127377273 all-about-abraham-s-sarah

ALL ABOUT ABRAHAM'S SARAH
Written and edited by Glenn Pease
PREFACE
I have gathered together the studies of others, along with my own, on this
woman,wife and mother who, with Abraham, became the father and mother of the
great religions of history.
CONTENTS
1. BIBLE TEXTS ABOUT SARAH
2. SARAH BY GUSTAV GOTTHEIL.
3. SARAH By THOMAS E. MILLER, M.A.
4. SARAH By ALEXANDER WHYTE
5. SARAH THE PRINCESS By H. A. THOMPSON
6. SARAH THE STEADFAST BY George Matheson
7. SARAH:MOTHER OF NATIONS By GlennPease
8. SARAH AND REBEKAH BY Lyman Abbott
9. SARAH AND HAGAR by ASHTON
10. SARAH BY FRANCIS COX
11. THE ALLEGORIES OF SARAH AND HAGAR BY SPURGEON
12. SARAH. BY Frances Manwaring Caulkins
13. THE WIFE-SARAH. AMERICAN SUNDAY-SCHOOL UNION.
14. SARAH BY Phineas Camp Headley

15. SARAH BY Rev. Monsignor BERNARD O REILLY, D.D., L.D.
16. SARAH THE PRINCESS, BY HARRIET BEECHER STOWE.
17. SARAH, OBEDIENT WIFE BY W. MACKINTOSH MACKAY
1. BIBLE TEXTS ABOUT SARAH
GEN 11:29 Abram and Nahor both married. The name of Abram's wife was Sarai,
and the name of Nahor's wife was Milcah; she was the daughter of Haran, the
father of both Milcah and Iscah.
30 Now Sarai was barren; she had no children.
31 Terah took his son Abram, his grandson Lot son of Haran, and his
daughter-in-law Sarai, the wife of his son Abram, and together they set out from
Ur of the Chaldeans to go to Canaan. But when they came to Haran, they settled
there.
12:5 He took his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, all the possessions they had
accumulated and the people they had acquired in Haran, and they set out for the
land of Canaan, and they arrived there.
10 Now there was a famine in the land, and Abram went down to Egypt to live
there for a while because the famine was severe.
11 As he was about to enter Egypt, he said to his wife Sarai, "I know what a
beautiful woman you are.
12 When the Egyptians see you, they will say, 'This is his wife.' Then
they will kill me but will let you live.
13 Say you are my sister, so that I will be treated well for your sake and
my life will be spared because of you."
14 When Abram came to Egypt, the Egyptians saw that she was a very

beautiful woman.
15 And when Pharaoh's officials saw her, they praised her to Pharaoh, and she
was taken into his palace.
16 He treated Abram well for her sake, and Abram acquired sheep and
cattle, male and female donkeys, menservants and maidservants, and camels.
17 But the LORD inflicted serious diseases on Pharaoh and his household because
of Abram's wife Sarai.
18 So Pharaoh summoned Abram. "What have you done to me?" he said. "Why
didn't you tell me she was your wife?
19 Why did you say, 'She is my sister,' so that I took her to be my wife?
Now then, here is your wife. Take her and go!"
20 Then Pharaoh gave orders about Abram to his men, and they sent him on his
way, with his wife and everything he had.
16:1 Now Sarai, Abram's wife, had borne him no children. But she had an
Egyptian maidservant named Hagar;
2 so she said to Abram, "The LORD has kept me from having children. Go, sleep
with my maidservant; perhaps I can build a family through her." Abram agreed to
what Sarai said.
3 So after Abram had been living in Canaan ten years, Sarai his wife took her
Egyptian maidservant Hagar and gave her to her husband to be his wife.
4 He slept with Hagar, and she conceived. When she knew she was pregnant, she
began to despise her mistress.
5 Then Sarai said to Abram, "You are responsible for the wrong I am
suffering. I put my servant in your arms, and now that she knows she is
pregnant, she despises me. May the LORD judge between you and me."
6 "Your servant is in your hands," Abram said. "Do with her whatever you think
best." Then Sarai mistreated Hagar; so she fled from her.
17:15 God also said to Abraham, "As for Sarai your wife, you are no longer to call
her Sarai; her name will be Sarah.

16 I will bless her and will surely give you a son by her. I will bless
her so that she will be the mother of nations; kings of peoples will come
from her."
17 Abraham fell facedown; he laughed and said to himself, "Will a son be born to
a man a hundred years old? Will Sarah bear a child at the age of ninety?"
18 And Abraham said to God, "If only Ishmael might live under your
blessing!"
19 Then God said, "Yes, but your wife Sarah will bear you a son, and you will call
him Isaac. I will establish my covenant with him as an
everlasting covenant for his descendants after him.
20 And as for Ishmael, I have heard you: I will surely bless him; I will
make him fruitful and will greatly increase his numbers. He will be the
father of twelve rulers, and I will make him into a great nation.
21 But my covenant I will establish with Isaac, whom Sarah will bear to
you by this time next year."
18:9 "Where is your wife Sarah?" they asked him. "There, in the tent," he said.
10 Then the LORD said, "I will surely return to you about this time next
year, and Sarah your wife will have a son." Now Sarah was listening at the
entrance to the tent, which was behind him.
11 Abraham and Sarah were already old and well advanced in years, and Sarah
was past the age of childbearing.
12 So Sarah laughed to herself as she thought, "After I am worn out and my
master is old, will I now have this pleasure?"
13 Then the LORD said to Abraham, "Why did Sarah laugh and say, 'Will I really
have a child, now that I am old?'
14 Is anything too hard for the LORD? I will return to you at the
appointed time next year and Sarah will have a son."
15 Sarah was afraid, so she lied and said, "I did not laugh." But he said,
"Yes, you did laugh."

20:1 Now Abraham moved on from there into the region of the Negev and lived
between Kadesh and Shur. For a while he stayed in Gerar,
2 and there Abraham said of his wife Sarah, "She is my sister." Then
Abimelech king of Gerar sent for Sarah and took her.
3 But God came to Abimelech in a dream one night and said to him, "You are as
good as dead because of the woman you have taken; she is a married woman."
4 Now Abimelech had not gone near her, so he said, "Lord, will you destroy an
innocent nation?
5 Did he not say to me, 'She is my sister,' and didn't she also say, 'He
is my brother'? I have done this with a clear conscience and clean hands."
6 Then God said to him in the dream, "Yes, I know you did this with a
clear conscience, and so I have kept you from sinning against me. That is
why I did not let you touch her.
7 Now return the man's wife, for he is a prophet, and he will pray for you and you
will live. But if you do not return her, you may be sure that you and all yours will
die."
8 Early the next morning Abimelech summoned all his officials, and when he told
them all that had happened, they were very much afraid.
9 Then Abimelech called Abraham in and said, "What have you done to us? How
have I wronged you that you have brought such great guilt upon me and my
kingdom? You have done things to me that should not be done."
10 And Abimelech asked Abraham, "What was your reason for doing this?"
11 Abraham replied, "I said to myself, 'There is surely no fear of God in this place,
and they will kill me because of my wife.'
12 Besides, she really is my sister, the daughter of my father though not
of my mother; and she became my wife.
13 And when God had me wander from my father's household, I said to her, 'This
is how you can show your love to me: Everywhere we go, say of me, "He is my
brother."'"

14 Then Abimelech brought sheep and cattle and male and female slaves and gave
them to Abraham, and he returned Sarah his wife to him.
15 And Abimelech said, "My land is before you; live wherever you like."
16 To Sarah he said, "I am giving your brother a thousand shekels of
silver. This is to cover the offense against you before all who are with
you; you are completely vindicated."
21:1 Now the LORD was gracious to Sarah as he had said, and the LORD did for
Sarah what he had promised.
2 Sarah became pregnant and bore a son to Abraham in his old age, at the very
time God had promised him.
3 Abraham gave the name Isaac to the son Sarah bore him.
6 Sarah said, "God has brought me laughter, and everyone who hears about this
will laugh with me."
7 And she added, "Who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse
children? Yet I have borne him a son in his old age."
8 The child grew and was weaned, and on the day Isaac was weaned Abraham
held a great feast.
9 But Sarah saw that the son whom Hagar the Egyptian had borne to Abraham
was mocking,
10 and she said to Abraham, "Get rid of that slave woman and her son, for that
slave woman's son will never share in the inheritance with my son Isaac."
11 The matter distressed Abraham greatly because it concerned his son.
12 But God said to him, "Do not be so distressed about the boy and your
maidservant. Listen to whatever Sarah tells you, because it is through
Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.
13 I will make the son of the maidservant into a nation also, because he
is your offspring."

14 Early the next morning Abraham took some food and a skin of water and gave
them to Hagar. He set them on her shoulders and then sent her off with the boy.
She went on her way and wandered in the desert of Beersheba.
23:1 Sarah lived to be a hundred and twenty-seven years old.
2 She died at Kiriath Arba (that is, Hebron) in the land of Canaan, and
Abraham went to mourn for Sarah and to weep over her.
19 Afterward Abraham buried his wife Sarah in the cave in the field of
Machpelah near Mamre (which is at Hebron) in the land of Canaan.
25:10 the field Abraham had bought from the Hittites. There Abraham was buried
with his wife Sarah.
HEB 11:11 By faith Abraham, even though he was past age--and Sarah herself was
barren--was enabled to become a father because he considered him faithful who
had made the promise.
1PE 3:5 For this is the way the holy women of the past who put their hope in God
used to make themselves beautiful. They were submissive to their own husbands,
2. SARAH BY GUSTAV GOTTHEIL
AS it is written " Sarah means princess.
If that name was given the First-mother
of the Hebrews in childhood
for her temperament, it was veritable prophecy.
All we know of her shows her a woman of
a strong, determined, and self - asserting will.
Originally the name was not spelled that way,
but Sarai. The change did not happen acci-dentally,
or from a whim of the bearer, but at
the bidding of God Himself, and for the pur-pose
of being a sign —

