es had been laws--and the
prayer prompted by hate and envy was answered. Yet Rachel died. And in
that hour of mortal agony, of bitter suffering, Leah probably stood by
her sister. With affections estranged, love turned into bitterness, with
hearts alienated, but fates inseparably united, they had passed their
days. Their tents had been pitched side by side,--the voices of their
children had been mingled together as they fell upon their mothers'
ears,--they had been called to worship at the same altar,--they had been
members of the same household.

Forced thus to dwell together, constantly to meet, to be familiar with
the same objects, to have the same interests, they were alienated, but
not separated; and if their feelings were crushed, they were not all
uprooted. As Leah saw her younger, her beautiful sister in the hour of
extremity, in the agonies of a mother's sufferings, the sympathies of a
woman must have risen with the love of a sister, and bitter tears of
repentant sorrow must she have shed upon the pallid brow and quivering
lips, as the hopes and the memories of youth and childhood gathered
around, to reproach her for that deceit by which she had sown their path
through mutual life with thorns, and made their joys to be but ashes.
There are no tears so bitter as those which are shed by affection, too
late revived, over those whom we have loved and yet injured,--over those
from whom we have suffered ourselves to be estranged.

Rachel was buried in the way to Ephrath, which is Bethlehem. She was
not laid in the sepulchre of Abraham. The children were left to the
fostering care of her hated sister. Her sons passed through trials from
which she could not guard them, and they came to honours while she knew
it not. At this distance, her life seems to us a dream--a few years of
pleasant childhood, a short vision of youthful love,--then comes the
strife of life, its stern discipline, its bitter trials, its
disappointed hopes, and its termination in the grave.

As we dwell upon the characters so truthfully delineated in the word of
God, and follow the record of human pride, passion and infirmity, we are
taught at once to magnify and adore the patience, the forbearance and
the mercy of Jehovah. And let us remember that it is because these
characters are reflected in the pure mirror of truth that the dark
shades so plainly appear. In every age the heart of man is the same;
but the temptations which especially evince this