ated his work by casting her
out, a homeless exile. Such is the enslaving power of custom, so easily
do we blind ourselves to our own delinquencies, that Abraham probably
aggravated Hagar's faults while he overlooked her injuries. He saw in
her but the despiteful, revengeful handmaid; he forgot that she was an
injured wife--a neglected mother.

Yet no words of reproach, of entreaty, or explanation of the past, or
promise for the future, are recorded as having passed between them. He
pronounced the decree, and laid upon the bondmaid, and not upon his
noble boy, the provision for the journey. She turned from the tents, and
thus they parted!

But the connection of Abraham and Hagar had woven a thread into the
destiny of nations, still to be traced. She left the patriarch in
sorrow, in bitterness of soul; but she went out to found nations, to
punish rulers, to establish a long line who should transmit the name of
her son and the influence of her character to remotest ages--even to the
end of time.

Accustomed to the wandering life of the desert, and provided for the
journey, Abraham probably deemed Hagar competent to guide her steps to a
place of safety. But sorrow may have blinded her eyes, or despair made
her reckless, and she was lost in the desert. The water was spent in the
bottle--tons of gold could not open a fountain in the desert--and she
saw her child parched with thirst, "faint and ready to die; and she cast
him under one of the shrubs, and went and sat a good way off, as it were
a bow-shot, for she said, Let me not see the death of the child; and as
she sat over against him, she lifted up her voice and wept. And God
heard the voice of the lad, and the angel of God called to her out of
heaven and said unto her, What aileth thee Hagar? Fear not! For God hath
heard the voice of the child where he is. Arise, lift up the lad, and
hold him in thy hand, for I will make of him a great nation. And God
opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water, and she went and filled
the bottle with water, and gave the lad to drink." What an inimitable
description of a mother's love! What a display of the watchful
benevolence of Jehovah!

In this hour of desolation, when no human aid was near, there was again
the Divine interposition, while there was no reproach, no allusion even
to that sinful temper which had led to the banishment of both mother and
child, and caused them to come here to perish in the wilderness. Blessed
be God