Notable Women of Olden Time Part 3

In early youth the sympathies are all awakened for the beautiful and the beloved Rachel, the only chosen, the betrothed bride. As we advance in years, in deeper acquaintance with human hearts, in truer fellowship in human suffering, we learn to feel for the plain and hated Leah. There is something deeply touching in the quiet sorrow which marks her lot; in her deep consciousness of her husband's alienation and her sister's hate. We feel how difficult it might have seemed to resist the authority of the father, when it was aided by the pleadings of her own affection and the customs of her people. We glance into the tents of Jacob, and contrast Leah with the beautiful, the loved, the indulged, the self-willed Rachel. There we see her, plain and unattractive in person, broken in spirit, bowed down by the consciousness of her own sin and her husband's hate--her sister's bitter contempt--striving, though scarce hoping, to win the love of her husband; and welcoming the anguish of a mother, with the fond a.s.surance, "Now will my husband love me, for I have borne him a son."

We follow the sisters, as, still side by side, but with alienated hearts and estranged affections, they depart from the tents of their father to follow the footsteps of their husband,--Rachel and her offspring are the first objects of the care, as of the affection, of the patriarch. Yet we find Rachel, the loved and indulged wife, more murmuring, more repining, more fault-finding than Leah. By sorrow and trial, Leah may have learned submission; and the dearest earthly hopes disappointed--all her affections as a wife crushed and despised--in her hour of grief, and in the desolation of a widowhood of hate, she may have sought and found that love which never faileth, which giveth liberally and upbraideth not.

And He whose ear is ever open to the cry of his creatures, who forgives even while he punishes their iniquities, pitied Leah, and, without upbraiding her for that deceit by which she became a wife, gave her the joys of a mother; and in all the names bestowed upon her children, Leah at once recognises the mercy of G.o.d, while she still remembers that she is hated of her husband--attesting at once her conscious sorrow and her trusting faith.

Rachel was childless--and when she saw Leah rejoicing as a mother, it awoke all the bitterness of envy. With the unreasonable pettishness of a wife ever indulged, she reproached her husband. For once, the anger of Jacob was kindled against the idolized Rachel. "Am I in G.o.d's stead?"

said he. The consciousness of being the loved and the cherished one--the overflowing tenderness and the ready indulgence which Rachel received, made her only more exacting and imperious; and while Leah seemed softened by trials and sorrows, her sister grew more unreasonable by indulgence, and was at once haughty and insolent. So corrupt is human nature, that the gratification of our desires too often merely excites the pride and haughtiness of the human heart, and the prosperous claim the blessings of Heaven as a matter of right; while it is mercifully ordained that the very sorrow which ever follows transgression, the evils which await all departures from duty and right, should, by their very tendency, awaken repentance and lead to a penitent and humble spirit.

When the daughters of Laban left the house of their father, either from a latent superst.i.tion, or from a family cupidity, Rachel stole the household G.o.ds of Laban and secreted them; and with an art worthy of the daughter of Laban, she prevented her father from reclaiming them; thus paving the way for the introduction of idolatry into the household of Jacob. He had already introduced polygamy by his marriage with her, and, to secure her, and thereby gratify her rivalry of her sister, he had multiplied his wives, and brought upon himself still heavier sorrows and trials. It was the beauty of Rachel which first captivated the eye, and then enthralled the heart of Jacob; and the wisest of men, thus ensnared, are still led into sin and folly. All the influences of Rachel upon his heart and life seem to have been unhappy; and the narrative shows that the strongest pa.s.sion, gratified in defiance of prudence and previously imposed obligation, can only lead to disappointment and vexation. The two sisters both proved the love of the wife, in leaving all at the command of the husband; and the G.o.d in whom Jacob still trusted, guarded him against all the designs of Laban, averted the wrath of his brother, and guided him to the land of Isaac. He had pa.s.sed Jordan with his staff and his scrip--he went out an outcast, and a fugitive; he returned with the train of a chief, the retinue of an Eastern prince; and his heart swelled with thanksgiving as he recounted the mercy and remembered the faithfulness of Jehovah. His father was still living--the nurse of Rebekah, who so long since had left the family of Bethuel, came to close her eyes in the tents of the grand-daughter of her former master; but the mother who had led her son into sin, who had taught him to practise that deceit which had recoiled upon himself, is not mentioned. She, doubtless, was laid by the side of Abraham and of Sarah, in the cave of Machpelah. She had antic.i.p.ated a short absence, a transient separation from her son. She purposed to send for him to return to his father, that he might yet be heir of the estate; but when Jacob did return in wealth and honour--yet bearing that bitter burden of care and sorrow, from which no honour, no wealth are exempt,--she who would have a.s.suredly exulted in the one, and sympathized with the other, was not in the tent of Isaac. She came not forth to welcome her son, to embrace her relatives and daughters or caress their children. Her place in the tent and at the board was vacant--her voice was hushed--her heart cold. The places that had known her, knew her no more. And thus it often is. Before man attains wealth or honour, those who had most rejoiced to witness it have pa.s.sed away; while still, fair as is the outward lot, there are internal sorrows, imbittering every pleasant draught, and casting a shadow over all the brightness of human existence. Thus it is that the most prosperous are often followed by a cloud, reflecting glory and radiance upon such as are without, but covering with gloom and darkness those who fall within its shadow.

