fast likewise. And so I will go in unto the king, which is not according to law ; and if I perish, I perish.” QTJEEN ESTHER. There are certain apochryphal additions to the book of Esther, which are supposed to be the efforts of some romancer in en- larging upon a historic theme. In it is given at length a prayer of Mordecai in this distress, and a detailed account of the visit of Esther to the king. The writer says, that, though she carried a smiling face, “her heart was in anguish for fear,” and she fell fainting upon the shoulder of her maid. Our own account is briefer, and relates simply how the king saw Esther the queen standing in the court, and she obtained favor in his eyes, and he held out the golden scepter, and said to her, “ What wilt thou, Queen Esther, what is thy request % and it shall be given thee, even to half of the kingdom.” Too prudent to enter at once into a discussion of the grand subject, Esther seeks an occasion to study the king and Haman together more nearly, and her request is only that the king and Haman would come that day to a pri- vate banquet in the queen’s apartments. It was done, and the king and Haman both came. At the banquet her fascinations again draw from the king the permission to make known any request of her heart, and it shall be given, even to half of his kingdom. Still delaying the final issue, Esther asks that both the king and his minister may come to a second banquet on the morrow. Haman appears to have been excessively flattered at this attention from the queen, of whose nationality he was profoundly ignorant ; but as he passed by and saw Mordecai in his old seat in the king’s gate, “ that he stood not up neither moved for him,” he was full of indignation. He goes home to his domestic circle, and amplifies the account of his court successes and glories, and that even the queen has distin- guished him with an invitation which was shared by no one but the king. Yet, he says, in the end, all this availeth me nothing, so long as I see Mordecai the Jew sitting in the king’s gate. His wife is fruitful in resources. “ Erect a gibbet,” she says, “ and to-morrow speak to the king, and have Mordecai hanged, and go thou merrily to the banquet.” And the thing pleased Haman, and he caused the gallows to be made. On that night the king could not sleep, and calls an attendant, by way of opiate, to read the prosy and verbose records of his 16 WOMAN IN SAC END IIISTOEY. kingdom, — probably having often found this a sovereign expedi- ent for inducing drowsiness. Then, by accident, his ear catches the account of the conspiracy which had been averted by Mor- decai. u What honor hath been shown this man ? ” he inquires ; and his servants answered, There is nothing done for him. The king’s mind runs upon the subject, and early in the morning, per- ceiving Haman standing as an applicant in the outer court, he calls to have him admitted. Haman came, with his mind full of the gallows and Mordecai. The king’s mind was full, also, of Mordecai, and he had the advantage of the right of speaking first. In the enigmatic style sometimes employed by Oriental monarchs, he inquires, “ What shall be done with the man whom the king delighteth to honor ? ” Haman, thinking this the preface to some new honor to himself, proposes a scheme. The man whom the king delights to honor shall be clothed in the king’s royal robes, wear the king’s crown, be mounted on the king’s horse, and thus be led through the streets by one of the king’s chief councilors, proclaiming, “ This is the man whom the king delighteth to honor.” “ Then said the king : Make haste, and do even so as thou hast said unto Mordecai the Jew that sittetli in the king’s gate. Let nothing fail of all that thou hast spoken.” And Haman, without daring to remonstrate, goes forth and fulfills the king’s command, with what grace and willingness may be imagined. It is evident from the narrative that the king had not even taken the trouble to inquire the name of the people he had given up to extermination any more than he had troubled himself to re- ward the man who had saved his life. In both cases he goes on blindly, and is indebted to mere chance for his discoveries. We see in all this the same passionate, childish nature that is recorded of Xerxes by Herodotus when he scourged the sea for destroying his bridge of boats. When Haman comes back to his house after