Mary Belle Freeley

“ The facts of history stab our faith in man's love, woman's constancy, friendship, honor and truth, but Joseph's peerless example revives it, and we feel that there are characters that are incorruptible, honesty that is unassailable, virtue that is impregnable and friendship that is undying. He shines out from among the other characters of the Old Testament as distinctly and clearly as a star breaking through the sullen clouds of heaven, as a lily blowing and floating above the green scum and sluggish waters, as a rose blooming in a wilderness. ”

“ So the birds only seek love's trysting place in the springtime when their plumage is the most brilliant and their songs the sweetest, and the fishes when their colors are the brightest. And the woman of our day and generation, when love's arrow "tipped with a jewel and shot from a golden string" pierces her vital organ, wears her dress a little more décolleté, bangs her hair more bangy, clasps more diamonds round her throat, dispenses with sleeves altogether, smiles her sweetest smile and laughs her gayest laugh. ”

“ For no matter how old a woman or man may be, the perennial stream of love and sentiment flows on in the heart, although hid 'neath white hairs and wrinkles, and bound by the wintry shackles of age and custom; still it is there, and often breaks the icy barriers of the years and betrays itself by a late marriage, or in the matchmaking proclivities of all elderly women.
And Naomi gave Ruth some instructions which we blush to think of, but she followed them implicitly. And the middle-aged Boaz was caught. ”

“ And I suppose he neglected no artifice of the toilet that might enchance his personal charms, that he donned the most costly and elegant of his Egyptian costumes, flung himself in courtly indolence upon the sand, and waited and watched eagerly for the rich girls to come down to the well to water their father's flocks, just as one watches in the twilight for the first star to sparkle in the azure overhead, for the first sunbeam of the morning or the first rose of June. ”

“ He told them of Isaac, in whose name he sued for Rebekah's fair hand. He didn't say that Isaac was handsome, virtuous, talented or ambitious, but he said, "the Lord hath blessed my master and he is very great; and he hath given him flocks and herds, and silver and gold, and maid servants and men servants, and camels and asses," and unto his son Isaac "hath he given all that he hath," for this astute man of the world seemed to know that the surest and quickest way to win a woman was to show her a golden pathway strewn with the gems of power, luxury and ambition. ”

“ Woman has never been obedient. She has always had the germ of the ruler and autocrat in her soul. It was born when Eve first looked with longing eyes at the apple swinging in the sunlight.
While Adam was idly, lazily sunning himself in the garden was Eve contented to smell the fragrance of the violets and bask in the starlight of a new world? ”

“ I presume Zipporah, one of the priest's daughters, had heard about the elegant and courtly Egyptian who was in the neighborhood, and she no doubt adorned herself with all her jewels, wore the finest finery in her wardrobe and wreathed her lips in smiles; for she knew that love lives and thrives on smiles and roses, coquetry and gallantry, on laughter and sweet glances, and faints and dies on frowns, neglect and angry words; and so she tripped down to the well, bent on conquest. ”

“ At that time Jacob started a fashion that "custom cannot stale," a fashion that while time lasts shall be as cheap as roses, laughter and sunshine, as thrilling as wine, as sweet as innocence and as new as love, a fashion that wealth, time or country cannot monopolize, and one that is as sweet to the beggar, and sweeter too, than to the king.
At the end of one short month we find him [Pg 88] so desperately enamored that he said to Laban, Rachel's father: "I will serve thee seven years for thy younger daughter;" and the old gentleman, seeing an opportunity to get a hired man cheap, consented. ”

“ All the angels and demons, the joys and sorrows of life, urge her to turn back; love of children, friendship of old neighbors, regret for the joys that have fled, remorse for the wicked deeds she has done, the unkind words she has spoken, a blind unreasoning rebellion against the fate that has overtaken her friends and home, fight against God's command. ”

