Volume I Part 17 (2/2)

She was too much acquainted with Elisha's character to intend to charge him with deliberate falsehood; but her feelings were suddenly overpowered, and consequently, she was at no leisure to weigh her words. The prophet's prediction was completely verified; and she had a son, ”at that season that Elisha had said unto her, according to the time of life,”--”Lo!

children are a heritage of the Lord; and the fruit of the womb is his reward.”

In reviewing the scriptural account of remote ages, we cannot fail to be struck with several instances of the extreme anxiety of good women for the possession of children; an anxiety which requires some other reason than the general causes to be a.s.signed for domestic and social congratulations common upon such occasions. Sarah, for example, the wife of Abraham, was induced by this desire to practise a piece of wretched and criminal policy, in giving Hagar, her Egyptian handmaid, to her husband. Rachel, the beloved wife of Jacob, was so impatient of her own barrenness, and so envious of her sister, that she exclaimed, ”Give me children, or else I die.” The fact was, that they were influenced by the promises of G.o.d to Abraham, whose posterity were to inherit the most invaluable blessings, and from whom the Messiah himself was to descend in the fulness of time.

As in him ”all the families of the earth were to be blessed,” who can be surprised that the most distant probability or possibility of introducing him, who was to be ”born of a woman,” into the world, should excite an ardent wish in every pious woman to become a mother? And here it must be admitted, that whatever reproach the first transgressor might have cast upon the female s.e.x by her misconduct, it is forever wiped away by the enviable distinction of becoming instrumental to a Saviour's birth.

The time hastened in which the Shunammite was to be subjected to a species of trial different from that with which she had been hitherto exercised.

The congratulations of her connections on the birth of her child were scarcely expressed, and her earthly happiness consummated, when she was destined to suffer acutely by the death of her little favourite.

Those who have never felt a similar deprivation are necessarily disqualified from forming any adequate idea of the bitterness of parental grief, when the objects of their fondest solicitude are suddenly s.n.a.t.c.hed from the grasp of their affections. It is difficult to say in what period of youthful history this stroke is severest, or when it is most tolerable; because every point of age has its peculiar attractions, and parental love will always imagine that to be the most afflicting in which the event occurs. Happy those who can adopt the language of one of the sweetest epitaphs that ever adorned a monument!--

”Liv'd--to wake each tender pa.s.sion, And delightful hopes inspire; Died--to try our resignation, And direct our wishes higher:--

”Rest, sweet babe, in gentle slumbers, Till the resurrection morn; Then arise to join the numbers, That its triumphs shall adorn.

”Though, thy presence so endearing, We thy absence now deplore; At the Saviour's bright appearing, We shall meet to part no more.

”Thus to thee, O Lord, submitting, We the tender pledge resign; And, thy mercies ne'er forgetting, Own that all we have is thine.” [45]

It is not unusual for the providence of G.o.d to deprive us of those objects we had too exclusively and too fondly called _our own_, and the long enjoyment of which we had confidently antic.i.p.ated. This is no capricious proceeding: it is marked by wisdom and goodness, since our real happiness depends on the regulation of those pa.s.sions which, but for such dispensations, would rove with unhallowed eccentricity from the chief good. It is necessary that we should be trained in the school of adversity; and that by a course of corrective discipline, nicely adapted to each particular case, our characters should be gradually matured for a n.o.bler existence.

The manner in which the calamity to which we have referred overtook the Shunammite, is thus detailed by the faithful pen of inspiration. ”And when the child was grown, it fell on a day that he went out to his father to the reapers. And he said unto his father, My head, my head! And he said to a lad, Carry him to his mother. And when he had taken him and brought him to his mother, he sat on her knees till noon, and then died.”

From this brief statement it is evident that this child was smitten by the sun, in consequence of exposing himself in the harvest field to the intensity of the season. In northern climates it is difficult to realize the danger; but in the torrid zone great precaution is necessary to avoid such calamities. Observing the effects of the sun's rays, Apollo is represented, in heathen mythology, as holding a bow, and shooting his arrows upon the earth.