" That God will bless her and give Abraham a son of
her . . . that she shall be a mother of many nations,
kings of the peoples shall be of her."
In what manner the substitution of the one
letter for the other could become, as it were, a
seal of the covenant — this is still one of the
problems of the commentators. There exists
21
WOMEN OF THE BIBLE
among the Jews a sort of cabalistic tradition
that the Hebrew letter yod signifies the creative
power of God in nature, while the letter hay
symbolizes the might of God in the state of
grace — ^that state into which Sarah had entered
after receiving the covenanted promises. For
corroboration of this view its propounders point
to the fact that the name of Sarah's husband
underwent a similar modification by the addi-tion
of the identical letter, with a like signifi-cance.
Abram became Abraham because God
had said to him,
** A father of many nations have I made thee, and I
will make thee exceeding fruitful, and I will make
nations of thee, and kings shall come out of thee." —
Geti,^ xvii.
However this may be, the change of form in
no wise aflFects its root meaning, which is, to

rule. It fits the personality of the bearer so
well that those antiquarians who look upon the
ancient tales ^ relics merely and fragments of
defunct Semitic mythologies rely upon the co-incidence
of name and character as to one of
the supports of their hypothesis. They deny the
SARAH
historical character of the patriotic stories. But
even on their showing, the ancient^ or, if I may
use the term, the aboriginal, Hebrews show, in
this process transformation^ thb opposite ten-dency
to all the surrounding tribeSi The latter
invariably elevated their ancestors to the rank
of deities, seated them among the gods, and
instituted special rites of Worship to every one
of them. But if the mythologists are right, the
Hebrews dethroned their idols, called them by
human names, and told of their doings and their
mifedoings, their favor and their disfavor in the
eyes of Jehovah, with a coolness that proves that
the narrator, at all events, thought of no other
beings than ancestors of flesh and blood.
This is evidenced so clearly by their astonish**
ing power of characterization and individual-i2ation.
Why, right here before us we have a
picture which could not be drawn more distinct*-
ly by the hand of an accomplished artist of to-day.
By the side of Sarah, with her domineer-ing,
unsparing, and unyielding ways— ^Abraham,
a pattern of gentleness, kindness, forbtarancri, a

man possessed of that quality which the Germans
>3
WOMEN OF THE BIBLE
call Menschenfreundlichkeit This character is
so uniformly shown by the patriarch that one is
forced to the conclusion that the long peace in
the matrimonial tent was much more due to the
male than the female side, unless, indeed, we be-lieve
in Shiller's statement :
"Denn wo das Strenge mit dem Weichen
Sich vereint zum guten Zeichen,
Da giebt es einen guten Klang."
But, to be just, let us not forget that Sarah
wielded a sceptre by the magic of which she
could lord it over men's hearts after her own
will, even bring kings to her feet. If she came
into the world with a will of her own as her
dowry, nature further assisted her in developing
it by the great beauty of her face and the grace
of her stature. By these gifts she made her wish
a command and disarmed opposition. The
Scripture repeatedly calls her beautiful — so
beautiful, indeed, that she sometimes imperilled
the life of her husband. Hebrew folk-lore,
echoes of which reach our ear in the rabbinical
glosses to the sacred text, have kept alive some

SARAH
of the stories that were told of Sarah's beauty in
the tents of her descendants. Her rank, it was
said, was, in that respect, second only to Eve,
" the mother of all living," The latter, being the
direct creation of God, needs must be the high-est
ideal of female perfection (so the people's
mind reasoned), and therefore the special object
of hatred of Satan. With her at her post and
unshaken in her obedience, his chances of ruin-ing
the first home on earth, his chances of mis-chief-
making, would be poor ; but he also knew
that the only allurement that could tempt Eve
would be the vision of a higher degree of exist-ence,
and he laid his plan accordingly. "Ye
shall be like unto God, knowing good and evil."
The tempter succeeded only too well with Eve ;
Adam's fall followed as a matter of course — how
can it be otherwise with any man whose home
has been broken up f Too well, I said, but not
quite as he intended. For the wise men of to-day
assure us that, in a Paradise of God's own
planting, sinners can only " fall upwards." It is
a pretty long time since mankind has been fall-ing
in that direction — are we any nearer the goal
WOMEN OF THE BIBLE
of •* knowing good and evil " ? Who is right,
England or the Boers ? The answer will not be
rendered until the last shot in this war has been
fired, and ten thousand graves filled that did not
rightfully belong to death, and ten thousand

homes devasted where, but for that discussion,
happiness and peace might still reign! And
what a solution it will be^^Das sich Gott
erbarm I
But this is aside from our purpose— we were
speaking of what the Palestinian legend told of
Sarah '4 beauty. It was of that nature over which
time has no power— nay, that grows more attract
tive with accumulating years. Of the things that
are unfavorable to the preservation of beauty, the
Orientals count travel as one that is most bane-ful,
even fatal to it Yet when Sarah arrived,
after a long journey through dusty deserts and
under a scorching sun, at the frontiers of Egypt,
she was more beautiful than ever, and this ex^
plains the curious speech of Abraham to his wife
at that juncture : *< Now I know that thou art a
woman beautiful to look at." Did he not know
that before ? Not so convincingly, explain the
96
SARAH
rabbles, as after he had seen that even travel
had left no trace on her countenance. But that
which under different conditions would have
filled his heart with joy now made him tremble
for' his own safety. Aliens had no rights what-ever
in those days. The Egyptians, he feared,
on seeing Sarah, would make short^work of him;
they would kill the husband and appropriate his

wife. In his anxiety he fell upon a curious de*
vice (so the legend tells). He made a box of
common wood, and placed Sarah in it Arrived
at the city gate, the tax-gatherer demanded the
king's impost.
** I am willing to pay it," said Abraham.
" Then tell me what thou carriest in the box ;
is it lamb-skins dyed violet ?"
*• I will pay for lamb-skins."
" Perhaps it is silken garments ?"
•* I will pay for silken garments."
" Perhaps it is pearls thou hidest there ?"
" I will pay for pearls."
" If thou dost not tell, we must open the box ";
and as they did so, a ray of light flashed over the
city, which excited the curiosity of the courtiers.
37
WOMEN OF THE BIBLE
Thus it was that the news of the arrival of the
world-renowned woman reached the king's ears.
Forthwith he commanded that she be brought
before him. Once seen, he would not let her de-part
again, and it needed Divine intervention to

restore her to her husband.
The legend reads, better than the Bible story,
so far as the characters of the dramatis personce
are concerned. In the Bible we find Abraham
resorting to a falsehood to save his life, Sarah
consenting willingly. He said to her :
" It shall come to pass, when the Egyptians shall see
thee, that they shall say. This is his wife : and they
will kill me, but they will save thee alive. Say, I pray
thee, thou art my sister : that it may be w.ell with me
for thy sake, and my soul shall live because of thee."
Considering that a question of life and death
is as severe a test as a man's conscience can be
subjecte<5 to, it is not fair to condemn him out-right
if he seeks to save himself by a subter-fuge
; for the pretence was not a lie outright, a
half-truth only, since Sarah was his half-sister;
they were children of the same father, but not of
the same mother ; moreover, it was not fear for
23
SARAH
his own life alone by which he was actuated —
but anxiety for Sarah*s fate also. For what
would become of her if she remained unpro-tected
in the hands of her captor ? She would
be cast out again as she was brought in, or be-come
one of the handmaidens of the royal
household.

And so we see Sarah play her proud part
even unto the end, and hear not a word in miti-gation
of her conduct. Yet this might have
been easily done. For that queenly woman,
that held her surroundings in undisputed sub-jection,
was not a happy woman ; far from it ;
nay, carried death in her heart. The one recog-nized
token of heavenly favor was denied her —
she bore no children. In motherhood these an-cient
Hebrews saw the crown of womanhood.
For its absence earth had no compensation, as
the stories of Rachel and Hannah show. No
doubt Sarah was made to feel her inferiority to
the poorest woman that came to her tent asking
for food and shelter with a babe in her arms.
How deeply Abraham shared this humiliation
we learn from the answer he made to God
29
WOMEN OF THE BIBLE
when, as it were, the Almighty Himself tried to
comfort him by His gracious promise :
" Fear not, Abram, I am with thee ; I am thy shield ;
thy reward shall be very great. And Abram said : Lord
God, what wilt Thou give me, seeing I go childless, and
the steward of my house is this Eliezer of Damascus ?"
To the latter, or his son, it seems, belonged
the right of succession, according to the law of

the time. In her despair, Sarah resorted to a
step which must have filled her cup of bitter-ness
to the brim. She gave Abram her own
handmaid Hagar for his secondary wife, making
her a rival in the love^ of her husband. Who
was that Hagar ? Legend knows her pedigree.
She was a daughter of Pharaoh, the king of
Egypt, the same who coveted the possession of
Sarah in vain. Such was the attachment of the
Egyptian princess to the Canaanite woman that
she declared to her royal father her determina-tion
to accompany the stranger when the latter
was returned to her husband. What! cried the
king; thou wilt be no more than a handmaid to
her ! Better to be a handmaid in the tents of
Abraham than a princess in this palace. And
30
SARAH
the reason for this heroic resolve ? Why, the
Jewish theologians knew that as well. Sarah
was an active missionary of the new faith
among women, as Abraham was among men.
Hagar would not stay behind and join again the
idolatrous rites of her home. But — and here
we take up the thread of the biblical narrative
again — human nature remains human nature,
even in converts. No sooner did the hope of
motherhood spring up in her heart than " her mis-tress
was despised in her eyes." Sarah laid the
blame for this upon her husband, because in her
complaint to him she cried, '* The Lord judge

between me and thee." The kind-hearted soul,
as he was, what could he do but let Sarah dis-cipline
her maid as she found proper? "And
when Sarah dealt hardly with Hagar," she fled
from her face. But whither was she to go?
Her good angel convinced her erelong that she
must " return to her mistress and submit herself
under her hands." For the child must be born
in the house of Abraham, if his rights of succes-sion
wete to be recognized at all. This hap-pened,
and, for a time, peace was restored;
31
WOMEN OF THE BIBLE
which, however, was not a long time. For that
which neither Sarah nor •'the Father of the
Faithful " dared to hope, in the face of repeated
promises of God, did occur — Sarah bore a son,
to whom the name of Isaac was given ; a name
which lends itself to various applications, be-cause
its root meaning is, to laugh ; and tlie
mother interpreted it in this wise: God has
made me a laughing-stock. She said this on
account of Hagar, who sneered at her mistress
for her vain hope to rob Ishmael of his rights as
the first-born of Abraham. The crisis was not
long in coming. Once upon a day Sarah over-heard
Ishmael taunting Isaac with his lower
rank in the household. This was more than

