ved from the sovereign of the country, the honors of
equality; and Abimelech, the king, (as Pharoah had done before him,)
seeks Sarah for a wife, under the idea that she was Abraham's sister.
When his mistake was discovered, he made Abraham a large present. Reason
will tell us, that in selecting the items of this present, Abimelech was
governed by the visible indications of Abraham's preference in the
articles of wealth--and that above all, he would present him with
nothing which Abraham's sense of moral obligation would not allow him to
own. Abimelech's present is thus described in Genesis xx: 14, 16, "And
Abimelech took sheep, and oxen, and men-servants, and women-servants,
and a thousand pieces of silver, and gave them unto Abraham." This
present discloses to us what constituted the most highly prized items of
wealth, among these eastern sovereigns in Abraham's day.

God had promised Abraham's seed the land of Canaan, and that in his seed
all the nations of the earth should be blessed. He reached the age of
eighty-five, and his wife the age of seventy-five, while as yet, they
had no child. At this period, Sarah's anxiety for the promised seed, in
connection with her age, induced her to propose a female slave of the
Egyptian stock, as a secondary wife, from which to obtain the promised
seed. This alliance soon puffed the slave with pride, and she became
insolent to her mistress--the mistress complained to Abraham, the
master. Abraham ordered Sarah to exercise her authority. Sarah did so,
and pushed it to severity, and the slave absconded. The divine oracles
inform us, that the angel of God found this run-away bond-woman in the
wilderness; and if God had commissioned this angel to improve this
opportunity of teaching the world how much he abhorred slavery, he took
a bad plan to acomplish it. For, instead of repeating a homily upon
doing to others as we "would they should do unto us," and heaping
reproach upon Sarah, as a hypocrite, and Abraham as a tyrant, and
giving Hagar direction how she might get into Egypt, from whence
(according to abolitionism) she had been unrighteously sold into
bondage, the angel addressed her as "Hagar, Sarah's maid," Gen. xvi: 1,
9; (thereby recognizing the relation of master and slave,) and asks her,
"whither wilt thou go?" and she said "I flee from the face of my
mistress." Quite a wonder she honored Sarah so much as to call her
mistress; but she knew nothing of abolition, and God by his a