Her life shows that a woman may be honourable, useful, distinguished, and happy, and yet remain single—­that the holy duties of the wife and the mother are not the only duties.  How many homes would be comparatively unblessed but for the presence of a dutiful daughter or a loving sister!  How largely our own age is indebted to women as teachers; women, who, like the prophetess of Israel, while assisting their brothers to proclaim the oracles of God, devote themselves to the instruction of their own sex, and bless men by instructing women!

[Illustration]

DEBORAH—­THE INFLUENCE OF WOMAN.

The book of Judges gives a concise view of the people of Israel for a period of four hundred years, extending from the death of Joshua to the birth of Samuel.

It is peculiarly interesting as showing how God deals with the nations of the earth in visiting national sins with national punishments.  It has ever been the painful office of the historian to record the crimes and misfortunes of mankind, and to present the outbreaks of society rather than to note its gradual advance and improvement, or to dwell upon the periods of peaceful prosperity.  Like the records of a court of justice, it presents the criminals and the offences and those implicated, while the thousands of peaceful citizens are never brought to view.  The flow of human life is, like that of a mighty river, unmarked during its mild course; but when it bursts its bounds and overflows its channel and spreads a wide destruction, it is watched with interest and its desolating ravages are all recorded.

Of the many women who have attained honour and celebrity amidst the intrigues of courts and cabinets and the revolutions of empires, few have retained the purity and the peculiar virtues of their sex.  Deborah seems to have united the sagacity and courage of man to the modest virtues of woman.  She appears before us affecting no pomp, assuming no state.  The wife of Lapidoth—­one known only as the husband of Deborah, but thus known never to be forgotten—­she abode with her husband in their own dwelling, under that palm-tree distinguished, when Samuel wrote this book, as “the palm of Deborah,” between Ramah, where Rachel died, and Bethel, where Jacob worshipped.  “And all the children of Israel came up to her there for judgment.”

The people of Israel had departed from God and from the laws of Moses, and for twenty years they had been mightily oppressed by Jabin.  During this long period no priest called the people to repentance, no prophet was commissioned to promise them relief.

We may imagine Deborah dwelling among her people, a devout, strong-minded, enlightened woman.  She saw their sins, she participated in their trials, and she warned those around her of the evil of departing from Jehovah.  She recalled His past acts of judgment and of mercy.  She was well acquainted with the laws of Moses, and she recognised in the punishment of the people the fulfilment of prophecy.