she could tolerate. Living together had become
impossible, and who should give way for the
other was not questionable to her. She de-manded
the sending away of the rival mother
with her son. But « the thing was grievous in
the sight of Abraham," and he flatly refused to
consent to so ruthless a measure ; we infer this
from the fact that it needed the reassuring
direction of God to make him yield :
32
SARAH
" And God said unto Abraham, Let it not be g^evous
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 progeny
be called. And also of the son of the bondwoman will
I make a nation, because he is of thy progeny."
The pathetic story of Hagar's wanderings in
the desert has been carried to the ends of the
earth by both Bible and Koran, and still appeals
to the hearts of men, while Sarah's triumph is
accounted a disgrace to her. It is the last act
of her life which is told in Scripture; of her
death we hear no more than that it occurred at
Hebron at the age of one hundred and twenty,
and that Abraham came "to mourn for Sarah
and to weep for her." The expression he came
affords the clue to a legend which casts a tragic
light over her death-bed. It tells that Abraham

had left his home to go to Moriah secretly, as
he was afraid to let the mother know the terrible
purpose of that journey. But when she learned
that he had. taken Isaac with him, and likewise
wood and fire and a knife, the horrible suspicion
dawned on her that her son might be the sacri-fice
the father would offer, and the thought so
c 33
WOMEN OF THE BIBLE
terrified her that she died from the shock ! So
that Abraham came home only to " mourn and
to weep for Sarah," although her son was by his
side unharmed. Had she been alive she might
have received him back from the hands of God,
and heard with delight of the angel's voice that
restrained the hand of the over-devout father.
" Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do
thou anything unto him : for now I know that
thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld
thy son, thine only son, from me." But eye and
ear of the mother were closed forever to earthly
things, and the heart stilled forever beyond the
reach of the terrors to which human flesh, and es-pecially
mothers' hearts, are heir. Legends are
often of deeper significance than we see in them ;
they reflect thoughts and feelings which darkly
move the popular mind, but which it has not the
gift to clothe in words. Stories must serve as
mediums of expression. There ^Vas nothing in
the life of Sarah that appealed to the sympathy
of the people. She always carried her will with

a high hand, and no deed was recorded of her
that revealed tenderness of heart and self-renun-
34
SARAH
ciation. Even as a wife and a mother she did not
show the qualities that answer to the people's
intuitions. She was only venerated, but not
loved ; and this want a poet supplied by the in-vention
of a tale which showed that that prince-ly
woman, that proud mother, that spoiled child
of fortune, died of a broken heart !
Sarah was neither saint nor heroine. She
was not high-minded or sympathetic, and her
love of truth was not deep nor overmastering.
For all that, she must have been a great woman,
else she could not have played the part she did,
nor held the affection and veneration of her con-sort
to the end as she did. This is evidenced
by the care he took to secure a burial-place for
her ashes worthy of her station in life. He ac-quired
of the children of Cheth "the cave
(Machpelah) with all the trees that were in the
field, that were ii? all the borders round about."
He purchased it at their own price. Altogether
the transaction as described in the Bible speaks
well for the politeness of both contracting par-ties.
It is not at all unlikely that the Chethites
were moved by the sight of the grief which the
35

WOMEN OF THE BIBLE
aged husband evinced at the loss of his wife.
Little, however, could they foresee the sacred
importance the transfer of the cave would as.
sume in the course of centuries ; that they were
surrendering a spot that would some day be
counted among the most famous on earth, and
be guarded from profanation with a sleepless
jealousy against the intrusion even of the eye of
the unbeliever! And by whom is this guard
kept? By those who recognize in the outcast
son of the handmaid, Ishmael, the God-chosen
son of Abraham, " the friend of God," while the
progeny of Sarah and Isaac are not allowed
even to approach the last resting-place of their
first parents I So little do we men know the
consequences of our actions, and whither they
shall lead after they have been caught up in
the currents of cause and effect — the same
which Emerson calls Fate.
3. SARAH By THOMAS E. MILLER, M.A.
" And God said unto Abraham, As for Sarai thy wife, thou shalt not call
her name Sarai, but Sarah shall her name be." GE ESIS, xvii. 15.

IT is well to remember that our character-sketch belongs to a period
some 4000 years before the birth of Christ ; and while human nature has
changed but little, there is considerable change in the manners and
customs as between those Old World Eastern people and ourselves. Then
we have another interesting fact regarding this period. Many in our day
have been asking the question, " Can we rely upon this as history ? Is it
genuine biography that we are dealing with in these early chapters of the
Bible ? " Strangely enough witnesses are coming to light in our own day
to attest its accuracy, and we are finding Abraham s name and incidents
in his life confirmed on the cuneiform inscriptions that are being
unearthed to-day in the work of Egyptian exploration. Then, too, their
burying-place the sepulchre of Abraham and Sarah and their son Isaac
and their daughter-in-law Rebekah is still with us, the interesting
historic spot near Hebron jealously guarded by the Mussulman. There is
a wall built round it fifty-eight feet high, and no Christian is permitted to
enter. It was only by
Sarah 2 1 special permission that our late King, in the year 1862, when
Prince of Wales, was allowed to enter and ascend the stair and look upon
this interesting grave. ow, of course, in our minds, and in the Scrip ture
narrative itself, it is Abraham who fills the largest space in these
chapters. Sarah is hardly visible in the shadow of her distinguished
husband.

It is something akin to the relation between the Forth and Tay Bridges.
Visitors to this country make a pilgrimage to the Forth Bridge and gaze
upon the wonderful structure, and will tell you how many tons of steel
went to the building of it and the number of bolts there are holding it
together, but they do not go to see the Tay Bridge. They have never seen
it, and they have no great desire to make the pilgrimage. And yet the Tay
Bridge is as useful, in its way, as the Forth Bridge, and spans a wider
estuary than the estuary of the Forth. And we may say this much about
Sarah, and surely it is no small tribute, that she was a true helpmeet to
her great and gifted husband. Well, then, who was Sarah ? We know
nothing about her beyond the fact that she was a native of the same place
and belonged to the same family as her husband. In the twentieth
chapter Abraham declares, in his own defence, that she was his half-sister,
that they were the children of the same father but not the same
mother. According to Josephus (and this was the Jewish tradition),
Sarah was the sister of Lot and there-
22 Women of the Bible fore Abraham s niece. These facts remind us that
we are dealing with a time to which our modern standards do not apply.
But we are on more solid and certain ground when we come to the
personality and character of Sarah. If we merely study the individual
features the results are not so pleasing ; there are episodes where Sarah
does not show to ad vantage ; but that is not how we judge a portrait or a
character : we piece it together, we look at it as a whole, and when we do
so in this case the character of Sarah is not only interesting, it is noble
and good. The first thing we note about Sarah is that she was beautiful :
she had the dower of physical beauty. Was this one of the things that
attracted

young Abraham to this maiden-relative of his ? It shows how human he
was, and we do not think any the less or worse of him for it. Beauty is
one of God s good gifts, and its possession one of the desires He has
planted deep down in every maiden s heart. It is not everything, but it is
something, and no doubt it played its part in casting its spell over the
heart of young Abraham. And yet it is often a perilous gift ; it proved so
in Sarah s case. So fair was she to look upon that whenever they went
into another state it might be down into Egypt or the neighbouring
country of Gerar they were exposed to danger, and Abraham had
recourse to subterfuge to save himself from what jealous princes might
do to him on account of Sarah s beauty. The meanest
Sarah 23 things that Abraham did in his long life were those attempts to
shield himself from what might happen through the exceptional beauty
of Sarah. One has also to say this, that while it is an enviable possession
this dower of beauty it has its risks and temptations. Dante speaks of the
fatal dower of Constantine, when he bestowed on the Christian Church
his patronage and gifts of gold; and in the light of history, from fair
Helen of Troy to Mary Queen of Scots, we may speak of the fatal dower
of physical beauty. But we may speak of Sarah not only as the Beautiful
but as the Devoted. It was brave on her part, and showed where her
heart lay when she agreed to share her lot with this dreamer of dreams
and seer of visions. One feels sure that Abraham was no ordinary lad
even in those early days ; and while Romance and Poetry and Visions are
all very fine, they are not much good for paying household expenses and
keeping the house going. Genius, like beauty, is an enviable gift, but like
beauty it has its dangers, especially for those who happen to be the wives
of great men, of men of genius. " Oor Tarn is gie ill to live wi " that was
the verdict of

Carlyle s mother, and many a great man s bio graphy confirms it. Let us
bear in mind that when the duty was laid upon Abraham to go out from
kith and kin and country, it meant that Sarah had to go forth also, and
just because she was differently con stituted, it needed greater courage
on her part
24 Women of the Bible to leave home and kindred. In these matters
women are more conservative than men, they cling more to the past, they
would rather " bear those ills they have than fly to others that they know
not of " ; and one has the feeling that vSarah was opposed to this new
venture just because of its uncertainty and indefiniteness, but her wifely
devotion came in and she said, " Where thou goest I will go." It looked
as if Sarah was to be the true prophet, for when they got to Canaan they
found themselves face to face with famine : instead of a land of plenty it
was a land of want ; and Abraham had to think of again removing his
tent, as there were others besides himself to care for his wife, his nephew
Lot and his servants and he cast his eyes and his thoughts towards
Egypt, the land of plenty, the fertile country where corn abounded even
when other places were stricken with famine. And so they went down to
Egypt, and it was in approaching this land that Abraham suggested, with
a view to saving himself, that he and his wife should pass as brother and
sister, and it is a rare tribute to the devotion of Sarah that she consented
to this deception. o thanks to her husband that she came through the
ordeal scatheless. One thing connected with this sojourn in Egypt has to
be noted, because of its bearing on the home life of the patriarch and his
wife. Sarah brought back with her an Egyptian slave-girl, by name
Hagar. Brooding over things when they