“ Did she clothe herself in the gayest costume of the Jews, [Pg 113] and, conscious of her beauty, try with smiles and coquetry and caressing touch to beguile the King? No. Did she steal into the tent of his greatest general and kneeling at his feet seek to bribe him with her love? No. She simply and utterly ignored the men, and selected the King's own daughter as the instrument to execute her design. She knew the royal girl came down to the river to bathe, and trusting in her baby's great gift of unrivaled beauty and the woman's compassion, she planned a dramatic surprise for her. ”

“ You know it is true that when we go to live in a strange country, we tell our new acquaintances, incidentally and casually, perhaps, but we tell them just the same, about our wealthy and famous relatives, while the names of those who were hanged because they may have loved horse flesh "not wisely but too well," were arrested for gambling, eloped with some other woman's husband, or made garden on shares for the neighbors, are kept locked in our hearts as too sacred to mention to curious ears. ”

“ And Ruth had decided to capture Boaz's heart with her midnight eyes, wear his gems upon her breast, and plunge both hands deep down in his golden shekels. But of course she didn't intend to confide this dead secret to a garrulous old lady, and have it reach the ears of the mighty man of wealth perhaps, for the cunning, witty, pretty widow knew that a man never likes to be caught. ”

“ Then Samson, after a little affair which I do not care to dwell upon with a woman of Gaza, who was no better than she should have been, fell blindly in love with Delilah. And, being in love, he profited not by his late experience (what man or woman ever does who is in love?) and again he told the dearest secret of his heart to a woman, because, forsooth, "she pressed him daily with her words, and urged him, so that his soul was vexed unto death." And then with her fine arms around his neck and her kisses on his lips, he fell asleep on her knees—and she betrayed him. ”

“ The great array of the Philistines "came and pitched in Shunem, and Saul gathered all Israel together, and they pitched in Gilboa," and unseen by any of the mighty hosts death and rapine, treachery, revenge and murder, smilingly waited for the desperate battle.
Then Saul, gazing upon the great army of his enemies and terrified at the countless thousands, thought he would like to have his fortune told and said, "Seek me a woman that hath a familiar spirit," and they took him to the witch of Endor, and Saul prayed her to materialize Samuel for his especial benefit. ”

“ But stronger than all these gossamer, yet almost unbreakable threads, was the love she bore her husband; a love so intense, so deep that it made her obey a command of God's against which every instinct, passion and emotion of her nature rebelled. ”

“ I left the mathematical problem for future solution and said, hesitatingly:
"Yes—if—I—can."
"If you can?" he said, in sternly questioning tones; and a cloud no bigger than a man's hand appeared upon the heaven of our love.
"I don't believe a woman ever lived who ever obeyed any one—God, angels, or men," I cried. ”

“ But there isn't any record that he kissed his wife, or even shook hands with her, and we infer that their domestic heaven was not all blue and cloudless.
Miriam, although a prophetess and a sister of Aaron, was't very angelic, at least the glimpses we catch of her don't impress us with the fact that she was. When the seashore was strewn with the dead, white faces of the drowned Egyptians, and the waves were flecked with their pallor and dashed their helpless arms about, Miriam "took a timbrel in her hand: and all the woman went out after her with timbrels and with dances." ”

“ And Isaac lifted up his eyes and beheld her; a woman with heaven in her eyes, a mouth sweet enough to make a man forget everything but the roses of life, and a form seductive enough to tempt the very gods from on high.
And she beheld a man, young and strong and handsome, the touch of whose hand opened the gates of glory to her soul, "and she [Pg 59] became his wife, and he loved her," thereby putting himself on record as the first man in the world we have any sacred official notification of as having loved his wife. ”

“ Now "Rachel was beauteous and well favored," and of course Jacob saw all this at a glance, for a man never yet needed a telescope and a week's time to decide whether a woman possessed the elements which constituted beauty in his mind or not, and so Jacob gallantly rolled the stone away from the well and watered the flock of Laban, and then, with all the boldness which characterized his future notorious career, he "kissed Rachel, and lifted up his voice and wept." ”

