* * * * *

A year passes, another and another, but Hannah is not found among the
multitude going up to Shiloh. Has she, the pious and devoted one, become
indifferent to the service of Jehovah, or have the reproaches and taunts
of Peninnah become too intolerable in the presence of her neighbors, so
that she remains at home for peace? No. Reproach will harm her no
longer. As the company departs, she stands with smiling countenance
looking upon their preparations, and in her arms a fair son; and her
parting words to her husband are--"I will not go up until the child be
weaned, and then I will bring him, that he may appear before the Lord,
and there abide forever."

* * * * *

Will she really leave him? Will she consent to part from her treasure
and joy--her only one? What a blessing he has been to her! Seven years
of peace and overflowing happiness has that little one purchased for her
burdened and distracted spirit. Can she return to Ramah without him, to
solitude and loneliness, uncheered by his winning ways and childish
prattle? Surely this is a sorrow which will wring her heart, as never
before. Not so. There she stands again on the spot where she once knelt
and wept and vowed, but no tears fall now from her eyes--no grief is in
her tones. She has come to fulfill her vow, "to lend her son to the Lord
as long as he liveth." Again she prays as she is about parting from him.
What a prayer!--a song of exultation rather. Listen to its sublime
import. "My heart rejoiceth in the Lord; mine horn is exalted in the
Lord." How did we wrong thee, Hannah! We said thy son had purchased
peace and joy for thee. Our low, selfish, doting hearts had not soared