Sarah 25 had finally settled in what was really their per manent home by
the Oaks of Mamre, near Hebron, his heroic wife wondered how the
promise made to her husband was to be fulfilled. God had said to him, "
I will make of thee a great nation." Ten years had passed and no child
was born. Abraham was rich and increased with goods : things had gone
well with them from a worldly point of view since their return from
Egypt ; Abraham was a great man, but then the promise was, " I will
make of thee a great nation," and of this there was no sign ; and
brooding over these things Sarah came to the sorrowful conclusion that
the promise was to be fulfilled not through her but through another. And
the Hagar incident was her scheme, her suggestion : that the slave should
become Abraham s second wife, and, because of her position, secondary,
so that a child born of this union would belong to Sarah more than to
Hagar. Are we ready to condemn Sarah for this line of conduct ? To say
all manner of harsh things about her ? That it betrays a want of faith in
God, an attempt to play the part of Providence herself ? Let us withhold
our criticism as we certainly would if we knew what she herself suffered,
what it cost her, in agony of soul, to make this sacrifice. The narrative
says that she " thought to be builded " by Hagar, but she had reckoned
without her host ; she was fashioning a sword that would pierce her own
heart ; it certainly brought discord into the home, for the slave-girl, as
the wife of her master and the mother
26 Women of the Bible of his heir, turned upon her mistress with
provoca tion and scorn. " Her mistress," we read, " was despised in her
eyes." It was more than Sarah could bear, and it was so like a jealous
wife to turn upon her husband and blame him for it all, and then in the
succeeding days to make poor Hagar s life a constant misery until the
maid ran away from the face of her mistress and sought shelter

in the wilderness. It is all so true to life. Perhaps Sarah is seen at her
worst in this domestic quarrel, not only in her jealousy but in the way in
which it finds expression, first towards her- husband and then towards
Hagar ; and yet we would not have it otherwise ; she is a true pioneer of
woman s right in the right place. She will be mistress in her own home
and reign there without a rival. It is a scriptural condemnation of
polygamy in any form. But we must not forget that Sarah had been
instrumental in bringing the trouble into the home, and God sent Hagar
back to be under Sarah s care ; and it was like a princess (for that is the
meaning of Sarah) to receive her back and to make the best of the
situation. And so years pass and we know next to nothing of the
happenings in the home, when a strange thing takes place. Abraham is
seated in the door of his tent, seeking a place of shade from the heat of
the midday sun, when three strangers approach. Perhaps it was only the
instinct of hospitality, or something in the bearing of the visitors, that led
Abraham to invite the strangers
Sarah 27 to share in the shelter of his tent and to set food and drink
before them. Then follows the story so exquisitely told in that eighteenth
chapter of Genesis. The announcement that Sarah herself would be the
mother of the Child of Promise ; and Sarah heard it, for though in the
inner part of the tent, we may be quite sure her ear was close to the
canvas (for she was a woman) , and she heard it and she laughed not a
mocking laugh altogether but the laugh of incredulity ; yet before the
interview was ended the laugh was turned into a strange fear, and, like
her husband, Sarah believed God, and it was counted unto her for
righteousness. That chapter is a great turning-point not only in Sarah s
life-history but in her own character. And the Child of Promise is born,
and he is

called Isaac, i.e. laughter, for, said the proud mother, every one that
heareth will laugh with me : she forgot in her joy that there might be
those who would laugh at her. And this is what actually happened. o
doubt he was a puny child, but not the less dear to the mother on that
account : a striking contrast to the strong, lusty Ishmael, the child of
Hagar. And so it happened on little Isaac s feast-day, the day when he
was weaned, and his father made a great feast, that the son of Hagar was
discovered by the quick eye of Sarah making a mock of her child. It
wakened the tiger within her, and she stood up in her majesty before her
husband princess-like and said with an emphasis that
28 Women of the Bible could not be mistaken, " Cast out this bond
woman and her son, for the son of this bond woman shall not be heir
with my son, even with Isaac." And every right thinking wife and
mother will take the side of Sarah. Scripture itself does ; God does ; for
although the matter was grievous to Abraham on account of his son, God
said, " In all that Sarah saith unto thee hearken unto her voice ; for in
Isaac shall thy seed be called." Sarah the Beautiful, Sarah the Devoted,
Sarah the Jealous, Sarah, finally, as Queen of the Heart and Home. We
speak, and we think, of the trial of Abraham in the offering up of Isaac,
when the command seemed to be laid upon him by God to lay this son of
his, the Child of Promise, the hope for the future, upon the Altar of
Sacrifice. And we have journeyed with him in thought to Mount Moriah
and climbed its ascent, and felt how terrible the ordeal must have been ;
but how many of us have thought of what it meant to the Mother-heart
by the Oaks of Mamre, near Hebron ? Abraham s sacrifice ! Was it not
in a yet greater degree Sarah s sacrifice ? For who was Isaac ? The child
of her old age, the apple of her eye, the joy of her heart, the light of her
home : Isaac the clinging, affectionate, stay-at-home, for he

was never a robust child. But all this added to the greatness of the
wrench and of the sacrifice ; and there may be truth in the Jewish
tradition, although Scripture does not confirm it, that when father and
son returned from Mount Moriah,
Sarah 29 the faithful wife and loving mother had already passed within
the veil. The suspense of the thing, the strain of it, had been too great for
her. She was lovingly laid to rest in the cave of the field of Machpelah,
before Mamre, in the land of Canaan ; and Abraham does not withhold
his tribute to her sterling worth, her steadfastness, her devotion, her high
conception of wifely duty. We think of her as a " woman nobly planned,
to warn, to comfort, and command." " A creature not too good for
human nature s daily food." With her faults and failings and frailties for
she was a true woman ; yet with it all worthy of the name of princess not
Sarai, which means strife, vanity, but Sarah, Princess, Queen of the
Heart and Home. There is just one other ray of light upon her character
worthy of mention. We read at the end of chapter xxiv. that Isaac
brought Rebekah into his mother Sarah s tent, and she became his wife
and lie loved her " and Isaac was com forted after his mother s death." It
is that last sentence that is significant significant of the relation between
mother and son of the love of the mother for the son, of the son for the
mother. It suggests that, up till now, Isaac refused to be comforted. And
here, too, Sarah comes before us as the first of that great and noble
company of mothers whose love has been and is one of the great
redeeming forces of the world. Strong men may not care to reveal it or to
speak about it, but it is there, an abiding influence, restraining from evil,
constraining to good. The American Evangelists, Messrs Torrey and
Alexander, declared that the Hymn, " Tell mother I ll be there," had
been instrumental in breaking down thousands of careless men. There is
not

very much poetry in the Hymn and not much music in the tune, but it
touched this chord, it awakened memories, it put its finger on the
tenderest part that beats in the heart of every man. And to-day we lay
our tribute on the grave at Machpelah in memory of a devoted wife and
mother.
4. SARAH By ALEXANDER WHYTE
BUT SARAH WAS BARREN , SHE HAD NO CHILD
WHICH things are an allegory,' says the Apostle when he brings in
Sarah and Hagar her handmaid into the fourth chapter of his Epistle to
the Galatians. And no doubt, his first readers must have understood the
Apostle'^s mystical argument and must have got the good they needed in
their day out of his spiritual exposition. But if Paul had only been led to
take up our text of to-night, and to treat Sarah and her childlessness as
an allegory, what an evangelical argument, and what a fruitful and far-reaching
application both the Galatian Church and all the churches ever
after would have got! For, out of this little, parenthetical, Mdden-away
verse the whole of the succeeding eleven epoch-making chapters of
Genesis immediately spring. Chaldea, and Canaan, and Egypt ; Hagar
and Ishmael ; the promise of Isaac, and then the birth, the circumcision,
the sacrifice, and the deliverance of Isaac; all the trials and all the
triumphs of his father's and his mother'^s faith; all their falls; all their
victories ; all God's promises, and all His wonderful and adorable
providences in their so exercised lives ; all their attainments in truth and
in obedience; and then, to crown all, the complete fulfilment of Grod's so
long delayed promise — all that, and much more that has not been told
— it all arose out of this, that Sarah had no diild. * It is an allegory,' says
Bengel, ^ when anything is said and another thing more excellent is

signified.' And I cannot get it out of my heart that my text to-ni^t,

biographical reality, real historicity, and all, is somehow an allegory also.
It will persist in my heart that Abraham is my faith in God's promise to
me of the fruit of the Spirit in me ; while childless Sarah, Abraham's
married wife, is my still unfruitful heart. For I have some faith, but I
have no love. I have not enough faith to make my love fruitful. My heart
is as much without a spiritual seed as was Sarah's silent tent. I laugh at
the idea, like Sarah behind her tent door. I say to myself, half in faith,
half in fear, half in mockery at myself. Shall I ever have pleasure ? Shall
Christ ever be formed in me ? Till I am sometimes, like poor Sarah in
her sterile tent, driven desperate. Driven desperate, and reckless, and
wild. like Sarah, I fall into sore temptations between the Divine promise
on the one hand, and my own evil heart on the other hand. Like her,
also, I am driven to dangerous, and, sometimes, I fear, to positively sinful
expedients, in my desolation and desperation. And, like Sarah, I involve
and f&tally injure other people also in my desperation. But still the great
promise holds on its course, and is repeated, and enlarged, and enriched,
and sealed; and still it is with me as it has been firom the beginning. TiU,
as I believe, and am determined to go on believing — Gk)d help my
unbelief! — God's promise to me also shall, in Grod'^s way and at God's
time, be all fulfilled. And my heart also, like Abraham and Sarah, shall
see of her travail and shall be satisfied. Yes. Had Paul, or even Fhilo ;
had Behmen, or Bunyan but taken up this text, and said, ^ Which things
are an allegory,' we would have had doctrine, and depth, and beauty,
and assurance, and comfort to our heart's content. But to come back to
solid ground, and to speak no more about parables. As time went on, and
as the hope of any possibility of her ever becoming a mother died out of
Sarah's heart, she became absolutely desperate. Had meekness, and
humility, and

