istened to the narration of the terrible
overthrow of those gorgeous cities, and the rescue of her brother's
household, and beheld in the distance the seething and silent grave of
millions, sending up a swaying column of ebon cloud, like incense, to
God's burning indignation against sin.

They left the vale of Mamre, and journeyed to Gera, where, with a
marvellous forgetfulness of the past, the beauty of Sarah again led them
into deception and falsehood, and with the same result as before.
Abimelech, the king, would have taken her for his wife as Abraham's
sister, had not God appeared in a dream, threatening immediate death.
Upon pleading his innocence, he was spared, and expostulating with his
guest, generously offered him a choice of residence in the land; but
rebuked Sarah with merited severity.

Prophecy and covenant now hastened to their fulfillment. Sarah gave
birth to a son, and with the name of God upon her lips, she gave
utterance to holy rapture. With all her faults, she was a pious and
noble woman. She meant to train him for the Lord, and therefore when she
saw young Ishmael mocking at the festival of his weaning, she besought
her husband to send away the irreverent son, whose influence might ruin
the consecrated Isaac. Hagar, with a generous provision for her wants,
was a fugitive; and the Most High approved the solicitude of a mother
for an only child, around whose destiny was gathered the interest of
ages, and the hopes of a world.

And now, with the solemn shadows of life's evening hours falling around
her, and a heart subdued by the discipline of Providence, in the fulness
of love which had been rising so long within the barriers of hope
deferred, she bent prayerfully over the very slumbers of that fair boy,
and taught him the precious name of God with the first prattle of his
infant lips. How proudly she watched the unfolding of this bud of
promise! When, in the pastimes of childhood, he played before the tent
door, or, with a shout of gladness, ran to meet Abraham returning from
the folds, her calm and glowing eye marked his footsteps, and her
grateful aspirations for a blessing on the lad, went up to the Heaven of
heavens. At length he stood before her in the manliness and beauty of
youth, unscarred by the rage of passions, and with a brow open and
laughing as the radiant sky of his own lovely Palestine.

[Illustration: Hagar in the Wilderness.]

It was a morning which flooded the dewy plains