And soon followed the bitterest trial of Leah's life,--the shame, sorrow, and widowhood of her only daughter; avenged by those who neglected to guard her--while the husband, though indifferent to the sorrow and love of the wife, must have felt the anguish of the father.

And the rivalry and strife of the sisters was over. "Give me children or else I die," was the cry of the wife whose wishes had been laws--and the prayer prompted by hate and envy was answered. Yet Rachel died. And in that hour of mortal agony, of bitter suffering, Leah probably stood by her sister. With affections estranged, love turned into bitterness, with hearts alienated, but fates inseparably united, they had pa.s.sed their days. Their tents had been pitched side by side,--the voices of their children had been mingled together as they fell upon their mothers'

ears,--they had been called to worship at the same altar,--they had been members of the same household.

Forced thus to dwell together, constantly to meet, to be familiar with the same objects, to have the same interests, they were alienated, but not separated; and if their feelings were crushed, they were not all uprooted. As Leah saw her younger, her beautiful sister in the hour of extremity, in the agonies of a mother's sufferings, the sympathies of a woman must have risen with the love of a sister, and bitter tears of repentant sorrow must she have shed upon the pallid brow and quivering lips, as the hopes and the memories of youth and childhood gathered around, to reproach her for that deceit by which she had sown their path through mutual life with thorns, and made their joys to be but ashes.

There are no tears so bitter as those which are shed by affection, too late revived, over those whom we have loved and yet injured,--over those from whom we have suffered ourselves to be estranged.

Rachel was buried in the way to Ephrath, which is Bethlehem. She was not laid in the sepulchre of Abraham. The children were left to the fostering care of her hated sister. Her sons pa.s.sed through trials from which she could not guard them, and they came to honours while she knew it not. At this distance, her life seems to us a dream--a few years of pleasant childhood, a short vision of youthful love,--then comes the strife of life, its stern discipline, its bitter trials, its disappointed hopes, and its termination in the grave.

As we dwell upon the characters so truthfully delineated in the word of G.o.d, and follow the record of human pride, pa.s.sion and infirmity, we are taught at once to magnify and adore the patience, the forbearance and the mercy of Jehovah. And let us remember that it is because these characters are reflected in the pure mirror of truth that the dark shades so plainly appear. In every age the heart of man is the same; but the temptations which especially evince this depravity may be peculiar to some particular age or condition.

We know not how long Leah survived her sister. Her advancing years were not exempt from affliction, and age brings its own trials; yet prosperity rested upon Jacob--and in the decline of life she may have known happiness desired, but not realized, in youth.

