Fair to Look Upon | Page 9

and meanly offered to bring out his two young daughters and give to
the howling mob--but the passion that glowed in the eyes and trembled
in the voices of the raging throng was not a passion to be allayed by the
clasp of a woman's hand, the flash of her azure eye, or the touch of her
lips; and besides, that boisterous, angry crowd evidently did not believe
in the efficacy of vicarious atonement and they flouted the offer. The
uproar increased, curses and maledictions rung out, the demand for the
men grew louder and louder, and at this perilous moment the angels
"put forth their hand and pulled Lot into the house to them, and shut to
the door," and "They smote the men that were at the door of the house
with blindness, both small and great: so that they wearied themselves to
find the door."
And in that crushing moment when eternal darkness fell upon the
multitude the cries of anger and revenge died away, and such a moan of

anguish and despair burst upon the affrighted night that the very stars in
heaven trembled.
Then the angels confided to Lot their dread secret and told him to warn
all his relatives to leave the city with him, and he went out and told his
sons-in-law of the impending calamity, and he "seemed as one that
mocked unto his sons-in-law."
The morning came blue-eyed and blushing, and the angels hastened Lot
and his wife, and hurried them out of the city, saying, "Escape for thy
life: look not behind thee, neither stay thou in all the plains: escape to
the mountains, lest thou be consumed."
Now if there were any more disreputable people in the cities than Lot's
two young daughters, we don't wonder that the vengeance of a just God
sent a blasting storm of bursting flames to lick with their fiery tongues
these wicked cities from the face of the earth. What does arouse our
wonder is that those fair girls with the devil's instincts smouldering in
their hearts should be allowed to escape the general baking. But excuse
us; our business is to state facts and not to wonder or surmise.
[Illustration: (Lot's wife looked back.)]
From subsequent facts we suppose that Lot's wife sadly, perhaps
rebelliously, lingered, for we find the angels saying again:
"Haste thee, escape thither; for I cannot do anything till thou come
thither," and they escaped to the city of Zoar, "and the sun was risen
upon the face of the earth when Lot entered into Zoar."
"Then the Lord rained upon Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire
from the Lord out of heaven."
But before the end Lot's "wife looked back from behind him and she
became a pillar of salt."
All the information we have of Mrs. Lot is exceedingly meager; only
one short sentence and two little clauses in other sentences; and yet no

figure of history, no creation of a poet's dream or artist's brush since the
world, wrapped in the laces of the twilight and the mists, and rocked in
the cradle of the first early morning of life, until the present day, old in
experience, wrinkled with care, heart-sick with too much knowledge
and laughing without mirth, stands out more clearly before the world
than Lot's wife--and why?
Because it has been supposed that she was very naughty.
In this world it is the wicked folks who get the glory and the everlasting
fame; the good people get the snubs, the crumbs, the eternal oblivion.
The whole history of Lot's wife lies in the fact that she was told by the
angel of the Lord to do one thing, and she--didn't do it.
But that is characteristic of the women of old; they systematically didn't
do it if they were told to, and systematically did do it if they were told
not to.
And Madam Lot "became a pillar of salt," because of her disobedience,
and has stood through the centuries a warning statue to naughty
females; yes, more than that, for she has seemed a criminal whom just
vengeance caught in the very act and turned into a pillar of salt,
standing in the plain near Sodom, against a background of shame,
crime and punishment, that the eyes of the world of women might look
upon forever, and be afraid.
But in this day and age we are beginning to see that in Lot's wife it was
a case of mistaken identity, and instead of being a criminal she was a
great and good woman, and although the "pillar of salt" commemorates
an act of dire disobedience, it also extols a loving heart and a brave act.
Just imagine her position. She was leaving her home, around which a
woman's heart clings as the