In early youth the sympathies are all awakened for the beautiful and the beloved Rachel, the only chosen, the betrothed bride.  As we advance in years, in deeper acquaintance with human hearts, in truer fellowship in human suffering, we learn to feel for the plain and hated Leah.  There is something deeply touching in the quiet sorrow which marks her lot; in her deep consciousness of her husband’s alienation and her sister’s hate.  We feel how difficult it might have seemed to resist the authority of the father, when it was aided by the pleadings of her own affection and the customs of her people.  We glance into the tents of Jacob, and contrast Leah with the beautiful, the loved, the indulged, the self-willed Rachel.  There we see her, plain and unattractive in person, broken in spirit, bowed down by the consciousness of her own sin and her husband’s hate—­her sister’s bitter contempt—­striving, though scarce hoping, to win the love of her husband; and welcoming the anguish of a mother, with the fond assurance, “Now will my husband love me, for I have borne him a son.”

We follow the sisters, as, still side by side, but with alienated hearts and estranged affections, they depart from the tents of their father to follow the footsteps of their husband,—­Rachel and her offspring are the first objects of the care, as of the affection, of the patriarch.  Yet we find Rachel, the loved and indulged wife, more murmuring, more repining, more fault-finding than Leah.  By sorrow and trial, Leah may have learned submission; and the dearest earthly hopes disappointed—­all her affections as a wife crushed and despised—­in her hour of grief, and in the desolation of a widowhood of hate, she may have sought and found that love which never faileth, which giveth liberally and upbraideth not.

And He whose ear is ever open to the cry of his creatures, who forgives even while he punishes their iniquities, pitied Leah, and, without upbraiding her for that deceit by which she became a wife, gave her the joys of a mother; and in all the names bestowed upon her children, Leah at once recognises the mercy of God, while she still remembers that she is hated of her husband—­attesting at once her conscious sorrow and her trusting faith.

Rachel was childless—­and when she saw Leah rejoicing as a mother, it awoke all the bitterness of envy.  With the unreasonable pettishness of a wife ever indulged, she reproached her husband.  For once, the anger of Jacob was kindled against the idolized Rachel.  “Am I in God’s stead?” said he.  The consciousness of being the loved and the cherished one—­the overflowing tenderness and the ready indulgence which Rachel received, made her only more exacting and imperious; and while Leah seemed softened by trials and sorrows, her sister grew more unreasonable by indulgence, and was at once haughty and insolent.  So corrupt is human nature, that the gratification of our desires too often merely excites the pride and haughtiness of the human heart, and the prosperous claim the blessings of Heaven as a matter of right; while it is mercifully ordained that the very sorrow which ever follows transgression, the evils which await all departures from duty and right, should, by their very tendency, awaken repentance and lead to a penitent and humble spirit.