resignation, and the blotting-out of herself, but grown apace with her
disappointment, that would have hid Sarah from all her temptations,
and it would at the same time have hastened the lifting oi^ of her cross.
But her terrible cross had but inflamed and intensified her pride ; it had
but determined her to find some wild and wilful way for herself out of
Grod's way and God's wilL It was intolerable to Sarah to live on any
longer such an embarrassment to her husband, such an evident obstacle
to the prosperity of his house, and such an eye-sore and jest, to all the
camp and to all the coimtiy around. And in the wildness of her pride
Sarah determined to as good as slay herself, and to make it impossible
for Abraham in his heart of hearts any longer to despise her. And thus it
was that what looked like a perfect miracle of humility in Sarah, was
really an act of exasperated pride. Sarah sacrificed herself on the
cruellest altar on which any woman ever laid herself down ; but the
cords of the sacrifice were all the time the cords of a suicidal pride ; till
the sacrifice was both a great sin in the sight of Grod, a fatal uijury to
herself, to her husband, and to innocent generations yet unborn. What
looks to all men'^s eyes like a martyr^s devotion may all the time be but
impatience, and petulance, and pride, and revenge. The outward act may
sound heroic, while all the time cowardice and selfishness and
exasperated pride may be at the bottom of it. To sacrifice yourself,
therefore, is not enough. Your mind, your motive, your spirit, and your
temper in making the sacrifice, that is everything. Sarab sacrificed
herself to the last drop of a woman^s blood ; but all the time her heart
was as high as heaven and as hot as hell both against Grod and against
her husband also. ^ Behold, now, the Lord hath restrained me ; but
there is my maid ! ^ You are a truly humble man when you are truly
despised in your own eyes. But your humility

has not stood its very last test till you are despised in our eyes also every
day. The truest humility is attained; the truest humility is ascertained,
and certified, and sealed only by humiliations being heaped upon it from
without; from above, from
beneath, and from all around. And, had Sarah^s humility been a true
and a genuine humility ; had her ostentatious sacrifice of herself not had
its secret roots in a deep and a cruel pride ; she would have opened her
heart to all Hagar's contempt. Hagar^s scorn would have been an
excellent oil to Sarah'^s head, and she would thus have seciu^ and
hastened her own fruitfulness and motherhood. But Sarah of herself had
run herself into a temptation too terrible for her to bear. Her
humiliating diildlessness was honour, and rest, and peace, and love
compared with her uttermost and incessant misery now. ^ My wrong be
upon thee,^ she assailed her husband, ^ for I am despised in the eyes of
my own maid ! ' My brethren, you must make up your mind to bear with
what has sprung upon you out of your own past misdeeds. It is the least
you can do to hold your peace, and to bear with meekness the hand of
God. Your life all your days may henceforth be made bitter to you
because of your past. But what would you have? Would you have a
peaceful, a free, an untrammelled, and a happy after-life out of a past life
like yours? You cannot have it. Life is not built on that plan. Grod does
not live in heaven and rule on earth on that principle. Or, if He does, the
worse it will be for you in the long-run. Put it in words and look at it.
Would you run yourself and other people into sin and guilt as suits you,
and then would you wipe your mouth and walk off as a guileless and an
innocent man? You cannot do it. And you need not try. Kiss the rod
rather. Kiss the rod, and the hand that holds it. Say,

It is the Lord. Say that though He should slay you, yet you will not
complain. Say this; say it with Micah when he was in some such distress,
say, ^I will bear the indignation of the Lord, because I have sinned
against Him, until He plead my cause and execute judgment for me.^
Cast out the bondwoman and her son I o, Sarah, you cannot do it. You
may tiy to do it, but the angel of the Lord will bring Hagar and Ishmael
back again upon you. You surely know Hagar, Sarah ! She is your own
handmaiden. But for you, you must remember, Hagar would have still
been a pure, modest, obedient child. And if she and her unlawful son are
thorns in your eyes, they are both thorns of your own planting. You
bought Hagar in Egypt. You bribed her to leave her mother^s house.
You engaged to be a mother to her. You took her, and made her your
tool ; you debauched her, and then you would cast her out. And you did,
and would do all this, in spite both of God and man. And now you would
like to get back to where you were before your terrible trespass. You
would fain have Hagar and her fatherless boy back in Egypt, and your
tent in Canaan the abode of peace and love and honour it was at the
beginning. o, Sarah, mother of so much mischief, you cannot have it. It
cannot be. Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right ? Hagar had not
come fix»m Ur of the Chaldees with the immigration, neither had she
been bought by Abraham in Canaan. Hagar, originally, was an Egyptian
child. When Sarah was down in Egypt witli her husband Abraham,
young Hagar had been recommended to Sarah for a lady'^s maid. And
Sarah had made trial of the girl in the place, and had been glad to find
that she had all the talent and all the character she had been certificated
to have. And though it looked a wild proposal that Hagar should leave
her mother^s house, and all the religion and civilisation of Egypt, to go
to the

savage land of the Philistines, yet, what a princess like Sarah had once
set her heart upon, poor people like Hagar's parents could not oppose.
Sarah was rich, and she had the imperious temper of riches. And,
besides, Sarah, the sister of Abraham, was a favourite in Fharaoh'^s
palace. Hagar^s expatriation and banishment so far from home made
her all the better a maid to Sarah. Hagar had no choice. She must please
her mistress. She had no temptation or opportunity to do anything else.
She was so far from home now that Sarah became both mistress and
mother to the poor Egyptian girl. All went well, only too well, indeed,
with Sarah and Hagar till Sarah^s sin began to find her out. And when
Sarah dealt hardly with Hagar she fled from the face of her mistress.
Poor Hagar ! Mother of so many miserable women in all lands and in all
ages ever since. Hundreds of miles, weeks of wilderness, and of tears, and
of bleeding feet, and of a bleeding heart from her mother's door. Afraid
to face her mother. Terrified at the thought of her father. Spat upon and
cast out of doors by her sisters and their husbands. Shall she kill her
child? Shall she kill herself? Oh, why was I bom? Oh, why did I ever
come to this cursed land? Why did I ever take the wages of that wicked
woman? Let the night perish on which she took me and led me up into
her bed ! Let darkness and the shadow of death stain it ; let a cloud
dwell upon it ; let the gross darkness terrify it ! Till she awakened and
found herself with a well of water close beside her. * Return to thy
mistress. Submit thyself to thy mistress. ot only to the good and gentle,
but also to the firoward,^ said the angel at the well. And as she drank of
the well she said, Beer-lahai-roi. Thou God seest me ! Behold, that well
still springs up in the wilderness of Shur ; it is to be found on the road
between Eadesh and Bered. Beeb-lahai-roi. Thou God seest me ! Hagar,
by reason of the extremity of her sorrow ; by reason of the utter
desolateness and brokenness of her heart ;

and by reason of the sovereign grace and abounding mercy of God —
Hagar, I say, stands out before us in the very foremost rank of faith, and
trust, and experience, and assurance. Hagar, to me, stands out among
God's very electest saints. Hagar has only one or two who can stand
beside her in her discovery of God, in her nearness to God, in her faceto-face
fellowship with God, in the instructiveness, in the comfort, and in
the hopefulness of her so close communion with God. ot Adam before his
fall ; not Enoch, who so pleased God ; not Abraham at his call, or after
offering his son ; not Jacob at Bethel, nor Israel at the Jabbok ; not
Moses on the mount and in the cleft rock; not Isaiah in the temple, and
not John in the spirit — ^not the best and the most blessed of them all
was more blessed or better blessed than was Hagar the polluted outcast
on her weeping way to Shur. The pure in heart shall see God. And, what
impurity Hagar had contracted of Sarah and Abraham she had washed
away, her head waters and her eyes a fountain of tears, all the way firom
Abraham^s tent door to that well in the wilderness. She had washed her
polluted body and her scornful and revengeful heart with her penitential
tears, till, by the time she came to the well, she was counted clean enough
to see God. And she saw God at that wilderness-well with a deamess, and
with an assurance, and with a rapture, and with a submission, and with
an immediate obedience that all combine to lift up Hagar and to set
Hagar beside, and even before, both her master and her mistress in the
favour and in the fellowship of God. For, firom that day on the way to
Shur, all the days of Hagar'^s pilgrimage on earth, we still see Sarah and
Abraham entreating Hagar with hardness till she drinks again and again
of the well of Grod, and again and again has Almighty God given to her
and to him as the heavenly Father of her fatherless son. In Thee, O God,
the fatherless have always found mercy.

ow, in Grod's mercy, is there any Hagar here ? Is there any outcast
here? Is there any soul of man or woman ready to perish here ? Who can
tell who is here? Where would such be found if not here? Is not this the
house of God? Does this house not stand on the wayside to Shur ? Has
this house not been Beer-lahai*ioi to many who were in far greater
straits, and under fax greater guilt, than ever Hagar wasp Many have
said of this house, Thou God seest me ! Many have come up to this house
with a secret burden. Many have gone home from this house to take up
their cast-off cross, and to endure to the end. Is there a motherless
woman-child here P Is there a deceived, injured, cast-out sinner here P
My sister, thy God is here. Thou hast been led of His angel in coming
here. His well is here. He has dug that well for thee. Spring up, O well !
And that is He Himself, His true and very Self, Who is now laying His
hand on thy dishonoured and downcast houL That is His Holy Spirit
who is now bringing these tears to thine eyes. That is His voice in thy
heart, saying * Hagar, Sarah^s maid, whence comest thou, and whither
wilt thou go ? ^ Stoop down, Hagar, and drink and be refireshed and
revived. Fall down and weep. Lift up thy heart and pray. Behold, Hagar,
He is lifting thee up. He is washing thy feet. He is washing thy hands. He
is washing with water and with blood thy heart. Think, Hagar, think.
Believe, Hagar, believe. Admire, Hagar, and praise. For He is the same
wonderful, wonderful, most wonderful Gk)d who met the first Hagar on
her way back to her mother^s disgraced and angry door. Wonderful is
His name. He was in Egypt, He was in Canaan, He was in Mamre, and
He appeared at Shur. He was there when thou wert bom in thy mother^s
house in Scotland also. He swaddled thee. He girded thee. He called thee
by thy name. The foolishness of thy youth was not hid from Him. He
bore with thee, and still bore with thee. And