After the death of his beloved Rachel, the heart of Jacob may have turned to Leah, and a peaceful friendship have succeeded the storm and the conflicts of youthful pa.s.sion. Sorrow may have knit hearts softened by the mutual consciousness of error and by the tears of repentance, and strengthened by the hopes of pardon, and drawn to each other by the strong ties of parental love for their mutual offspring. When the patriarch was called into Egypt, Leah went not with him. He had laid her in the gathering-place of his sons, in the tent of his fathers. From the touching expression of the dying patriarch--himself far from the land of his fathers' sepulchres--"And there I buried Leah," we feel that, in age and bereavement, the heart of Jacob turned to Leah. The repudiated wife of his youth became the solace of his age, and her memory awoke the last tender recollections in the dying patriarch. As we have read the book of G.o.d, we have been taught that good, inordinately coveted, or obtained by injustice and deceit, ever brings a curse. The princ.i.p.al actors in the events recorded in these chapters of Genesis, may have secured the object which they sought, yet the attainment did not avert or mitigate the punishment of the treachery by which it was secured.

Rebekah obtained the birth-right and the coveted blessing for her favourite child, and by that act separated him from herself and doomed him to a banishment from his father's house, and from that hour she saw his face no more. Laban secured by his deceit the marriage of his unattractive daughter and the establishment of the beautiful Rachel, but he thus alienated the children he still seems to have loved, and that wealth which he so coveted.

Leah, by her connivance at her father's deceit, married the man she loved, but it was to lead a life of bitter, of heart-consuming sorrow.

Jacob, departing from the inst.i.tution of marriage that he might yet possess Rachel, entailed upon himself a career of strife, bitterness and disappointment; and introduced into his family an example that became a fruitful source of individual depravity and national corruption; while he first witnessed the evil effects of his complicated domestic relations in the conduct of his eldest son, and felt at once his shame as a husband and his reproach as a father. And are not these things written for our edification? Are we not, in every page of G.o.d's word, taught explicitly that for man there is neither safety nor happiness save in the path of duty and of literal obedience? That each departure from the rule of right, whatever be the motive, and crowned as it may seem to be with success, draws a long succession of sin and sorrow in its train? Many have studied the word of G.o.d to justify sin, or palliate guilt, by the examples of the former dispensation. Let it be carefully studied, and it will show that the transgression which secured a positive object, still brought its punishment,--if delayed, never remitted--although successful, never justified. The word of G.o.d never justifies crimes, though in infinite wisdom He over-rules them to promote the designs of his eternal providence.

Modern days and Christian inst.i.tutions allow no examples of the exact type of the strife and rivalry exhibited in the household of the patriarch of Israel. Yet, while human nature remains as it is, there will ever be the jealousies, the strifes, the bitterness arising from misplaced affection, or alienated hearts, or jarring interests. There is still to be found the coquetry which would win love from a sister or a friend, and the treachery that would supplant the rival--as there are still fathers who, for motives of interest, would sacrifice their daughters, regardless of their hearts or their happiness. Youthful beauty still attracts the eye and wins the heart, and the best and wisest of men are too often enthralled by mere personal attraction.

Human nature is ever the same, and the motives and feelings which swayed the generations who have mouldered back to dust are still felt and acknowledged.

While we thus attempt to trace the outlines of the domestic history of these individuals, we cannot but feel that there is a surpa.s.sing beauty and excellence in the character of Abraham. He bore the fresh impress of a renovated world, and was truly worthy of the pre-eminence which is always allotted to him. Isaac seems to have dwelt in quiet, peaceful prosperity. Inheriting great wealth, dwelling until mature age with his parents, there seem to have been few occasions in which the prominent traits of the character are displayed. His life offers less of interest, less to excite, less to praise and less to blame than either Abraham's or Jacob's. The father's energy, patience, faith and obedience had prepared the way for the prosperity of the son; and Isaac, nursed in affluence and cherished by maternal affection, seems to have exhibited less energy, enterprise and decision than either his father or his descendants. His premature blindness doubtless conduced to this inactive life. Yet he trusted and obeyed the G.o.d of his father, though he enjoyed neither the exalted faith of Abraham, nor was he favoured with the enlarged prophetic views of Jacob.

In all the trials and infirmities of Jacob--from the day in which he left his father's house until the hour in which "he gathered his feet in his bed and died" in Egypt--we see the evidence and the growth of true piety, of enlarged faith. He was encompa.s.sed with infirmities, and these infirmities betrayed him into sins, which brought in their train the sorrows which, through Divine grace, purified and sanctified him. Thus his character excites our increasing love and sympathy, and his advancing piety our veneration.

