Notable Women of Olden Time
THE WIFE—SARAH
Within a few centuries after the flood, while some who had witnessed the sin and the destruction of the antediluvian world were still living, Jehovah saw fit, in accordance with his designs of eternal wisdom, to separate Abraham from his brethren, calling upon him to leave the land of his birth and go out into a strange land, to dwell in a far country. He was to pass the rest of his days as a sojourner in a land which should be thereafter given to a people yet unborn,—to a nation which was to descend from him.
Abraham was a lineal descendant of Shem, who was doubtless still living while "the father of Abraham yet abode with his kindred in the land of the Chaldees;" and from the lips of his venerable progenitor, Abraham himself may have first received the knowledge of the true God, and have learned lessons of wisdom and obedience, as he sat at his feet. Shem may have conversed with Methuselah; and Methuselah must have known Adam; and from Adam, Methuselah may have heard that history of the creation and fall, which he narrated to Shem, and which Shem may have transmitted to Abraham; and the history of the world would be thus remembered as the traditional recollections of a family, and repeated as the familiar remembrances of a single household.
Tales of the loveliness of Eden,—of the glories of the creation,—of the blessedness of the primeval state,—of the days before the fall; remembrances of the "mother of all living" in the days of her holiness, when she was as beautiful as the world created for her home, in all the dewy sweetness of the morning of its existence,—of the wisdom of man before he yielded to the voice of temptation, when authority was enthroned upon his brow, and all the tribes of the lower creation did him homage;—of the good spirits who watched over to minister unto and bless them;—of those dark, unholy and accursed ones, who came to tempt, betray and destroy them,—were recounted as events of which those who described them had been the witnesses. And from the remembrances thus preserved and transmitted by tradition, each generation obscuring or exaggerating them, have descended what we call fables of antiquity,—great facts, now dimly remembered and darkly presented, as shadowed over by the mists of long ages.
How must the hearts of the descendants of Shem have thrilled as they heard from him the history of by-gone times—of a world which had passed away! How much had the great patriarch of his race, himself, beheld? He had seen the glory and the beauty of the world before the flood. It was cursed for the sin of man, in the day of his fall—but slowly, as we measure time, do the woes denounced by God often take effect, and, though excluded from Eden, the first pair may have seen little change pass over the face of the earth. The consummation of this curse may have been the deluge; and those who dwelt on the earth, before this calamity swept it with its destroying wing, may have seen it in much of its original beauty; while those who outlived that event witnessed a wonderful change.
From that frail fabric, the ark, which proved the second cradle of the race, Shem had beheld a world submerged,—a race swept off by the floods of Almighty wrath. He had heard the shrieks of the drowning, the vain prayer of those who had scoffed the threatened vengeance, the fruitless appeal of those who had long rejected mercy. As the waves bore up his frail vessel, he had seen the black and sullen waters settle over temples, cities and palaces; and he had gazed until he could behold but one dark expanse of water, in whose turbid depths were buried all the families of the earth—save one.
Those he had loved and honoured, and much which, perhaps, he had envied and coveted—the pride, the glory, the beauty of earth—all had passed away. And after the waters subsided, and the ark had found a resting-place, what a deep and sad solemnity must have mingled with the joy for their preservation.
How strange the aspect the world presented! How must the survivors have recalled past scenes and faces, to be seen no more! How much they must have longed to recognise old familiar places,—the Eden of Adam and Eve,—the graves in which they had been laid! For doubtless Seth and his descendants still remained with their first parents, while Cain went out from their presence and built a city in some place remote. The earth which Noah and his descendants repeopled was one vast grave; and what wonder that those who built above a race entombed, should mingle fancy with tradition, and imagine that the buried cities and habitations were yet inhabited by the accursed and unholy. Such have been the fancies of those who darkly remembered the flood; and as the wind swept through the caverns of the earth, the superstitious might still imagine that they heard the voices or the shrieks of the spirits imprisoned within.
Shem seems to have far exceeded his brothers in true piety, and the knowledge of Jehovah was for many generations preserved among his descendants, while few or none of them ever sank into those deep superstitions which debased the children of Ham. And it is beautiful to remark, that the filial piety which so pre-eminently marked him has ever been a prominent trait among all nations descended from him. Thus receiving his impressions of the power, the truth, the awful justice of Jehovah, from one well fitted to convey them,—and taught the certain fulfilment of promises and of threats,—Abraham was early inspired with that deep reverential and yet filial love, that entire confidence, which led to the trusting obedience which distinguished his character.
Yet, from his very piety, sad must it have been when the command came to leave the plains of Mesopotamia, and go out a stranger and a pilgrim into distant lands, to become a dweller among those who were fast apostatizing from the true faith. "But by faith he obeyed," and by his obedience he has given us an example and illustration of faith, which has been held forth through all succeeding ages. To be the child of Abraham, to walk as he walked, is, after the lapse of thousands of years, the characteristic of the true worshipper of God.
Guided by an Omniscient hand, trusting in an Almighty power, cheered by that mysterious promise, which, as a star of hope shining in the hour of deepest darkness, still rose to higher brightness as it guided the long line of patriarchs, kings, and prophets, until it settled over the manger of Bethlehem, and was lost in the full glory of the Sun of righteousness,—Abraham girded his loins and prepared for a departure to far distant lands.
At first, attended by his father and brother, he sojourned with them in Haran; and the family pitched their tents in that spot which was to become in future ages the battle-ground of nations, when the proud eagle of imperial Rome was trailed in the dust, and her warriors and her nobles fell before their fiercer foes. Long ages have intervened since the tents of this Syrian family were pitched by the side of the waters of Charan; and midway between their days and ours, were these waters discoloured with the blood of those who fell in the battle of Charae, so disastrous to Rome, ever haughty, and then exulting in the height of her prosperity. A few wandering shepherds now lead their flocks in the plain in which Sarah and Abraham dwelt, and where Cassius and his legions fell. But a short sojourn was permitted Abraham here. "Arise and depart, for this is not your rest"—and again he listened to the command from above, and gathered his flocks and servants, and girded his loins, and set his face towards the land promised to him, and to his seed after him. And now he left his father and his brethren, and went with his own family, the head of his house, the future patriarch of his race.
Yet he was not alone. The wife of his youth was by his side. In all his wanderings, in all his cares, there was one with him to participate in his joys and to alleviate his sorrows. With him and for him, his wife forsook home, kindred and country. We doubt not that she too shared the faith of Abraham; that she too trusted and loved and worshipped the God of Abraham, and of Shem, and of Noah. Like Abraham, a descendant of Shem,—like him too, she had been trained in the worship of Jehovah. Yet to the faith of the true believer, there was added the strong affection of the wife; and while Abraham went out obeying God, Sarah followed, trusting God indeed, but leaning still upon her husband. In all her future life, she is presented to us the wife; devoted, affectionate, submissive; loving her husband with a true affection, and honouring him by a due deference.
With a beauty that fascinated kings, preserving the charms of youth to the advanced period of her life, she still lived but for her husband; and when even the faith of Abraham failed, and he withdrew from the wife the protection of the husband, and said, "She is my sister," Sarah appears to have acquiesced in a deceit so unworthy of her husband and of herself, merely to insure his safety among the lawless tribes around them.
As we read the story of Abraham's wife, we catch glimpses of ages and nations that were hoar with