when thy lovers had hold of thy deceived heart, He pitied thee, and had
thoughts of love toward thee. And when thy lovers wearied of thee, and
had served themselves of thee, then His time of love began with thee.
When thou didst fall His hand held thee up. When thou hadst destroyed
thyself He redeemed thee. He made thy sin bitter to thee. He made thy
life a wilderness around thee. He made thy heart a wilderness within
thee. He made this whole world flint to thy feet, and dust to thy mouth,
and a very hell to thy cast-off heart. And when He had humbled thee,
and tried thee, and utterly broken and silenced thee. He came near at the
well of Shur to thee, and these, to His everlasting praise, were His words
to thee, 'Fear not, for thou shalt not be confounded. For thy Maker is thy
husband. For the Lord hath called thee as a woman forsaken and
grieved in spirit. For a small moment have I forsaken thee, but with
everlasting kindness will I have mercy upon thee, saith the Lord, thy
Redeemer. O thou afflicted, tossed with tempest, and not comforted ; no
weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper, and every tongue that
shall rise in judgment against thee shalt thou condemn. This is the
heritage of the servants of the Lord, and their righteousness is of Me,
saith the Lord.' 'Doubtless Thou art our Father, though Abraham be
ignorant of us, and Israel acknowledge us not. Thou, O Lord, art our
Father, our Redeemer. Thy name is from everlasting.'
5. SARAH THE PRINCESS By H. A. THOMPSON
SARAH was the wife of Abraham, the founder of the Jewish nation.
Abraham speaks of her as his sister, the daughter of the same father, but
not the daughter of the same mother. A [any suppose this simply means
that Ilaran, her father, was her half-brother, for in accordance with the
use of language among the Hebrews, he could call a niece a sister and a
granddaughter a daughter. Her history is in. part the history of
Abraham. God determines to lift Abraham out of the idolatry which is
all about him in Ur of the Chaldees, and through him build up a great
nation. In obedience to a divine call, this man and his childless wife set

out on a strange journey. They were seeking a land which was to be
shown them, but where it was they knew not. They carried with them all
they had, piled upon the camels backs, and a few servants probably to
care for their cattle. An orphan nephew was the only one of their family
who had the courage to ally himself with them. "As we dimly picture
them setting forth in the pale dawn of history, we seem to see the laden
camels pacing slowly, towering above the slow-footed sheep. Ye hear the
drivers cries and the bleating of the sheep, broken by the wail of parting
women." It would not be strange if Sarah at that supreme hour bent
over her camel s neck with a bursting heart and with a longing to remain
with her own kindred. Ye are not sure that she had any call from God,
and while Abraham is going forth in obedience to the voice of God,
which he ever afterward followed, she was going because loyal to her
husband. They came by way of Damascus, where, no doubt, they tarried
for a time. His first halt in the land of promise is at Shechem. about in
the center of Canaan. Here he reared his first altar to Jehovah. How
much or how little he knew of God at this time we do not know. God s
selection of men for important places never excludes some natural
phases in the person chosen. A writer says of him: "When he turned his
face to the dreaded desert which stretched wide and inhospitable
between him and the
24 Women of the Bible nearest seats of men, he gave his first evidence of
that trust in the unseen Eternal One, leading to unquestioning, heroic
obedience which even then had formed the basis of his character and of
which his later life was to furnish so many illustrious examples. By faith,
Abraham, when he w r as called to go out into a place

which he should afterwards receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he
went out not know-ing whither he went/ is the comment of the
Scripture." After a time there is a famine in the land of promise, which
would be a trial of the man s faith. In the fertile plains of Chaldea no
doubt he had had an abundance, but now he is made to suffer hunger as
do others. So far as known to us, this new emigrant does not seem to ask
divine counsel, but on his own discretion starts southward in search of
food for himself and cattle and finally lands in F.gypt. The religion of
this people was a superstitious worship of nature. He knew the weakness
of human nature in a lax state of society. He may have known something
of the character of the people which we do not know and which tended to
intensify his fears. In a sense the people were respectful to women, and
yet they were sensual. lie insinu ates plainly that they were even less
scrupulous about murder than adultery, and they would be willing to kill
him for the sake of securing possession of his handsome wife. The
Rabbinic traditions are valuable as showing how deep an impression this
man and his wife have made upon mankind. According to them,
Abraham rested some days by the River ile. He saw his wife s form
reflected there as they walked by the river, and he was afraid he would
be slain for her sake. He had her placed in a chest so he could cross the
river, and when the custom house officers should ask him, he would pay
whatever they asked if they would pass it then. Does it contain silks? ask
the officers. I wtll pay the tenth, as of silk/ he replied. Does it contain
silver ? they inquired. * I will pay for it as silver/ answered Abraham. "
ay, then it must contain gold/ *T will pay for it as gold/ 1 Maybe it
contains most costly jewels/ I will pay for it as jewels/ he persi^ed.
Sarah the Princess 25 "In the struggle the box was broken open and in it
was seated

a beautiful woman whose countenance allured all Egypt. The news
reached the ears of Pharaoh and he sent and took her." To call Sarah his
sister was a half truth, but it was intended to deceive. His conduct
showed distrust in the protection of God and fear for his own safety. "It
did a cruel wrong to his wife, for it exposed her to the most serious of all
hazards. Xo defense can be offered for a man who, merely through dread
of danger to himself, tells a lie, risks his wife s chastity, puts temptation
in the way of his neighbor, and betrays the charge to which the divine
favor has summoned him. Xot even the excuse can be offered of a sudden
impulse, for the scheme was prearranged between hus band and wife
before they entered Egypt. . . . Deceit in order to gain a point or avert a
disaster is to this day an inveterate habit with most Orientalists; in the
best times of Israel, many others of lofty character arc found
succumbing to this dastardly vice. The tendency evidently lay deep in the
race from its first appearance." The arrival of so large a company would
attract attention. All who see the princess are struck with her beauty.
This may in part have been due to the race from which she sprang, or
the skies under which she lived. "To-day the beautiful Circassian girls of
the adjacent mountain region are sold in Constantinople, and it is said
there are no cheeks so soft and creamy, no eyes so deep and lustrous, as
theirs, no form so sylph-like and willowy. Of all the nations of the earth,
none has ever equaled that from which Sarah sprang." These princes are
courteous, and, desiring to stand well with the king, they make haste to
tell him of the remarkable woman who has just arrived. The purpose of
all this would be to supplant some other favored one and thus work their
way into court favor and secure court honors. Just what Abraham
expected to do to avert trouble, we are not quite sure. If, attracted by her
beauty and desirous of marry ing her, some one should make a
proposition, as her brother, he might delay matters by differing as to
dower or such things, until the famine would be over. lie most likely did
not dream of any interest CHI the part of the king. The king would not
have dared to take the wife of a distinguished visitor, but a sister he
might take and no one could object. He takes steps to add her to his
26 Women of the Bible household as a new wife. He adds many tokens of
respect and confers many favors upon Abraham. Before his plans were

fully consummated, "the Lord plagued Pharaoh and his house," and he

learns that he has been deceived and that Sarah was a wife and not a
sister. "The king took back none of the rich presents which he had made
to the presumed brother, probably as the purchase money for a wife, nor
did he offer to strip the shepherd chief of the increased wealth which had
accrued to him in the fertile graz ing grounds of Goshen, where hi?
descendants in the third genera tion were to be quartered. Still less,
though the sheik was wholly in the monarch s power, did he show him
the slightest violence. With nothing worse than a reproach, which is
severe just because it is so gently expressed, he bade him take back his
wife and begone." How many of us have speculated as to what would be
the result from this or that course of action, and how often have we been
disappointed ! We may have plans, but God also has plans. If ours agree
with his, he may bless them ; but if not, he may over rule them so as to
promote his own, or may blast them for our good. "The evil which
Abraham apprehended with respect to Sarah did indeed happen, but it
was brought about by the very measure he had taken to avert it ; and
there is every reason to sup pose that, had he from the first boldly
declared that she was his wife, relying on the protection of God, nothing
of the kind would have taken place ; as it was, this very desire of passing
her off for his sister, which was designed to secure his safe sojourn amid
the plenty of Egypt, became the very instrument of compelling his return
to the land of Canaan. How long Abraham and his wife remained in
Egypt we do not know ; but when sent away, they returned to the old
camping ground near Bethel. In Egypt he laid the foundation of the
family wealth, which must afterward have become enormous. Owing to
trouble among the herdsmen, he found it necessary for him and Lot to
separate. Lot chose Sodom because well watered and fertile. Soon after
this he moved to Mamre, near Hebron, where he dwelt for some time.
Before he came hence the Lord again cheered him by a repetition of the
promise that he should po^ess Canaan by a numerous posterity.
Sarah the Princess 27 Abraham had now been ten years in the land of
promise, and, although growing oM, was not impatient for the
fulfillment of the promise. He was to have a child and through him a
numerous posterity, but it had not been declared who the mother should
be. Sarah, concerned for her husband s glory and happiness, and seeing

but little hope at her advanced age that she should give birth to a child,
concluded that the promise, if fulfilled, must be

through the person of another ; so she offered to Abraham for a
secondary wife Hngar, her maid, a servant who had probably been given
to her in Egypt. There was nothing in this arrangement which seemed
wrong to Abraham at the time, although it carries an unpleasant look to
us. It would have seemed better for him to have waited by faith for the
fulfillment of the promise. "For a misti ess to seek by means of a female
slave and favorite attend ant what Providence had denied to herself, was
regarded as neither immoral nor revolting. It was not even held to be
any real departure from the law of monogamy or any infraction of
conjugal fidelity." What might have been expected as a natural result
now hap pens. When the young mistress saw that she was about to give
birth to a child, she is elated with the honor, and no doubt becomes a
little vain if not insolent. The vast possessions of Abraham will now be
entailed upon her posterity. It would be entirely natural for Sarah to
have some feelings of jealousy also when she saw that this woman, her
slave, would soon enjoy the advantage thus far denied her of becoming
the happy mother of a child. She now blames her husband for that which
she herself had planned and suggested. When she is now reaping the
fruits of her own suggestions, she begins to repent of her rashness.
Instead, how ever, of confession and condemning her own conduct, she
turns against her husband and could not have used more severe
language if he had purposely planned to injure her. Her conduct is that
of a peevish, disappointed woman, who had made a serious blunder, and
yet she appeals to God in a case where she was clearly in the wrong.
Hitherto the woman was Sarah s slave and she had the exclusive right to
control her ; but now, having in a sense become the wife of Abraham, it
is not likely she can be disposed of with out the consent of Abraham. He
does not seem to know much of the ill feeling that is going on in the
woman s tent until he is
28 Women of the Bible informed of it by Sarah. lie is a gentleman, with
no taste for domestic quarrels, and without upbraiding Sarah for what
had been done he simply resigns all control and tells her, "Behold, thy
maid is in thy hand." The record tells us that Sarah "dealt harshly with
her." This may mean by verbal reproaches, but more likely by some
personal mistreatment. The treatment was so severe that Hagar flees

from her home, but she cannot flee from the face of God. She is the
mother of Abraham s child, and has an interest in the protec tion of the
Almighty. An angel finds her and inquires whither

