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