Fair to Look Upon | Page 4

fortune of a modern actress, and the princes of Pharaoh commended her wit, beauty and grace to the king, "and the woman was taken into Pharaoh's house."
The attentive reader will observe that Holy Writ, in speaking of a woman, never deigns to say that she is virtuous, industrious, obedient, or a good cook, but seems to ignore everything but the fact that "she was fair to look upon."
That was all that seemed to be required of the "holy women of old."
And Pharaoh "entreated Abraham well for Sarah's sake" (you notice they did everything to please the ladies in those days), and loaded him with riches, presents and honors; and Pharaoh's wives and sub-wives and cadet wives didn't like it. And the Secretary of the Treasury, the Prime Minister and the High Lord Chamberlain of the Bedchamber didn't like it. The neighbors began to talk openly; the scandal "smelled to heaven;" and the Lord Himself had to interfere to head the fair Sarah off, and He "plagued Pharaoh and his house with great plagues, because of Sarah, Abraham's wife."
And then--after the preliminary amorous clasping of hands, the little caressing attentions, the lingering kisses; after the fiery expectation and the rapture of possession, after all this came--as it always does--the tragedy of satiety and separation.
"And Abraham went up out of Egypt, he, and his wife and all that he had."
[Illustration: "AND THE WOMAN WAS TAKEN INTO PHARAOH'S HOUSE."]
Yet Peter, in speaking of the duties of wives, has the temerity to refer to the "holy women of old," and holds Sarah up as a bright and shining example for us to follow, saying, "even as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord." But we won't lay this up against Peter, for it is a telling fact (and shows the predicament he was in) that he had to go back nearly two thousand years to find an obedient woman. There were evidently none in his day, but as he wished to make his teaching effective and submit some proof to clinch his argument, he went back to Sarah and said, "even as Sarah obeyed Abraham," which shows he had never gotten at the real facts in the lovely Sarah's career, or else was misrepresenting Sarah to carry his point in favor of the men.
A careful perusal of my Bible convinces me that the "holy women of old," as Peter dubs them, were all afflicted with a chronic determination to have their own way--and they had it.
But the men were always obedient to the women, and each one "hearkened unto the voice of his wife" and also obeyed God and the angels.
At this point in the history of the affable Sarah and the dutiful Abraham we come to the Abraham-Hagar case, and find the hired-girl question already agitating society.
And the historian tells us that Sarah told Abraham that he could have Hagar for his very own, and then the narrator naively remarks, "And Abraham hearkened unto the voice of his wife."
But of course this is a vile slander against Sarah, and, at this late day, I rise to refute the charge.
Probably some of Abraham's political friends, when the disgrace broke forth in all its rosy glory, trumped up this story about Sarah's consent to save his reputation. But Sarah never did anything of the kind, as her subsequent actions prove. It isn't human nature; it isn't wifely nature; and although Sarah was a little gay-hearted herself, she wasn't going to stand any such nonsense--to speak lightly--from Abraham, and when she discovered his intimacy with the hired girl she quietly called him into the tent, and in less than ten seconds she made his life a howling wilderness. I don't know exactly what she said (as I wasn't there), but it ended, as such scenes usually do end, by the dear man repenting. For, since he is found out, what else can a man do? He said he was sorely tempted, no doubt, and so forth and so on to the end of the chapter, and said: "Thy maid is in thy hands; do unto her as it pleaseth thee." And "Sarah dealt hardly with her, and she fled from her face." But she came back, because you remember she met an angel in the wilderness, and he told her to return. Nice advice from an angel, wasn't it?
[Illustration: (Abraham entertaining the three angels.)]
The next scene in which the lovely Sarah distinguishes herself, and nobly sustains her record for disobedience and a determination to follow the dictates of her own sweet will, was when Abraham entertained the three angels.
Now hobnobbing with angels wasn't an every-day affair, even in that age when angels were more plentiful than they are now.
And Abraham was naturally a little excited, and he "hastened into the tent unto Sarah," and said: "Make ready