father and his brethren, and went with his own
family, the head of his house, the future patriarch of his race.

Yet he was not alone. The wife of his youth was by his side. In all his
wanderings, in all his cares, there was one with him to participate in
his joys and to alleviate his sorrows. With him and for him, his wife
forsook home, kindred and country. We doubt not that she too shared the
faith of Abraham; that she too trusted and loved and worshipped the God
of Abraham, and of Shem, and of Noah. Like Abraham, a descendant of
Shem,--like him too, she had been trained in the worship of Jehovah. Yet
to the faith of the true believer, there was added the strong affection
of the wife; and while Abraham went out obeying God, Sarah followed,
trusting God indeed, but leaning still upon her husband. In all her
future life, she is presented to us the wife; devoted, affectionate,
submissive; loving her husband with a true affection, and honouring him
by a due deference.

With a beauty that fascinated kings, preserving the charms of youth to
the advanced period of her life, she still lived but for her husband;
and when even the faith of Abraham failed, and he withdrew from the wife
the protection of the husband, and said, "She is my sister," Sarah
appears to have acquiesced in a deceit so unworthy of her husband and of
herself, merely to insure his safety among the lawless tribes around
them.

As we read the story of Abraham's wife, we catch glimpses of ages and
nations that were hoar with antiquity, and had passed away when our
ancient historians began the record of the past. Nation after nation had
perished and been forgotten before the profane historian began his
annals. Yet childless, still trusting in the promise of Jehovah, Abraham
wandered for many years through the land which was to be given to him,
and his seed after him. Now pitching his tent in Moreh; then building
his altar at Bethel; then driven by famine into Egypt; then returning to
his altar at Bethel,--and there separating from his nephew Lot, because
"the land could not bear" both, he fixes his abode in Hebron.

No pictures of pastoral life are more beautiful than those presented in
Genesis; and while we contemplate the character of Abraham, we catch
occasional glimpses of his household, and of the manners of his age. We
see him exercising forbearance and relinquishing the rights of a
superior, that there might be no strife between him and his too world