From the glimpses we obtain of the families of Nahor, Bethuel, and Laban, we trace a gradual departure from Jehovah among the descendants of Shem. Nahor and Abraham were possessors of like faith. They both worshipped the G.o.d of their fathers--of Shem, of Noah, of Methuselah, of Enoch, of Seth, of Adam. Bethuel's household still remained a household of faith, but in Laban we see the beginning of a departure from the true G.o.d. The first steps towards idolatry were taken. There was the resort to a sensible representation,--some image probably used as a symbol of the true G.o.d at first, but certainly ensnaring the heart, and ending in idolatry. Thus the G.o.ds of Laban, which Rachel stole, were leading him and his family rapidly to idol-worship, and to forgetfulness of the true G.o.d. Still he had not sunk into gross idolatry. Laban still pledged himself, and invoked the name of the G.o.d of Abraham and of Nahor, and of their fathers, when he entered into covenant with Jacob. He had not yet altogether abjured the worship of Jehovah: he had begun to mingle a false worship with it, and thus prepared the way for the full apostasy of his descendants.

That the chosen people might be kept from the taint of idolatry, Jacob left Laban; yet Rachel had stolen her father's images--and there is then great significance in that act by which Jacob renewed his covenant with G.o.d, when called upon to build the altar at Bethel.

"And Jacob said unto his household, and to all that were with him, Put away the strange G.o.ds that are among you and be clean, and change your garments: and let us arise and go up to Bethel; and I will make there an altar unto G.o.d, who answered me in the day of my distress, and was with me in the way which I went. And they gave unto Jacob all the strange G.o.ds which were in their hand, and all their ear-rings which were in their ears; and Jacob hid them under the oak which was by Shechem."

Probably the ear-rings were used as heathen charms or amulets. While idolatry, as a leprosy, was thus beginning to infect the household, he saw the need of their purification; and there seems no accidental connection between this searching out and putting away of idolatry in the household of Jacob and the following death of Rachel: "With whomsoever thou findest thy G.o.ds, let him not live."

The cherished wife of Jacob, deeply tainted with the superst.i.tions by which her family were corrupting the religion of Jehovah, may have been thus removed to prevent further contagion. While the apostle may refer to this example in his promise: "Nevertheless she shall be saved in child-bearing, if she continue in the faith." And this sin may have excluded Rachel from the sepulchre of Abraham. The plague-spot disappears from this time, and the purification of the household was availing. For many generations, whatever their other sins, the children of Jacob were kept from idolatry.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

MIRIAM.

THE INFLUENCE OF WOMEN UPON THE DESTINY AND CHARACTER OF MAN, AS EXEMPLIFIED IN THE LIFE OF MOSES.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

There were designs of infinite wisdom to be accomplished by the long sojourn of the children of Jacob in Egypt. The people of Israel were appointed to guard the name and worship of Jehovah, until He who was to bring life and immortality to light should rise from among them. Until the "Star" that was to come from Jacob should shed its glorious radiance over this darkened earth. When all the children of men were departing from G.o.d, He chose this family to perpetuate the memory of his works and his mighty acts in preserving the first history of the race, and to prepare the way for the fulfilment of the designs of infinite mercy toward a sinful and apostate world. By miracles and judgments, by type and prophecy, by altars and sacrifices, he kept before this people the mysterious promise given in the hour of transgression.

From this family was to descend him who was to be the light of the Gentiles, and the glory of Israel, him who was at once the Almighty Saviour, the everlasting Father, the wonderful Counsellor, the man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, who bore our sickness, and took upon himself our iniquities. And while from the family of Israel that high spiritual influence was to emanate, which was to renovate men's moral nature and change the aspect and condition of the race, restoring the knowledge of the true G.o.d; and again, through the great atoning sacrifice, opening the gates of eternal life and bringing spiritual blessings to all mankind,--the character of the children of Israel, their civil inst.i.tutions, their legislation, their history, their laws, their literature, were to leave their impress upon all the nations of the earth.

