of the words she must have so often pondered, she would have found that the loftiest dreams of the rankest ambition were to be more than realized.
But dimly and faintly must she have apprehended the meaning of the mysterious prophecy, even while she trusted the accompanying promise. As she saw Ishmael, the only child in the tent of the patriarch, and loved by the father, she perhaps allowed herself to hope that he was yet to be the heir, and that in his future honours she was to find a full recompense for all the trials of her blighted youth.
After long years of waiting, Sarah embraced a son, and the event, so joyous to the parents, awoke afresh the bitter remembrances of Hagar, while it roused her to the consciousness of her present lot and of all the injuries inflicted upon her.
In all the trials and sorrows through which she had passed, she had had none to sustain or sympathize with her. Her child remained her only earthly hope; and now she felt that another was to supplant him, and thus disappoint all her expectations.
Her spirit rose in pride and wrath, and she infused her own bitter feelings into the heart of her child. When Isaac was hailed as the heir, while all rejoiced, Hagar and Ishmael mocked both the infant and the aged parents.
Forbearance was no longer safe, and the decision of Sarah was wise, though harsh—yet it was sad to Abraham. Ishmael was still his son—his first-born. He had been ever dear to him; and when the angel of the Lord had again confirmed the promise of a seed in whom all the nations of the earth were to be blessed, he had almost seemed to overlook it as he pleaded for the son of the bond-woman, "Oh that Ishmael might live before thee!" while to Abraham was then confirmed the promise given before the birth of her child to Hagar. There was sorrow and perplexity in the heart of Abraham, but a message from heaven confirmed the decree of Sarah.
The patriarch arose, after a night of conflict and prayer, while the stars were still shining in the heavens, while the flocks lay in stillness around the tents, and before those who had revelled and rejoiced were awake, and called Hagar and her child. Can we not see them in the gray of the morning? The father, the mother, the child—the patriarch, aged, but not bowed by age, still retaining the vigour of manhood—the boy shy, yet half-defying—the mother! In such an hour, all distinctions of rank and station would be forgotten, and all the feelings of the woman be roused. Then and there Hagar might well forget that she was Sarah's bondmaid, and only remember that she had been Abraham's wife—that she was still Ishmael's mother.
In that hour must have risen the memory of her wrongs, of her saddened youth, her darkened womanhood—of the selfishness with which he had wedded her; of the heartlessness with which he had deserted her; of her long years of trial and contempt. And her eye might speak reproach, although the lips were closed and there was no voice. Should we not rejoice to believe that the patriarch whispered some regret for the past, and spoke of sorrow and repentance to her whose happiness he had so selfishly sacrificed, even as he consummated his work by casting her out, a homeless exile. Such is the enslaving power of custom, so easily do we blind ourselves to our own delinquencies, that Abraham probably aggravated Hagar's faults while he overlooked her injuries. He saw in her but the despiteful, revengeful handmaid; he forgot that she was an injured wife—a neglected mother.
Yet no words of reproach, of entreaty, or explanation of the past, or promise for the future, are recorded as having passed between them. He pronounced the decree, and laid upon the bondmaid, and not upon his noble boy, the provision for the journey. She turned from the tents, and thus they parted!
But the connection of Abraham and Hagar had woven a thread into the destiny of nations, still to be traced. She left the patriarch in sorrow, in bitterness of soul; but she went out to found nations, to punish rulers, to establish a long line who should transmit the name of her son and the influence of her character to remotest ages—even to the end of time.
Accustomed to the wandering life of the desert, and provided for the journey, Abraham probably deemed Hagar competent to guide her steps to a place of safety. But sorrow may have blinded her eyes, or despair made her reckless, and she was lost in the desert. The water was spent in the bottle—tons of gold could not open a fountain in the desert—and she saw her child parched with thirst, "faint and ready to die; and she cast him under one of the shrubs, and went and sat a good way off, as it were a bow-shot, for she said, Let me not see the death of the child; and as she sat over against him, she lifted up her voice and wept. And God heard the voice of the lad, and the angel of God called to her out of heaven and said unto her, What aileth thee Hagar? Fear not! For God hath heard the voice of the child where he is. Arise, lift up the lad, and hold him in thy hand, for I will make of him a great nation. And God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water, and she went and filled the bottle with water, and gave the lad to drink." What an inimitable description of a mother's love! What a display of the watchful benevolence of Jehovah!
In this hour of desolation, when no human aid was near, there was again the Divine interposition, while there was no reproach, no allusion even to that sinful temper which had led to the banishment of both mother and child, and caused them to come here to perish in the wilderness. Blessed be God that he does not suffer the unworthiness of his children to separate them from his love; that in the hour of extremity he is still nigh; that his ear is ever open to hear and his arm ready to save.
"And God was with the lad: and he grew and dwelt in the wilderness, and became an archer; and he dwelt in the wilderness of Paran." And his mother still dwelt with him; and in all his wanderings, wherever his footsteps were turned, there was her home. There is a touching remembrance of her early life, in the fact that Hagar chose a wife for her son from among the daughters of her own people: "She took him a wife out of the land of Egypt." And from this union have sprung the tribes who still fill the deserts where Hagar sought a refuge. A wild race, dwelling in the presence of all their brethren, whose hand is against every man, while every man's hand is against them.
Ishmael rose rapidly to rank, and Hagar lived to rejoice in his prosperity. The life which commenced in want, privation and wandering in the wilderness, conducted her to wealth and honour. So dark and inscrutable are the ways of Providence, that at each step we are taught but to seek the path of duty and obey the direction of Heaven.
The children of Ishmael seem to have long preserved the knowledge of Jehovah. Hagar, who had received so many proofs of the being, power, and providence of the God of Abraham, might well instruct her descendants in the principles of the true faith. The race of Ishmael have still preserved the rite which Abraham received as the seal of faith. Often may Hagar have recounted the providences of God—the account she had heard, in the tent of Abraham, of the creation, the fall, the deluge, the re-peopling of the world; and often, in the course of their wandering lives, she may have led her descendants to those deep waters which covered the guilty cities of the plain, and then described them as she knew them before the wrath of God fell upon them.
The tribes of Ishmael have ever recognised their descent from Abraham; and the instructions of Hagar are preserved as national traditions to this very day, though exaggerated by Eastern fancy, and mingled with wilder romance, as they have been transmitted from one generation to another by the children of Ishmael, who still lead their flocks in the same valleys, and pitch their tents by the same fountains to which Hagar resorted with Ishmael.
Hagar and Ishmael were no more members of Abraham's household, yet the relationship of father and son was ever recognised. Doubtless Abraham imparted of his wealth to his first-born; and as Abraham often sojourned afterwards in Beer-sheba, probably not far from the spot where Hagar and Ishmael so nearly perished, the father and son may have often met; and Isaac and Ishmael may have held kindly intercourse, when the bitter feelings of rivalry and of conscious wrong had subsided. The ties of kindred were still allowed, and Esau sought a wife from the family of his own kindred, as a means of conciliating his father and mother; thus showing that a purer morality and a higher religious feeling were cherished than those among surrounding tribes. And when Abraham died, having attained a full age, his sons, Isaac and Ishmael, both far advanced in years, buried him. The strifes, the bitterness, the hate of early life seem to have been forgotten, and they united in the last offices of filial love and duty.
The son of the bondmaid had attained, during the life of Abraham, a