she is going and sends her back again with instruction to "submit thyself
under her hands." For her encouragement he tells her that her child
shall be the father of a great nation. The whole transaction shows Sarah
in a not very enviable light. She is the eager, impulsive, hot-headed
woman who is accustomed to be indulged, who is impatient in her
troubles, and who is positive that she is in the right. She is amazed and
angry because her husband does not bring this slave woman to terms. If
she again gets possession of her, she will teach her a lesson how to
conduct herself toward her superiors. "A more magnanimous woman
might have spared the sister whom she had herself thrown into a
position of difficulty ; but this Chaldean princess was not above showing
unhandsome spite when her woman s pride had been touched to the
quick. She made the girl s life so bitter that at the last Hagar fairly ran
away from her master s encampment and fled toward her native land of
Egypt." From his birth, Hagar s son, Ishmael, was regarded by his
father as his promised heir, in whom the nations of the earth should be
blessed. For thirteen years he was the hope and joy of his parents and
the master of that household. When Abraham was ninety and nine years
old, the silence from heaven was once more broken, the covenant is
renewed with him, and the rite of circumcision is established. At the
same time he tells him that, old as his wife is, yet she shall bear a son and
"kings of the people shall be of her." This was confirmed some time
later. As he sat at his tent door, in accordance with the etiquette of the
times to receive any guests who might come, three strangers approach. "
otice the beautiful hospitality of the reception. The emir rushes himself
to his herd to choose the fattest calf and com-
Sarah the Princess 29 mands the princess to make ready the meal and
knead the cakes. Then comes the report. The account of the promised
blessing at which Sarah laughs in incredulous surprise, the grave rebuke
of the angels, and Sarah s white lie. with the angel s steady answer, are
all so many characteristic points of the story. Sarah in all these incidents
is, with a few touches, made as real flesh and blood as any woman in the
pages of Shakespeare; not a saint, but an average mortal with all the
follies, weaknesses, and variabilities that pertain to womanhood, and to
womanhood in an early age of imperfectly developed morals."

Abraham was one hundred years old when Isaac was born. At the age of
three years, as was the custom with Jewish women, her child was
weaned. Great preparations were made for this festive occasion. In the
gladness of her motherly heart she ex claims, "God hath made me to
laugh, so that all that hear will laugh with me. Yho would have said
unto Abraham, that Sarah should have given children suck? for I have
born him a son in his old age." Up to this age, we find the son of the
bondwoman nur tured along with her son, Isaac, under the same roof.
Xo doubt when Ilagar returned she was reconciled t > her, and their
relations were fairly pleasant. Possibly she treated kindly the mother and
petted the boy until he began to be too unpleasant to be endured. The
story further tells us that Ishmael, who was now coming into manhood
and should have had more self control, jeered at the little child who was
so soon to displace him. This mocking started once again the hot blood of
Sarah. A wise woman would have excused him because of his youth, and
the hot blood of his mother, and trusted to the after years to secure his
acquiescence in the divine plans; but Sarah was no more thoughtful than
she had been years before, and could not brook any insult to him who
was to be the heir of the promise. It may be she had not forgotten their
previous encounter, and the memory of this only intensified the present.
She peremptorily insists that the bondwoman and her son shall be cast
out, and that Ishmael shall not be an heir with Isaac. Abraham demurs
to this arrangement. Sarah s mind is fixed exclusively on Isaac, but
Abraham, as the father of both children, has an affection for each and he
cannot well be indifferent to Hagar with whom he lived as his wife. The
voice of the Lord, however, comes to his help and assures him that,
severe as the
30 Women of the Bible demand of Sarah may be, it was in keeping with
the divine plan and would be best in the end for both of them. Had they
remained and grown up together, no doubt much strife and danger
would have arisen between the children, if not indeed between their
mothers. As soon as he learned it was the divine will, he need no longer
hesitate. He arose in the morning, provided them with such things as
they would need on the journey, and sent them away. As to the
particular nature of the offense in the case of Ishmael, we have no

account, but a prominent writer makes a con jecture after this fashion:
-"In the common events of life all that is incomprehensible, is either
ridiculed, disbelieved, or made a

matter of scandal, and therefore in a case so uncommon as this, it is
more than probable reports very discreditable both to Sarah and
Abraham were propagated all around them. Hagar indeed and Ishmael
must have known differently, that it was the hand of God which worked
and therefore all things were possible; but it was to Ishmael s interest to
dispute or deny the legitimacy of Isaac, and therefore it was not in
human nature to neglect the opportunity. o other offense would have so
grated on Sarah. We are apt to think more poetically than justly of this
part of the Bible. In a mere superficial reading we acknowledge Sarah
does appear in rather an unfavorable light ; that this, however, is a
wrong judgment, is proved by the fact that the Eternal himself desires
Abraham to hearken to the voice of Sarah." The years following this
were in all human probability among the happiest of Abraham s life. ITe
is on friendly terms with his neighbors and therefore dwells at peace
among his flocks. The country about him is pleasant and his wealth is
abundant. The years pass quietly by and bring with them never-failing
plenty for his whole encampment. More than all else, his earthly home
has been blessed with the child of promise. "His veary waitings
throughout a quarter of a century had been at last rewarded by a son of
his lawful wife, the gift of his covenant with God, to be in due time the
heir of his possessions and, better far, the heir also of that mysterious
blessing which in his seed was one day to bless all nations. And yet, after
many years of unbroken rest and satisfied desires, there burst on
Abraham, like a bolt out of a clear sky, the supreme crisis of his
discipline/
Sarah the Princess 31 There comes to Abraham the command to take
this son of his, this heir of the promise, and to offer him to the Lord as a
burnt offering. The loss of a beloved child at any time would be a great
affliction ; but in the present case, to sacrifice this child would in effect
extinguish the hope of the world. There is but one thing for him to do. He
has been schooled too well and too long not to know that the Lord s ways
are the best ways. He might have said many things, but with his heart
almost breaking he yet said nothing, tie obeys the command. He makes
careful preparation, so that nothing shall be wanted for the sacrifice.
And thus "early in the morning," he rises and saddles his ass for the

journey; and with this boy, now possibly nearly twenty years of age, and
attended by two servants, he starts on his sad journey. We hear nothing
of Sarah in all this transaction. Did she know of this remarkable call
which Abraham had heard, that her

child, the child of her old age, the progenitor of nations, was to be
carried away and put to death ? And was her confidence in God so
strong that she agreed with her husband that he who gave had also the
right to take away? Was she up early on that eventful morning to help
prepare this son for the great trial before him? As she went about the
work of the early morning preparing pro visions for this journey, did not
her heart almost break, and did not the big tears course down her cheeks
? Did not her motherly affection put her arms about his neck and with
breaking heart imprint the last kiss on his much loved cheek ? Or did
Abraham slip away that morning, taking that mother s boy away
without her knowledge, believing that if she knew of his purpose, her
motherlove would be so strong that he would have difficulty in obeying
the command? Did he not feel that that mother s faith was not as strong
as his own, and that her rebellious heart would surely say nay to his
further proceeding? Alas, we know not and can only conjecture. Surely,
that father could not, would not, take away that mother s darling
without at least a fond farewell. Says one, "That which he must do, he
will do ; he that hath learned not to regard the life of his son, hath
learned not to regard the sorrow of his wife." Another puts it after this
fashion : "The trial of faith in the sacrifice of his son was given to the
fatlier; but the mother was spared the consuming agony which must
have been her portion,
32 JVonien of the Bible even had her faith continued strong. God had
compassion on the feebler, weaker nature of his female servant. He
demanded not from her that which he knows the mother could not bear.
He spared her, in his immeasurable love, the suffering which it pained
him to inflict on the father the suffering and temptation not to satisfy the
Lord, for his omnipotence knew that his faithful servant would not fail,
but to prove to future ages the mighty power of spiritual faith and love,
even while in mortal clay." If Sarah knew for what purpose Isaac had
been taken from home, and had even in her tears consented that
Abraham should carry out the Lord s will as he understood it, how
rejoiced she is when he returned again, having been miraculously saved,
and thus the Lord has been obeyed and her child preserved to her. If she
did not know of it until it was all passed, how her brain would throb as

she listened to the great danger and the more wonderful deliverance.
Isaac had never been so precious had he not been recovered from death,
if he had not been as marvelously restored as given. The only way to find
comfort in an earthly thing is to

surrender it in a believing carelessness into the hands of God." After
that eventful scene at Moriah, there is no voice from heaven to break the
silence of his uneventful years. There may be no occasion, for his relation
to God is well assured. He goes back to Beersheba and he lives on, a
period of twenty-four years of which we have no mention. With our
rapid lives, living and enjoying in one year more than these people did in
five, with a multitude of things to engage our attention and divide our
inter ests, we can hardly realize how the members of such a family as
Abraham s would grow to need each other and how much one should be
missed. Through long periods they were constantly together and each
would seem necessary to the other. "Of society, except that of their own
slaves, there was little or none. The round of easy occupations which
made up their shepherd life left ample leisure for domestic converse. It
was inevitable that their lives should grow together as if kneaded into
one. Husband and wife, parent and child, must have molded one another
s character to an extent hardly possible in other states of society. From
such a clo^e circle of relations the disappearance of one loved and
familiar face would leave a blank never to be filled and scarcely ever to
be forgotten."
Sarah the Princess 33 It was a sad event in this family when death made
the first breach, and, at the age of one hundred and twenty-seven years,
Sarah, the princess, the wife and mother, fell asleep. It made a sad,
desolate life for Abraham. She was the only one who linked him to the
memories of the past and brought back the incidents of his youth. Of
those who had started out on that strange pilgrimage sixty-two years
before, she was the only one left. She was ten years his junior and her
removal reminded him that there was another journey before him, and it
was not far distant, which was even more venturous than the one he had
already taken. What their convictions of th other life were, we cannot
now tell. The departed were believed to have some kind of conscious exis
tence, but the land whither they went was still a dumb land a land full of
questions without answers. There is no doubt but that the dim light
which Abraham brought with him from his childhood was confirmed
and maybe made more definite as he meditated on what God had
revealed to him. The wife of his early years, the one who had been with

