How often we, like Hagar, mourn,
      When some unlook’d for blight
    Drives us away, no more to turn
      To joys we fancied bright! 
    Forced from our idols to retreat,
      And seek the Almighty’s care,
    Perchance we are sent forth to meet
      A desert-angel there.

[Illustration]

THE PARTIAL AND INTRIGUING MOTHER—­REBEKAH.

[Illustration]

After the departure of Hagar and her son from the tents of Abraham, peace seems to have returned, and it became the abode of filial and parental as well as of conjugal affection.  Sarah’s days were still prolonged, that she might exercise the duties and enjoy the pleasures of a mother.

The heir of wealth, and the child of love and indulgence, the character of Isaac seems to have been the reverse of his brother, the restless, wandering Ishmael.  The one, cast off from the care of the father and taught to rely upon his own energies, early distinguished himself, and became the leader of a band, and a prince among the nations around; while the other, cherished and cared for, was content to dwell in the peaceful enjoyment of wealth and prosperity.  Thus do we find that trials are necessary to develope the higher qualities and to call them into action.  The truly great and noble, the eminent in talent or usefulness, are never nursed in the bosom of ease.

Sarah died; and while the bereaved husband felt his loss, the son could not have been insensible.  There was a dreary void in the home of the patriarch when the wife and the mother had been laid in the sepulchre.  There was no one to fill the place of Sarah—­no one to bless their simple meals.  She no longer appears to welcome them as they returned from the field or the flock.  The tribe is without a mother, the household without a mistress.  Many considerations led Abraham to desire the marriage of his son, and he cast around his thoughts for a wife worthy of being the mother of the promised seed, and one who could well fulfil the duties which must devolve upon her as the head of his large household.  The people around him would have courted his alliance, and as yet no command from God forbade his forming family ties with the inhabitants of the land.  But Abraham too well knew the influence of the wife and the mother, to choose a wife for the child of promise from a race apostate from the religion of Jehovah.  He knew the ensnaring influence which would there be brought to bear upon his family, and he resolved to seek a wife for Isaac among his far-distant kindred—­those who yet retained the knowledge and clung to the worship of the God of Shem, of Noah, and of Adam.  Though far separated from his brethren, yet communications seem to have passed, and Abraham had been told of the enlargement of the family of his brother; and he resolved, not only to seek a wife for his son from among his own kindred, but, while making arrangements for such a marriage, he solemnly guarded against the return of his descendants to the land from whence he had been called.