THE GUARDIAN.

Vol. XXII.-FEBRUARY, 1871.-No. 2.

THE WIVES OF THE PATRIARCHS.

BY THE EDITOR.

Woman's work and woman's woe belong to the unwritten history of the world. What she does and endures are known to God, and in part to a very limited home circle. Humanly speaking, the great and good men of the Scriptures owed much of their greatness to their mothers. Then as now the mother moulded the character, more than the father. Much do we read of the fathers and sons, little of the mothers and daughters. That little we find but in passing hints, scattered here and there. We will collect the historic hints of some of these ancient worthies, and weave them into a connected story.

The wives of the Patriarchs,

SARAH, REBEKAH AND RACHEL,

are the mothers of a great nation. Perhaps we ought to include Leah in the group. Still, as she became a wife of Jacob by a trick, we will confine ourselves to these three.

For centuries after the Deluge, the descendants of Noah lingered around the sacred region of Eden. As though they still had possessed a dim hope of regaining the lost Paradise, they pressed towards its guarded gates. Alas, the bulk of the race had lost the last vestiges of Eden in their hearts! Among the very few who had not fallen into idolatry was Abraham, the son of Sarah. Amid such a universal abandoning of the true God, it was hard to maintain one's faith intact. Abraham stands out as a grand exception, the solitary believer, even among his own kindred, and for this he is called, "The Father of the Faithful."

These three Mothers of Israel were born in Ur of the Chaldees, or

Mesopotamia, the country between the rivers of Paradise, in the north of Syria. To this day this region abounds with the richness and beauty of Eden. Their education, judged from a modern point of view, was limited. Schools in our sense of the word, they had none then. Their parents were shepherds, and led a roving life, leading their herds and flocks from place to place. The girls rollicked around the doors of their tents, caressed the lambs of the flocks, and skipped after them going to pasture. We may safely assume, that neither of them ever learned to read or write. Their chief school-book was the beautiful Mesopotamian world. Daily their eyes looked upon its charming hills and vales, its trees and meadows. They fondled pretty flowers, and gave them names, strolled along the shaded banks of many a stream, listened to the rippling of their waters and to the music of their birds. At night they watched the starry heavens, and learned the names of the stars from their parents. Most likely they could name more stars and point out their respective places in the heavens than ninetenths of the modern graduates of fashionable female seminaries. These Chaldean girls had one advantage over their modern sisters. They were not mechanically and murderously chained down to an unbending routine of school-room study. They studied less what man wrote, and more what God wrote, in the heavens above and on the earth beneath.

These girls are early taught to work. Where people live in uncarpeted tents, and use the earth as their dining-table, and their fingers for knives and forks and spoons, there is not much housework, little worry about sweeping, washing dishes, house-cleaning, white-washing. About wash-day, and ironing-day, and bake-day, they are in blissful ignorance. Their few spare garments are soon washed and need no ironing. How can parents train up their daughters in industrious habits, where there is so little to do? These primitive shepherds teach them to attend their sheep. Rebekah and Rachel kept their fathers' flocks. And it is not unlikely, that Sarah was a shepherdess. Thus they learned to work, and made themselves useful to their parents. To our readers, to be a shepherdess may seem a lowly occupation for a young lady; yet, in those earnest days, and in that country, children were taught not to be ashamed to tread in the footsteps of their honest and hard-working parents.

How shall these three daughters of Mesopotamia get husbands? The young men of their country and kindred are idolaters; indeed their fathers and themselves seem to be somewhat tainted with it. God provides one for each. Sarah the princess, marries her stepbrother Abraham. To Rebekah he gives one from a far country. Near Hebron lives the aged Abraham. His son Isaac has arrived

at a marriageable age. Ere he dies, he makes his chief steward, Eliezer, take an oath that he will not let Isaac marry one of the idolatrous daughters of the Canaanites. How can the good old man die in peace, with the probability, that his only son should marry a heathen woman and become the father of a heathen family? To have grand children, who would be the enemies of God, was to him an abhorrent thought. The trusty Eliezer is sent to Mesopotamia to fetch a wife for Isaac from his kindred. A distance of four hundred and fifty miles he must travel, with his caravan of ten laden camels. He reached the gate of the city of Nahor near a well, at eventide, the time when the women came out to draw water. Eliezer prayed for direction; for he was a godly steward. Presently a beautiful damsel, "very fair to look upon," came with her water-pot to the well. It was Rebekah, the daughter of Bethuel.

In the East the plan of Eliezer seems natural and wise. With us the village pump would be the last place where such an affair of the heart could be decided. There, the village well is the daily place of resort, where not only the town gossips congregate, but whither the worthiest damsels resort, morning and evening, with water-pots to fetch water. It is the fittest place for youth to form the acquaintance of ladies-the place where Isaac, Jacob and Moses found their wives. The wells were places of social intercourse. To us, it might look somewhat ungallant in Eliezer, to allow the pretty maiden to draw and carry water into the troughs for his ten camels. But this was in accordance with Eastern customs of hospitality.

In the quiet of a calm evening Isaac strolled through the field to meditate. Possibly he wished to be alone with God, to engage in meditation and prayer. He espied a caravan wending over the crest of a distant hill. After being on tip-toe during all her journey, wondering what kind of a man her future husband might prove, her eager eye caught the meditative Isaac. "What man is that walking in the field to meet us?" the maiden asked Eliezer. "It is my master," was the reply.