The apostle accounts it the chief honour of the Jews that unto them were committed the oracles of G.o.d. They were employed to transcribe and preserve the inspired books. From them went forth those who first announced the great truths of a Saviour crucified and a Comforter promised. For successive ages the nation of Israel stood surrounded by the heathen world,--stood the witnesses of the faithfulness of Jehovah, the monuments of his truth and power, the only nation upon the face of this earth who worshipped the true G.o.d.

Thick moral darkness shrouded all other lands--the nation of Israel alone had light in their dwellings, and the beams of the rising Sun of righteousness fell upon them and revealed the gross darkness around them.

And he who had chosen the people of Israel for such a high purpose, in infinite wisdom devised the means to fit them for their destination, and he guided and guarded them in each stage of their national existence.

Egypt was one of the first kingdoms founded after the deluge, and it is probable that those who repeopled it after this event, had retained many impressions of the former world. Her monuments, yet remaining, attest the high antiquity of her arts and sciences, and her early advancement in refinement and civilization.

Her priests and wise men were the instructors of the ancient world, and the philosophers of Greece resorted to Egypt to study legislation and philosophy, and Egypt imparted to Greece, and Greece to Rome, the arts and sciences by which they refined and elevated Europe.

G.o.d designed Egypt to be the nursery of the nation of Israel. The granary of the ancient world offering abundant sustenance, he brought Jacob and his sons into it as one family, and here they remained until they multiplied and increased, and became like the stars of heaven for number; and He who led them into Egypt ordained all the events of their national history so as to promote his own eternal plans.

The patriarch led his children, with their flocks and herds,--the wealth of a pastoral people,--into this land as the invited guests of Pharaoh, the monarch of Egypt. And as he bowed before the king, the aged patriarch taught him at once the brevity of man's life and the unsatisfying nature of all earthly enjoyments, as recalled at the close of a long pilgrimage: "Few and evil have been the days of the years of my pilgrimage." Pharaoh received the aged man with respect, and showed him all honour; while in consideration of the pastoral habits of his sons, a portion of land, separate from the Egyptians, was allotted them for a place of abode. Thus they were kept a distinct, unmingled people, and enabled to maintain their own peculiar inst.i.tutions, practise the rites of their own religion, and preserve the worship of the G.o.d of Abraham. And in all the oppression which they here sustained, we do not find that their religion was ever persecuted or their rites forbidden.

And as Egypt was the cradle of the nation of Israel, so it was to be the school in which the children of Jacob were to form a national character.

The wandering, pastoral tribes, transformed into an agricultural people and settled residents, and instructed in the arts of civilized life, were fitted to take possession of the allotted heritage. After fostering their infancy and feebleness, the monarchs of Egypt gradually changed their course as the increasing numbers of the Israelites excited jealous apprehension. Yet all this varying policy and every cruel edict advanced the designs of Jehovah and promoted the welfare of his chosen people.

The cruelty of the Egyptians alienated the hearts of the Israelites from the nation and from the land of Egypt, and kept freshly before them the remembrance of the inheritance promised. While considered as strangers, treated as aliens, and surrounded by enemies, the bonds of brotherhood were more closely drawn, and they clung together, a distinct and separate people.

The tribes were one nation. While the people of Israel were oppressed, they were not enslaved. They were tributary, but not reduced to personal bondage. They dwelt together in that portion of Egypt a.s.signed to them. They spoke their own language. They seem to have regulated their internal affairs by their own elders. They maintained their own worship. Their family relations were unbroken. They must have ama.s.sed riches, for they brought great wealth out of Egypt, as the offerings at the tabernacle show--and although in part this may have been received from the rest.i.tution which the conscience-smitten Egyptians offered upon their departure, all could not have been thus derived. The whole narrative of the Israelites shows that they were rich in silver and gold, and possessed much cattle. Yet all their property was personal--they owned no land. And much of the tribute was, doubtless, exacted as rent, paid by many in personal labour; and while they thus erected, perhaps, the proudest monuments of Egyptian art by this enforced labour, they were acquiring the various knowledge needful to a nation; while their very task-masters, by compelling them to acquire the habits of industry, to which a pastoral people are always averse, were school-masters, needful though harsh, teaching them to develop their energies and forcing them to exercise patience and to acquire skill.

