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FEMALE BIOGRAPHY OF SCRIPTURE.

SARAH.

No. I.

WHEN men attempt to write the biographies of their fellow-men, who have been distinguished for genius, for learning, or for virtue, the result is usually panegyric. The pictured delineation may bear a striking resemblance in proportion and outline, to the fair prototype, but the colouring is heightened, the light is made to fall upon the more perfect features; the defects are thrown into shadow. It is not thus however that the portraitures of men are drawn in the inspired word of God, by the unerring pencil of the Holy Ghost. There no illusion obtains; no false colouring is admitted. There is neither distortion, nor palliation, nor concealment. The mirror of truth, unlike the canvass of the artist, gives back from its pure unclouded surface every lineament and feature, every spot and blemish, without any admixture of embellishment on the one hand or of disparagement on the other. The Bible affords us but one perfect example; in all other instances, men are exhibited so full of infirmity, that they are found to fail, even in the exercise of those particular virtues for which they are especially commended. The meekest man that ever lived, falls through pride and anger; the

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father of the faithful is on two occasions "faithless found; and she who is held up as a model of conjugal affection and duty introduces discord and strife into her household, to be perpetuated among the descendants of the same parent, to a thousand generations. What then? Shall we turn from the study of these imperfect examples in search of an ideal perfection which never has been, and never will be realized? No! we will rather listen to the voice of inspired wisdom, bidding us to look back into "the old time," and contemplate those "holy women whose conduct is set forth as worthy of our imitation. We will consider their "trust in God," their "chaste conversation," their glorious adorning, their fearless yet devoted submission; and we will be content to earn, by well-doing, by faithful discharge of every social duty, our title to be called the daughters of her who," after this manner," obeyed her husband; and who has this high honour conferred upon her, that she is said to be the mother of all those who, actuated by the same principles, give in their day and generation, an example of the obedience of duty ; even as Abraham is declared to be the father of all, who evidence by their walk and conduct an example of the obedience of faith.

Eighteen hundred years have well nigh elapsed since the apostle Peter directed the attention of his female converts to the "old time" for models of duty and of purity of life and manners; and to the end of this dispensation, the daughters of the Christian covenant will have to measure themselves by the same standards. To the tent of Sarah they must go for instruction, and learn in an age of luxury and excitement a lesson of humility, of self-denial, of

trust in God, and of unostentatious duty, within the hallowed precincts of the patriarchal home.

In studying those holy scriptures which were written for our learning, how often are we tempted to wish that the inspired penmen had been less brief and hasty in their delineations of the lives and characters of individuals. How do we long to question of those things which are not recorded; and to have those links in the chain of events supplied which are found wanting. The patient investigation of God's word; the comparing scripture with scripture, will do much towards supplying these deficiencies, and where these fail, our natural curiosity is chastised by the recollection that enough has been recorded for our correction and instruction in righteousness. Of the early years of Sarai, we know nothing beyond the mere mention of her marriage with Abram in the land of his nativity, in Ur of the Chaldees. She appears to have been nearly connected with her husband before this marriage, and may have borne the same relationship to him that Milcah did to Nahor. She was at all events a descendant of the elder Nahor, and therefore we may conclude that Chaldea was also the land of her birth. Terah and his children were the members of a settled and civilized community, and must have been completely distinct in character and habits from the nomades of the surrounding deserts. They dwelt in one of the many flourishing towns of the Mesopotamia, in a city which had Nimrod for its founder, and in a land rich in the traditions of that earlier time, when "the whole earth was of one language and of one speech." But with whatever accuracy the knowledge of the true God, and of his dealings with a

fallen race had been transmitted by the sons of Noah to their immediate descendants, that knowledge had been, in process of time, either lost or corrupted, by their degenerate posterity: and the men who professed to know God, but in works denied him, had been by him given up to worship the host of heaven, and to render to the visible that homage and service which are due only to the invisible things of Him, even his eternal power and Godhead. Many a lonely ruined pile, whose gigantic proportions seem to mock the puny architecture of modern days, attests to the traveller in these regions that here the Chaldean sages held their nightly converse with the stars, as they burned with pure, yet intense light in their clear, cloudless atmosphere. Here they marked the coming forth of "Mazzaroth in his season, and Arcturus with his sons; here they marked how the advancing spring was betokened by "the sweet influence of the pleiades," and how the earth was chilled beneath Antares' beam. And as the devotees of 'this awe-inspiring science relaxed their hold upon the tenets of that pure theism which their forefathers bequeathed to them,-as they witnessed, from age to age, the unaltered regularity to the heavenly bodies; their undimmed, undying lustre; their changeless, tranquil path in the wide heavens, and contrasted them with the frail fleeting things of earth; it is not surprising that their darkened heart was lifted up to adore these seemingly bright intelligences, nor that they should become

'A worship ere the myst'ry of their making was revealed.'

That Terah and his household were deeply imbued with the spirit of the Chaldean idolatry, is evident

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from the confession of Joshua in his public charge to the twelve tribes at Shechem; and it appears probable that, like the Israelites of that day, so also the "fathers who dwell on the other side of the flood" had attempted to unite the service of Jehovah with the multiplied objects of the Sabean worship; for when the call came to Abram, get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will shew thee," his believing acquiescence in this command, proves, at least, that he had some distinct knowledge of Him who gave it: for how could he believe in Him of whom he had not heard, and how could he have given credit to the promise of God, if he had not previously entertained some just and accurate notions of His faithfulness and power?

"And Terah took Abram his son, and Lot the son of Haran his son's son, and Sarai his daughter-inlaw, his son Abram's wife: and they went forth with them from Ur of the Chaldees, to go into the land of Canaan." Of all the members of Terah's household, the command had been addressed singly and individually to Abram, "Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house." To none other was this extraordinary direction given, of none other was this painful sacrifice required: but when the resolute obedience of Abraham had stood the test of all those obstacles which must have arisen to try it-when he was prepared to quit his settled home in Ur to become a pilgrim, and his family endearments and national distinctions to become a stranger upon earth-then it was that the paternal tenderness of Terah was manifested towards his pious son, by his determining to accompany Abram