Quickly and perhaps somewhat nervously, she adjusted her veil ; the driver brought the camel on his knees, and she lighted. The home of Abraham must have presented a pleasing scene that evening, on the plain of Mamre, as Isaac brought Rebekah "into his mother Sarah's tent." Still Isaac mourned the death of his mother, although she had been dead several years. Her tent to him seemed sad and dreary. His evening walk in the field must have been occasioned by his mournful feeling of solitude and bereavement. God sends him one to preside over his tent-home to comfort him "after his mother's death."

Most faithfully and with rare wisdom did Eliezer perform his matrimonial mission. His suit for the bride is presented in a delicate and neat address. It is the first speech we find in the Bible.

He is solemnly in earnest; refuses to taste a morsel of food until he has presented his case. Three points he argues, and they are such points as have great weight with an oriental parent. He is Abraham's servant and is proud of it. Abraham is their kinsman, whom they knew and loved. Loved more, and to whose excellent son they would rather give their daughter in marriage, than to the son of a stranger. Among the Bedouins the cousin has the preference to the stranger in marriage, and the Druses in Syria always prefer a relative to a stranger. In the East the custom is for a man to marry his "next cousin; the right belongs to him, and she is not allowed to marry any other without his consent." 2. Abraham has grown very rich. "To Isaac hath he given all that he hath." As a proof of his master's wealth, Eliezer presented Rebekah with golden presents "an ear-ring of half a shekel weight, and two bracelets for her hands of ten shekels weight of gold." To this day the argument of gold is of great power, in such negotiations, with Eastern fathers. Indeed more brides are bought with money than with love. The gold has doubtless its due weight on the mind of Bethuel. 3. Abraham is a religious man, and will not allow his only son to take a wife of the daughters of the Canaanites. He makes his steward promise on oath, that he will procure Isaac a Shemitic damsel to wife. Then he described his journey, how God, in answer to prayer had led him to Rebekah."Let her be thy master's son's wife, as the Lord hath spoken," is the reply of Bethuel.

Less smoothly runs the course of Jacob's true love. It is a hundred years after the meeting of Eliezer and Rebekah at the well. Bethuel's son Laban, has two daughters. Rebekah has two sons. They have gotten into a quarrel, and she is partly the fault of it. The older threatens to kill the younger. Jacob flees from Esau. Isaac sends him to Padan-aram to Rebekah's brother. He, too, meets his kindred at a well, meets them at noon-day, most likely at the same well where Eliezer found Rebekah. Three flocks of sheep are lying by it. And the fourth is just coming in sight, led by a beautiful and well-favored" maiden. It is Rachel, the daughter of Laban. The maiden shepherds are not strong enough to roll the large stone from the mouth of the well. Very pleasant must it be to Jacob, to be allowed a bit of gallantry, rolling the stone from the well's-mouth. Indeed he fills the water troughs for Rachel's flock.

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Rebekah waters Eliezer's camels who travels like a prince; the poor pilgrim Jacob cheerfully serves the shepherdess. It seems somewhat strange, that he should request the first three women to water their flocks and lead them away again to pasture. Perhaps he wished to meet Rachel alone at the well. Poor Jacob is a fugitive from his father's house. He is weary and footsore from a

journey of three or four weeks through a strange and inhospitable country-a journey of four hundred and fifty miles. At length he approaches the home of an uncle, meets his cousin at the well." Jacob kissed Rachel, and lifted up his voice, and wept." Kissed her as a brother would a sister, and wept tears of gratitude and joy.

In haste she bears the tidings of Jacob's arrival to Laban, who receives him with the usual embrace and the kiss. Unfortunately for Jacob, he comes not with ten camels laden with presents. His fortune consists of his staff and traveling wallet. Very differently comes Jacob from Isaac through Eliezer. Comes these four hundred and fifty miles afoot, without caravan and without presents; a poor young kinsman with a good character but no wealth. With Liban, who knew how to make money and loved to get and keep it, some golden presents would have great weight. Jacob is none of your lazy, lounging young men, who delight in idleness to sponge on their wealthy relatives. He seeks work and makes himself useful to his uncle. Laban proposes to hire him. Jacob asks Rachel for his wages and wife, who is said to have had a graceful form and beautiful countenance. Seven long years he consents to toil for her, and his love for her made them seem but a few days. "Better give her to thee than to another," said Laban to Jacob.

By stealth the wily father imposed upon Jacob his elder daughter Leah, instead of giving him Rachel. She too was a worthy maiden, but less attractive than Rachel. Among Eastern nations, especially among the Arabians, dark eyes, full of life and fire, clear and expressive, are considered the chief trait of female beauty. Now Leah was "tender-eyed" (most likely dull-eyed, blear-eyed). The disappointed son of Isaac must work seven years more for Rachel. In some parts of Arabia, from six to eight years' labor is still the cost of a wife. This was the usual price. Burkhardt relates, that he met a young man who had worked eight years, and then received the daughter of the master for his wages.

Twenty years have elapsed since Jacob's arrival in Padan-aram. All this time he served Laban faithfully. His grasping uncle and father-in-law treats him with increasing severity. Secretly he starts for the land of his fathers, taking his wives and children with him. Laban pursues his fugitive daughters, and in a seven days' rapid journey, he overtakes them in Mount Gilead, as they are approaching the borders of Canaan. It seems Laban was still in a measure given to idolatry. He kept little household images, perhaps made in human form. They were supposed to secure protection and prosperity to the family. These Rachel took with her. It seems Laban could forgive all their other offences save this. "Wherefore hast thou stolen my gods," he indignantly inquired of