Learning and wisdom have departed from Egypt. She has long been the basest of kingdoms. The race of the Pharaohs has pa.s.sed away. She has been for ages governed by slaves. Temple and palace are in ruins. Her tombs, sacred and precious, have been pillaged; And the bones of her great and n.o.ble ones, her priests and kings, feed the fire by which the wandering Arab prepares his food. Yet many monuments of her ancient arts remain, interesting as attesting her power, grandeur, and high advancement in civilization, and still more valuable as corroborating the sacred history and throwing light on many pa.s.sages of the inspired word,--at once showing the former residence of the Israelites in Egypt, the close connection of these ancient people, and affording proofs of that wisdom which selected Egypt for the cradle and school of the chosen race.

The Egyptians, gradually after the flood, lost the knowledge of Jehovah and departed from his worship.

At the time Joseph married the daughter of the priest of On, the Egyptians could not have sunk into that gross idolatry which contrasted so strangely with their wise legislation and scientific attainments; and their priests are supposed to have concealed, under mystic symbols, mysterious truths, which they imparted to the initiated, while they taught a grosser system to the common mind. While in Egypt the Israelites seem never to have been exposed to the debasing immoralities which prevailed among the nations around the promised land.

The children of Jacob sojourned in the land of Ham four hundred years.

When Jehovah called his people out of Egypt they were fitted to receive the laws and inst.i.tutions which he designed to give them, and to take the high position he a.s.signed them among the nations of the earth. And lest, during their long sojourn in the wilderness, they should lose the arts of civilized life, they were employed in the construction of the tabernacle. By the minute enumeration of all that was required for the completion of this work, we see that the erection involved an extensive acquaintance with the mechanical arts, and of those, too, which indicate a high degree of advancement in the luxuries of polished life. Thus the generation born in the wilderness were instructed, and preserved from degenerating into mere shepherds, hunters, or warriors. The restless were occupied, and the work proved a bond of union for the whole people, exciting the interest and employing the energies of all the different cla.s.ses of the great mult.i.tude.

The long ages of the sojourn of the children of Jacob were drawing to a close. The iniquity of the Canaanites was now full; the children of Israel were prepared to be numbered among the nations of the earth; and the events dictated by the craft and policy of men were ordained to promote the infinite designs of Jehovah. For four hundred years the descendants of Jacob had dwelt in Goshen. From a pastoral they were already become an agricultural people; they had learned to prize the comforts of an established life, of quiet, peaceful homes, of pleasant places of abode. Dwelling in the richest portion of Egypt, protected from all foreign aggression, they there enjoyed abundance, peace, and prosperity, to which their wanderings in the desert furnished a sad contrast.

The policy of Egypt had excluded the Israelites from her crimes. The energy, the love of change and adventure, which a martial life imparts, were unfelt; and had not oppression driven the Israelites from Egypt, the promise of that goodly land destined for their race had hardly induced the nation to leave their present abundance and protection.

Thus, by the various dispensations of his providence, Jehovah was at once preparing a guide, leader, ruler, and future lawgiver for his people, while by the continued vexation, oppression, and cruelty of the Egyptian rulers, he was suffering them to alienate the affections of the children of Jacob from a country which had become the native land of the Israelites, which was the birth-place of generation after generation.

At the time Miriam, the sister of Moses, appears before us, the children of Israel had reached the fourth generation. A family had become a nation, a people in the bosom of another, dwelling together, distinct, separate, too numerous to be easily or safely held in subjection, too valuable as tributaries to be relinquished. Thus to hold them safely in bondage and to prevent their further increase, it became the settled policy of Egypt to oppress and degrade them. As their jealous apprehensions were at length awakened, by a policy as profound as it was cruel, the Egyptian monarchs endeavoured, in destroying the sons of this people, to force the daughters of Israel to intermarry with their oppressors, that they might obtain the wealth of the sons of Jacob, while the name and memory of his family would be swept from the earth.

Yet dwelling, as the Israelites did, in a separate province, it was not easy for Pharaoh to find those who would execute his purposes; and the first efforts to cut off the race of the chosen, failed. He was however so intent upon their extermination, that he did not hesitate to direct that all the male children of the Israelites should be cast into the river as soon as they were born.