“ Now she had hidden the precious little images in the camel's furniture and sat upon them, and she said she didn't feel very well this morning, papa dear, or words to that effect, and she hoped he would excuse her for not arising; and she probably smiled sweetly, put her arm around his neck, and finally did him up completely by kissing him tenderly; and of course, as in those days men never dreamed of asking a woman to do anything she didn't want to do, papa dear did not insist upon her arising, and so missed his sole and only chance of getting his "gods." ”

“ Abraham wanted their marriage kept secret because, in those days, when a lover-king wished to get rid of an obnoxious husband, he hypnotized him into eternal silence by having him used as a target for a sling, a spear or javelin, instead of causing an appeal to the divorce courts, as they do in this civilized and enlightened generation. And I believe that, after all, the old way is the better one, for when men and women die, they are dead, but when they are only divorced they are awfully alive sometimes. ”

“ Rebekah was a woman of decision and knew a good thing when she saw it, and so she did not wait to prepare a stunning trousseau or get out wedding cards and invitations fine enough to make all the girls of Nahor sigh in envy and admiration, but she departed at once. Now Isaac was of a poetical nature, and sought the solitude of the fields at eventide to meditate. Like most young men who have a love [Pg 58] affair on hand he wanted to be alone and dream dreams and see visions. ”

“ A WOMAN'S MONUMENT.
"And there came two angels to Sodom, at even."
Now Lot and his wife were residents of Sodom, and they entertained in the most courteous and hospitable manner the angels who were the advance guards of the destruction that was about to sweep the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into oblivion, leaving only a blazing ash-strewn tradition to scare the slumbers of the wicked, and stalk a warning specter down the paths of iniquity through unborn ages.
And the softening twilight fell upon the doomed but unconscious cities. Unpitying [Pg 70] Nature smiled joyously. ”

“ Not a bird fluttered its feathers, the flowers bowed their heads, the winds and the waters listening ceased their flowing and their blowing, the radiant moonshine mingled its light with the pale pink dawn and a million stars paled their eternal fires, as Eve, the first woman, stood in Eden. ”

“ Then a woman with a vision of blood and moans, dying men and ravished women before her, with a courage born of desperation and a wit sharpened with intense fear, boldly stepped to the window ledge, and in the glare of bursting flames and the sound of dying groans "cast a piece of a millstone upon Abimelech's head, and all to break his skull." ”

“ As there could hardly be anything but pleasure in kissing a lovely maiden, we naturally infer that Jacob was very emotional and was crying for effect, and that Rachel, with the consummate tact that all the women of the Bible displayed when managing the men, perfectly understood this, and had as little respect for him at the moment as most women have for a tearful man. A man like Jacob cries easily, and when he thus "lifted up his voice and wept," it is to be hoped the girl entirely understood him. ”

“ At the command of his mother, let it be remembered, and not because he had any particular desire to do so himself, Jacob left home and departed unto the land of his mother's people, where she told him to seek a wife.
The life of many men of the Old Testament (after they have reached man's estate, I mean) begins with a love affair, and I infer from that, that the Bible means to teach the lesson that to love is the first and best business of life, as well as the most entertaining and pleasant thing that this world ever did or ever will have to offer. ”

“ Oh, that we might find one woman in the Old Testament meek and humble, to whom we could pin a faith, not born of teaching and preaching and general belief, that such a thing as a submissive, obedient, tractable woman or wife ever did exist. ”

“ He saw that this woman had no garments, and that after she had eaten this fruit she would know better, and delight in clothes ever after. So he gave her the apple.
Almost instantly after she had eaten some, not because she particularly liked apples, or had any idea of their adaptability in the way of pies, sauce or cider, but because she wanted to "be as gods knowing good and evil," as the Serpent said she would. Discontent with her wardrobe crept into her heart and ambition for something better sprang to life. ”

“ 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. ”