him in all his wanderings, who had shared his trials, and whom he loved
to the last, now leaves him. The account of the sacred writer is tender
and touching: "And Sarah was an 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/ The noisy
wailing, which custom requires should be arranged for the funeral of a
princess, was no doubt going on outside ; but Abraham sits alone, most
likely in Sarah s tent beside his dead, his heart almost benumbed and
scarcely able to think at all, and if thinking, full of sad. bitter thoughts.
Old man as he is, and having led an eventful life, the experiences of
thirty years have not extinguished in his heart emotions which such an
event should awaken. Mourning for the dead is a tribute to the memory
of their living worth. There is nothing opposed to true wisdom or the
manly virtues in a proper lamentation for our departed friends. But he
cannot delay long. The climate is too warm and he must bury his dead
out of his sight. Although heir of the promise, he has no sepulcher in
which to place his dead. He has been here for possibly sixty years, and
yet has not a foot of soil he can call
34 Women of the Bible his own. His home has been his shifting tent, and
his domain the wide desert. He must have some place for his dead which
will be a pledge to his posterity of his faith in God s promise. When he
chose his burial place in Canaan, he removed all connection with the
past. He probably was familiar with caves for burial in the land of Ur
(Mugheir), from which he came. When he comes to the children of Heth
to secure a burial place he tells them, "I am a stranger and a sojourner
with you." ever does the impression of this great truth come upon us
with such force, never do we feel the ties that bind us to the earth so
loosened, so nearly rent asunder, as when we stand by the grave of those
we love. Would that we could carry this abiding conviction along with us
in the daily business of life. How little influence would its trials and
disappointments have over us." In accordance with the customs of the
times, he buys the cave of Machpelah and pays for it with silver. He
obtained not only the cave itself but "the field and all the trees that were
in the field and that were in the borders round about." He not only
secured a burial place, but by this transaction he helped to keep alive
among his descendants the expectation of sometime possessing this land.
Without some such reminder they might, during their Egyptian

bondage, forget their future destiny. It had the de signed effect. Here
were buried Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, and Jacob and
Leah, although Jacob died in Egypt. And

Joseph gave commandment that he also should be carried back with
them and buried in the land of promise. Here in this cave near Hebron
he buried Sarah. "The piety of some unknown age, probably Jewish,
erected round the spot massive walls of noble masonry which still exist.
Inside these walls the devotion of early Christians consecrated a church,
and over the church the devotion of the Mussulmans, a mosque. The
gates of that mosque, the famous Haran of Hebron, had been closed
against Western unbelievers for six centuries, when with extreme
difficulty access to it was procured for the Prince of Wales in 1862.
Railed off, each one within its separate chapel, there lie the coffin-like,
shrines to which are attached the venerable names of Sarah and
Abraham, of Isaac and Rebekah, of Leah and Jacob. These, however,
are only empty monuments. The real tombs, if they exist at all, must be
sought beneath the
Sarah the Princess 35 floor of the building in the rocky cavern
underground. To this vault a trapdoor in the pavement promises to give
access ; but as yet its darkness remains unvisited and unviolated. So far
as could be ascertained through such a brief and partial inspection of the
mosque, it is clear that the contents of that sacred place answer exactly
to the requirements of the Scriptural narrative. Unfortunately more than
this cannot be said. It is reserved for some explorer more fortunate than
even the Prince of Wales to disclose the well-kept secret of the tombs of
the patriarchs." While Sarah is human, with human frailties and human
am bitions, her character is in the main a very commendable one. Peter
(I. Peter 3:1, 6) commends her for her loyalty to her husband. "Likewise
ye wives, be in subjection to your own hus bands ; that, if any obey not
the word, they also may without the word be won by the conversation of
the wives ; . . even as Sara obeyed Abraham, calling him lord : whose
daughters ye are, as long as ye do well, and are not afraid with any
amazement." She retained the love of her husband to the very last. She
was his faithful helpmeet going with him, sharing his good or bad for
tunes, caring for his interests, and exhibiting toward him the most loving
respect. So far as we know, she never deceived him. When she wanted
Hagar sent away, she may have shown a little temper, but she was open
and frank in her plans. Then she is to be commended for her care of her

son and her anxiety that he should be surrounded with proper
influences. This was her only child, the child of her old age, and for this

reason very dear to her. But in addition to this she knew he was to be the
heir of the promises, and through him the nations of the earth should be
blessed. She saw Ishmael, "mocking/ He was thirteen years older than
Isaac and a wild and rude bo She had reason to believe that this reckless
boy would corrupt hei own and therefore she sought their separation. It
seemed a little severe to send this mother and child away, but it met the
divine approval. It was better that Isaac should grow up under different
influences, and the mother s foresight saw such a result, and her strong
mother-love went to work at any cost to preserve her boy. How much her
son, Isaac, was influenced by her home train ing we do not know. He
does not have the vigor of his father. Says a writer : "He makes no stir in
the world, no noise, he excites
no emotion. Ye only catch a glimpse of him now and then, suf ficient to
enable us to recognize him as a dutiful son to his father, a loving son to
his mother, an affectionate, uxorious husband, a partial father, and a
pious but weak old man. He seldom speaks. Me wants force of character;
and soon subsides into an instru ment in the hands of others, who use
him for their own purposes. So we never meet with Isaac in positive and
decisive action, but commonly find him. in some instrumental position or
other."
6. SARAH THE STEADFAST BY George Matheson
I AM told in the Book of Genesis that before God said, *'Let there be
Hght," ''Let there be a firmament," "Let there be dry land," He
"created the heavens and the earth;" in other words, He began, not with
the parts, but with the whole. I believe that in the study of any subject
the order of thought must follow God's order of creation; it must begin
with the whole. In the study of a moral portrait our starting point should
be the general impression — not the isolated features. That is the only
fair and legitimate means of stamping a picture with its distinctive and

representative quality. Begin with the completed view, and work
downwards. Begin, not with the analysis of eye or ear or hand, but with
the survey of that combined effect where the details are lost in the
consummation and the eccentricities of feature are overshadowed in a
common harmony.
I have found the truth of this in a study of the portrait of Sarah. If I had
taken special days of her existence I should have been perplexed what
epithet to give her. In the light of one day I might have called her "Sarah
the Imperious," in the light of another "Sarah the Sceptical," in the light
of a third "Sarah the Cruel." But all these are accidental days; they are
but the variations in a single air, and that air is the tune of a whole life. It
would be unfair to judge the tune by its variations. We must look at the
deep

sea beneath the waves. And what is this sea? What is that quality in the
mind of Sarah which lies below all other qualities, and which subsists
when others change? (It may be expressed in one word — steadfastness.
The abiding secret of this woman's greatness is the fact of her own
abidingness. J Others are great by their brilliancy, by their talent, by
their beauty. Sarah has all the qualities; but none of them is made her
crown. She has the sparkle which wins love; but not on that rests her
epitaph. She has the physical lovehness which commands admiration;
but not on that reposes her glory. She has the mental
SARAH THE STEADFAST 53 power which sways masses; but not on
that does her empire stand to-day. /The one quality by which she lives in
our memory is the steadfastness of her conjugal devotion, j From morn
to eve, in storm and in calm, in shadow and in sunshine, in the flush of
youth and amid the faUing leaves of autumn, she is ever by her husband
Abraham's side. Prosperity does not divorce them; adversity does not
divide them; time only deepens the intensity of their union. There is one
point in this which in relation to the Bible Gallery is to my mind highly
significant. It is the fact that the Bible's first dehneation of female
steadfastness is in the sphere of the conjugal. We should have expected it
to be in the sphere of the lover. When a modern novelist wishes to
illustrate this quahty he generally depicts it before marriage. He takes
for granted that the reader will appreciate most a steadfast devotion
between two Hves which have not yet been joined by the wedding ring.
The Bible places in the front ground a post-nuptial steadfastness. And I
must say that in this I agree

with the act of the Hebrew Galleiy. I think the
54 SARAH THE STEADFAST continued devotion of married lives is
more to be emphasized than that of lovers. Pre-nuptial love is an age of
romance, and romance courts the opposition of fortune. What amorous
youth does not figure in his soul a thousand adventures of danger in
which he will be the hero; what amorous maiden does not picture in her
heart a thousand trials of fortitude in which she will prove her loyalty!
But nuptial love grows practical. It settles down. It seeks no posts of
danger. It is not, like its predecessor, tempted to manifest its devotion by
casting itself from the pinnacle of the temple. Its prayer is rather that of
the psalmist, ''Lead me in a plain path because of my enemies." Dangers
are barriers. Difficulties are hindrances. Obstacles are' impediments to
the wings. The result is that married love, where it persists, is the highest
test of steadfastness. It may not require to submit to more sacrifices than
romantic love; but it feels the real pain of the sacrifices it is submitting
to. Romantic love sees Hfe's battle from a hill; the wearer of the nuptial
ring beholds it from the plain. Let me illustrate what I mean from the
picture.
SARAH THE STEADFAST 55 Here is a young man — Abraham. He is
living in Ur of the Chaldees — a seat of ancient civiHzation. He is
himself a youth of high poetic instincts and not without a dash of that
dreaminess which belongs to these instincts. He has had long waking
dreams under the stars. There has risen within him an impulse which
now would

be called missionary, which then would be held visionary. He will go out
from his country and from his kindred and from his father's house to
seek a new country and build a new house. He will go forth to plant a
colony in some region as yet to him unknown. He will go where God
leads him. He will make no preUminary plan; he will map out no
geographical course; he will be led by the Divine hand blindfold. To his
contemporaries, to his fellow-countrymen, it seems a wild delusion, the
insanity of genius. But that is not the worst. He is not asking his
countrymen to join him; he can afford to discard their opinion. But there
remains to be dealt with something of a far more serious
naturesomething which disputes the message of the stars and
complicates the spirit of his dream.
56 SARAH THE STEADFAST He has formed an attachment to a
maiden of extreme beauty — a native of his own land and connected
with himself by blood. She is called Sarah, and her name denotes
elevated rank. Will this damsel join her fate to his in an enterprise so
hazardous? Will she leave father and mother, sister and brother, the
friends and comrades of her youth, to follow the fortunes of a visionary
young man who has not a possession in the world and who has no
prospect but his dreams? Will she go out like himself without knowing
whither she is bound, and trusting merely to what men would call the
chances of life? That is what Abraham asks himself, that is what impedes
the current of his great missionary resolve. Doubtless he would have left
Ur of the Chaldees years before but for the haunting dread of parting
with Sarah. At last, one day — of which indeed there is no

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