he forced claims of
Leah awoke only the remembrance of the deceit. In the emphatic language
of the Bible, "he loved Rachel, but he hated Leah," and it was in
accordance with the constant exhibitions of human nature that it should
be thus. He had never sought her love. No love, no devotedness, could
efface the remembrance of her connivance at that deep-laid plot which
had imposed her upon him as a wife. Yet the lot of Leah was peculiarly a
lot of reproach and trial--and as we behold her wretchedness, we are
led, not to extenuate her fault, nor to palliate her sin, but to forgive
and pity her sorrows.

In early youth the sympathies are all awakened for the beautiful and the
beloved Rachel, the only chosen, the betrothed bride. As we advance in
years, in deeper acquaintance with human hearts, in truer fellowship in
human suffering, we learn to feel for the plain and hated Leah. There is
something deeply touching in the quiet sorrow which marks her lot; in
her deep consciousness of her husband's alienation and her sister's
hate. We feel how difficult it might have seemed to resist the
authority of the father, when it was aided by the pleadings of her own
affection and the customs of her people. We glance into the tents of
Jacob, and contrast Leah with the beautiful, the loved, the indulged,
the self-willed Rachel. There we see her, plain and unattractive in
person, broken in spirit, bowed down by the consciousness of her own sin
and her husband's hate--her sister's bitter contempt--striving, though
scarce hoping, to win the love of her husband; and welcoming the anguish
of a mother, with the fond assurance, "Now will my husband love me, for
I have borne him a son."

We follow the sisters, as, still side by side, but with alienated hearts
and estranged affections, they depart from the tents of their father to
follow the footsteps of their husband,--Rachel and her offspring are the
first objects of the care, as of the affection, of the patriarch. Yet
we find Rachel, the loved and indulged wife, more murmuring, more
repining, more fault-finding than Leah. By sorrow and trial, Leah may
have learned submission; and the dearest earthly hopes disappointed--all
her affections as a wife crushed and despised--in her hour of grief, and
in the desolation of a widowhood of hate, she may have sought and found
that love which never faileth, which giveth liberally and upbraideth
not.

And He whose ear is ever open to the cry of his crea