”Pay sacred reverence to Apollo's song, Lest watchful the far-shooting G.o.d emit His fatal arrows.”

PRIOR'S Callimachus.

The heat in some parts of Judea has often proved fatal, even at a very early period of the year. In a battle fought by king Baldwin IV. near Tiberias in Galilee, as many are said to have died in both armies by the heat as by the sword; and an ecclesiastic of eminence, although carried in a litter, expired under mount Tabor, near the river Kishon, in consequence of the excessive heat. Shunem was in the neighbourhood of Tabor. [46]

As soon as the Shunammite found that her son was dead, she took him to the prophet's chamber, and laying him on his bed, shut the door and departed. The only reason of this proceeding probably was, its being the most retired part of the house, and therefore the best suited to such a melancholy occasion. But who can express the yearnings of her maternal tenderness, when she left behind her this precious, but now insensible clay! That tongue which had so often pleased her by its innocent prattle, so often uttered

----”the fond name That wakes affection to a flame,”

was now silent in death; and those artless and attractive smiles, which to a mother's heart were more lovely than the looks of the morning, were subsided into the fixed and motionless aspect of one whose spirit has ceased to animate the body.

An impatient temper might have invented many reasons for discontent, on this affecting occasion. It might have reproached the father for permitting the child to accompany him, at this sultry season, into the harvest field--the child for an infantine eagerness to go--or herself for indiscreetly allowing of so dangerous a gratification. A comparison of the happier lot of other families might have been drawn, whose children went out on the same day, and returned unsmitten by the infectious atmosphere, or the burning sun; and by aggravating the painful peculiarity of her own affliction, she might thus have driven the barbed arrow still deeper in her bosom, and censured, at least by implication, the Supreme Disposer.

But we have to admire a conduct which bespeaks the fullest conviction that it was a _providence_ and not a _casuality_ that occasioned the death of her beloved offspring, and evinces the most entire acquiescence in the mournful event.

While our attention is confined solely to second causes, the mind will be involved in a labyrinth of difficulties, in judging of the changes and trials incident to the present life; but when our faith ascends above this low and limited scene, to contemplate the arrangements of an universal Providence, the deepest mysteries become unravelled, and the greatest seeming inconsistencies in a considerable degree reconciled. Or, if we cannot develope the whole plan, and ascertain the reason of every movement of almighty Wisdom, we at least acquire a spirit of submission and obedience.

Some persons are so overwhelmed by their sorrows as to be totally disqualified for their duties: but, although the world may applaud this acute sensibility, religion condemns it. As the effect of mere pa.s.sion, it has nothing in it which can secure the approbation of G.o.d; on the contrary, it is offensive to him, who, while he permits us to weep, does not allow us to despond, and who often sees it best to humble a refractory spirit by a repet.i.tion of chastis.e.m.e.nt.

This excellent Shunammite, after making the necessary arrangements for her poor departed son in the prophet's chamber, instead of sitting down to indulge her own melancholy feelings, or court the compa.s.sion of her domestics and friends, despatched a messenger to her husband, to request that a servant might be sent to her with one of the a.s.ses, for the purpose of going to pay a visit to the man of G.o.d. As she had not told him the motive of this sudden determination, he remonstrated, because it was ”neither new moon nor sabbath,” that is, neither the usual time of secular or sacred journeys. [47] He was, however, easily satisfied when she intimated that she had a good reason for wis.h.i.+ng to pay this visit. ”She said, It shall be well.”

”See,” says pious Matthew Henry, ”how this husband and wife vied respects; she was so _dutiful to him_ that she would not go till she had acquainted him with her journey, and he so _loving to her_ that he would not oppose it, though she did not think it fit to acquaint him with her business.”

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