22 chapters
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22 chapters
WOMAN IN SACRED HISTORY: A SERIES OF SKETCHES DRAWN FROM SCRIPTURAL, HISTORICAL, AND LEGENDARY SOURCES.
WOMAN IN SACRED HISTORY: A SERIES OF SKETCHES DRAWN FROM SCRIPTURAL, HISTORICAL, AND LEGENDARY SOURCES.
BY HARRIET BEECHER STOWE. Illustrated with Sixteen Chromo-Lithographs, AFTER PAINTINGS BY RAPHAEL, BATONI, HORACE VERNET, GOODALL, LANDELLE, KOEHLER, PORTAËLS, VERNET-LECOMTE, BAADER, MERLE, AND BOULANGER: PRINTED BY MONROCQ, FROM STONES EXECUTED BY JEHENNE, PARIS. NEW YORK: J. B. FORD AND COMPANY. 1874. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1873, BY J. B. FORD AND COMPANY, in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington....
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WOMAN IN SACRED HISTORY. INTRODUCTION.
WOMAN IN SACRED HISTORY. INTRODUCTION.
T he object of the following pages will be to show, in a series of biographical sketches, a history of Womanhood under Divine culture , tending toward the development of that high ideal of woman which we find in modern Christian countries. All the characters comprised in these sketches belong to one nationality. They are of that mysterious and ancient race whose records begin with the dawn of history; who, for centuries, have been sifted like seed through all the nations of the earth, without lo
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WOMEN OF THE PATRIARCHAL AGES. SARAH THE PRINCESS.
WOMEN OF THE PATRIARCHAL AGES. SARAH THE PRINCESS.
O ne woman in the Christian dispensation has received a special crown of honor. Sarah, the wife of Abraham, mother of the Jewish nation, is to this day an object of traditional respect and homage in the Christian Church. Her name occurs in the marriage service as an example for the Christian wife, who is exhorted to meekness and obedience by St. Peter, "Even as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord; whose daughters ye are, so long as ye do well, and are not subject to a slavish fear." In turnin
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HAGAR THE SLAVE.
HAGAR THE SLAVE.
A striking pendant to the picture of Sarah the Princess is that of Hagar the Slave. In the Bible narrative she is called simply Hagar the Egyptian; and as Abraham sojourned some time in the land of Egypt, we are to suppose that this acquisition to the family was then made. Slavery, in the early patriarchal period, had few of the horrors which beset it in more modern days. The condition of a slave more nearly resembled that of the child of the house than that of a modern servant. The slave was lo
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REBEKAH THE BRIDE.
REBEKAH THE BRIDE.
I n the pictures which the Bible opens to us of the domestic life of the patriarchal ages, we have one perfectly characteristic and beautiful idyl of a wooing and wedding, according to the customs of those days. In its sweetness and sacred simplicity, it is a marvelous contrast to the wedding of our modern fashionable life. Sarah, the beautiful and beloved, has been laid away in the dust, and Isaac, the cherished son, is now forty years old. Forty years is yet early youth, by the slow old clock
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LEAH AND RACHEL.
LEAH AND RACHEL.
I n the earlier portions of the Old Testament we have, very curiously, the history of the deliberate formation of an influential race, to which was given a most important mission in the world's history. The principle of selection , much talked of now in science, is the principle which is represented in the patriarchal history as operating under a direct Divine guidance. From the calling of Abraham, there seems to have been this continued watchfulness in selecting the party through whom the chose
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WOMEN OF THE NATIONAL PERIOD.
WOMEN OF THE NATIONAL PERIOD.
Miriam and Moses...
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MIRIAM, SISTER OF MOSES.
MIRIAM, SISTER OF MOSES.
I t has been remarked by Montalembert that almost all the great leading men in history have been intimately associated with superior women. If we look on Moses in a merely human light, and judge him by what he accomplished, as we do other historic characters, he is in certain respects the greatest man of antiquity. The works of the legislators, kings, and conquerors of ancient history were perishable. Their cities have crumbled, their governments and commonwealths have dissolved as waves of the
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DEBORAH THE PROPHETESS.
DEBORAH THE PROPHETESS.
T he Book of Judges is the record of a period which may be called the Dark Ages of the Jewish Church, even as the mediæval days were called the Dark Ages of Christianity. In both cases, a new system of purity and righteousness, wholly in advance of anything the world had ever before known, had been inaugurated by the visible power of God,—the system of Moses, and the system of Christ. But these pure systems seem, in each case, to have been allowed to struggle their own way through the mass of hu
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DELILAH THE DESTROYER.
DELILAH THE DESTROYER.
T he pictures of womanhood in the Bible are not confined to subjects of the better class. There is always a shadow to light; and shadows are deep, intense, in proportion as light is vivid. There is in bad women a terrible energy of evil which lies over against the angelic and prophetic power given to them, as Hell against Heaven. In the long struggles of the Divine Lawgiver with the idolatrous tendencies of man, the evil as well as the good influence of woman is recognized. There are a few repre
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JEPHTHA'S DAUGHTER.
JEPHTHA'S DAUGHTER.
