ham's household, yet the
relationship of father and son was ever recognised. Doubtless Abraham
imparted of his wealth to his first-born; and as Abraham often sojourned
afterwards in Beer-sheba, probably not far from the spot where Hagar and
Ishmael so nearly perished, the father and son may have often met; and
Isaac and Ishmael may have held kindly intercourse, when the bitter
feelings of rivalry and of conscious wrong had subsided. The ties of
kindred were still allowed, and Esau sought a wife from the family of
his own kindred, as a means of conciliating his father and mother; thus
showing that a purer morality and a higher religious feeling were
cherished than those among surrounding tribes. And when Abraham died,
having attained a full age, his sons, Isaac and Ishmael, both far
advanced in years, buried him. The strifes, the bitterness, the hate of
early life seem to have been forgotten, and they united in the last
offices of filial love and duty.

The son of the bondmaid had attained, during the life of Abraham, a
distinction beyond that of the son of the wife; and his immediate
descendant rose to wealth and honour, while, if one branch of Isaac's
family tasted prosperity, those recognised as the heirs of that
mysterious blessing were long known as wanderers, and then despised as
slaves. Their long line of descent has run parallel, side by side,
distinct, unmingled; recognising a common origin, but never
acknowledging a common brotherhood. The oldest nations of the
earth,--the one exiled from the land given them, dwelling as outcasts
and strangers among all the nations of the earth, yet still separate,
apart, a peculiar people; the other living at this day in the deserts
where Hagar wandered, and where she fainted--a never-conquered people.
And while Assyrian, Greek, and Roman have swept the world and exacted
tribute of the nations around them, and other tribes have been swept
with the besom of destruction, the sons of Ishmael have still dwelt in
the presence of their brethren, ever enforcing, but still refusing to
pay tribute--free and wild as the lad who first became an archer in the
wilderness. Unconsciously confirming prophecy, and still attesting the
truth of a revelation which they contemn and deny,--thus strangely
dwelling so different from all other nations,--preserving the initiatory
rites and the mystic symbols of the faith of Abraham, the customs and
traditions of the age of the patriarch,--these nations