Many years passed,—­years of peaceful quiet and happiness seldom allotted to such an age,—­while they trained their child in the nurture of the true God, and were honoured by the princes around him, who sought to enter into league with him, for they saw that “God blessed him in all that he did.”

Once again God saw fit to test the faith of Abraham by calling upon him to offer his son—­his only son Isaac, whom he loved—­as a sacrifice; and Abraham obeyed the divine command, and thus doing, uttered that prophecy which has thrilled so many souls, “God will himself provide a sacrifice.”  In this trial, Sarah seems not to have been called to participate.  The mother was spared the agony of feeling that her only child was to be offered as a sacrifice—­that the hope of her life was to perish.

“Sarah was an hundred and twenty years old, and she died.”  The dark shadow of death is, sooner or later, to fall upon each household.  Abraham seems to have been at a distance—­perhaps in the charge of some of his numerous flocks—­when he was recalled to Hebron by news of Sarah’s death.  And he came to mourn over her.  The remembrance of her maiden beauty and modesty, the grateful recollection of all her conjugal devotedness, filled his soul.  If light and immortality were brought to light in the gospel, still the divine rays were faintly reflected in the former dispensation, and the eye of faith even then penetrated the thick darkness of the grave.

And now, after these long years of promise and waiting, Abraham takes possession of the land which God had given to him and to his seed.  He asks, however, but a small portion,—­a tomb, a place for his dead,—­and a more beautiful description of a scene of mutual deference, of regard for rights and respect for character and position, was never penned than that which records the negotiation between the bereaved patriarch and the children of Heth.  With the touch of magic, the whole scene is before us.  The bereaved patriarch, courteous in grief, bowing in the presence of the sons of Heth,—­the deep respect, the kindly sympathy, manifested by those who, strangers to his religion, felt the claims of his character,—­mingled with that deep awe which the visitation of death ever inspires.

The last scene was now over, and Sarah has first taken possession of that home to which she was to be followed by her husband and their descendants.  One by one they take their places by her side,—­unwelcomed, unquestioned,—­

    “Where none have saluted and none have replied,”—­

and yet where all are gathered at last.  We see her not as a sister or a daughter.  She is not known to us in the house of her father.  Sarah is only presented to us as the wife of Abraham.  And as a wife the apostle has held her up to her own sex as a model and example.  “Even as Sarah obeyed her husband, calling him lord,”—­exclaims the apostle, exhorting the wife to due deference.  The deep, fervent affection of the heart led to that outward manifestation of honour so beautiful and becoming; and as the only love which can be enduring is that which is founded on respect, so it is the highest happiness of the wife to be able truly to honour him whom she is bound to love and obey.