The wife deserted, neglected, whose hopes have been crushed, ever turns to her offspring for comfort and sympathy; and ardent was the love, strong were the ties, which bound the Egyptian mother to the son of the patriarch; and in Ishmael must all the hopes and affections of Hagar have centred.  Could she, indeed, have penetrated the future, could she have seen her race, the seed of her son, filling the desert and dwelling as princes; while the seed of Sarah and of Abraham were held, as if in retribution of her own sufferings, in bondage in her own native land,—­could she have passed through the intervening ages and seen the children of Ishmael issuing from their desert and setting their feet upon the necks of the proudest and mightiest, imposing their faith upon a world, while they marched forth conquering and to conquer—­could she have contrasted the triumphant warriors of Arabia, the caliphs of the east and the west, with the wandering, desolate, persecuted, trodden-down tribes of Israel—­the proudest expectations of the woman and the mother would have been all answered.  Could she have penetrated the meaning 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.