T his story, which has furnished so many themes for the poet and artist, belongs, like that of Samson, to the stormy and unsettled period of Jewish history which is covered by the Book of Judges. Jephtha, an illegitimate son, is cast out by his brethren, goes off into a kind of border-land, and becomes, in that turbulent period, a leader of a somewhat powerful tribe. These times of the Judges remind us forcibly, in some respects, of the chivalric ages. There was the same opportunity for an indiv
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HANNAH THE PRAYING MOTHER.
HANNAH THE PRAYING MOTHER.
T he story of Hannah is a purely domestic one, and is most valuable in unveiling the intimate and trustful life of faith that existed between the Jehovah revealed in the Old Testament and each separate soul, however retired and humble. It is not God the Lawgiver and King, but, if we may so speak, God in his private and confidential relations to the individual. The story opens briefly, after the fashion of the Bible, whose brevity in words is such a contrast to the tediousness of most professed s
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RUTH THE MOABITESS.
RUTH THE MOABITESS.
T he story of Ruth is a beautiful idyl of domestic life, opening to us in the barbarous period of the Judges . In reading some of the latter chapters of that book, one might almost think that the system of Moses had proved a failure, and that the nation was lapsing back into the savage state of the heathen world around them; just as, in reading the history of the raids and feuds of the Middle Ages, one might consider Christianity a failure. But in both cases there were nooks and dells embosomed
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THE WITCH OF ENDOR.
THE WITCH OF ENDOR.
W hat was a witch, according to the law of Moses, and why was witchcraft a capital offense? A witch was the dark shadow of a prophetess. A prophetess was a holy woman drawing near to the spiritual world by means of faith and prayer, and thus inspired by God with a knowledge beyond the ordinary power of mortals. Her prophecies and her guidance were all from the only true source of knowledge; the spirits that attended her were true and heavenly spirits, and she became a medium by whom the will of
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QUEEN ESTHER.
QUEEN ESTHER.
T he story of Esther belongs to that dark period in Jewish history when the national institutions were to all human view destroyed. The Jews were scattered up and down through the provinces captives and slaves, with no rights but what their conquerors might choose to give them. Without a temple, without an altar, without a priesthood, they could only cling to their religion as a memory of the past, and with some dim hopes for the future. In this depressed state, there was a conspiracy, armed by
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JUDITH THE DELIVERER.
JUDITH THE DELIVERER.
N o female type of character has given more brilliant inspiration to the artist or been made more glowingly alive on canvas than Judith. Her story, however, is set down by competent scholars as a work of fiction. The incidents recorded in it have so many anachronisms as to time and place, the historical characters introduced are in combinations and relations so interfering with authentic history, that such authorities as Professor Winer, [5] of Leipsic, and others, do not hesitate to assign it t
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WOMEN OF THE CHRISTIAN ERA.
WOMEN OF THE CHRISTIAN ERA.
The Sistine Madonna...
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MARY THE MYTHICAL MADONNA.
MARY THE MYTHICAL MADONNA.
N o woman that ever lived on the face of the earth has been an object of such wonder, admiration, and worship as Mary the mother of Jesus. Around her poetry, painting, and music have raised clouds of ever-shifting colors, splendid as those around the setting sun. Exalted above earth, she has been shown to us as a goddess, yet a goddess of a type wholly new. She is not Venus, not Minerva, not Ceres, nor Vesta. No goddess of classic antiquity or of any other mythology at all resembles that ideal b
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MARY THE MOTHER OF JESUS.
MARY THE MOTHER OF JESUS.
F rom out the cloudy ecstasies of poetry, painting, and religious romance, we grope our way back to the simple story of the New Testament, to find, if possible, by careful study, the lineaments of the real Mary the mother of our Lord. Who and what really was the woman highly favored over all on earth, chosen by God to be the mother of the Redeemer of the world? It is our impression that the true character will be found more sweet, more strong, more wonderful in its perfect naturalness and humani
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THE DAUGHTER OF HERODIAS.
THE DAUGHTER OF HERODIAS.
I n the great drama of the history of Jesus many subordinate figures move across the stage, indicated with more or less power by the unconscious and artless simplicity of the narrative. Among these is the daughter of Herodias, whose story has often been a favorite subject among artists as giving an opportunity of painting female beauty and fascination in affinity with the deepest and most dreadful tragedy. Salome was the daughter of Herodias, who was a woman of unbridled passions and corrupt wil
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THE WOMAN OF SAMARIA.
THE WOMAN OF SAMARIA.
W e are struck, in the history of our Lord, with the unworldliness of his manner of living his daily life and fulfilling his great commission. It is emphatically true, in the history of Jesus, that his ways are not as our ways, and his thoughts as our thoughts. He did not choose the disciples of his first ministry as worldly wisdom would have chosen them. Though men of good and honest hearts, they were neither the most cultured nor the most influential of his nation. We should have said that men
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MARY MAGDALENE.
MARY MAGDALENE.
O ne of the most splendid ornaments of the Dresden Gallery is the Magdalen of Batoni. The subject has been a favorite among artists, and one sees, in a tour of the various collections of Europe, Magdalens by every painter, in every conceivable style. By far the greater part of them deal only with the material aspects of the subject. The exquisite pathos of the story, the passionate anguish and despair of the penitent, the refinement and dignity of Divine tenderness, are often lost sight of in me
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