With a beauty that fascinated kings, preserving the charms of youth to
the advanced period of her life, she still lived but for her husband;
and when even the faith of Abraham failed, and he withdrew from the wife
the protection of the husband, and said, "She is my sister," Sarah
appears to have acquiesced in a deceit so unworthy of her husband and of
herself, merely to insure his safety among the lawless tribes around
them.

As we read the story of Abraham's wife, we catch glimpses of ages and
nations that were hoar with antiquity, and had passed away when our
ancient historians began the record of the past. Nation after nation had
perished and been forgotten before the profane historian began his
annals. Yet childless, still trusting in the promise of Jehovah, Abraham
wandered for many years through the land which was to be given to him,
and his seed after him. Now pitching his tent in Moreh; then building
his altar at Bethel; then driven by famine into Egypt; then returning to
his altar at Bethel,--and there separating from his nephew Lot, because
"the land could not bear" both, he fixes his abode in Hebron.

No pictures of pastoral life are more beautiful than those presented in
Genesis; and while we contemplate the character of Abraham, we catch
occasional glimpses of his household, and of the manners of his age. We
see him exercising forbearance and relinquishing the rights of a
superior, that there might be no strife between him and his too worldly
relative. We see him leading out his own band as a prince, to rescue
that same relative,--who, tempted by the promise of large wealth, had
chosen a location full of dangers,--and, in the hour of victory,
refusing all spoil and showing all honour to the priest of the most high
God.