was marked by lust and carnage.

We do not love to dwell on the treachery of Jael--we do not feel called
upon to justify the act, although Deborah might well rejoice in the
deliverance of her people from so stern a foe, so foul an oppression.
Sisera appears as abject in the hour of defeat as he had been insolent
and arrogant and cruel in the hour of triumph.

After Israel was restored to liberty we hear no more of Deborah; but
"the land had rest forty years." She again returns to her own sphere, to
the unostentatious, yet all-pervading usefulness of domestic life. No
honours, no triumphs, no statues were awarded to her. No monuments seem
to have been erected to her memory. The palm-tree was her fitting
memorial; delighting the eye, affording shade, shelter and nourishment;
asking and securing nought from man, watered by the dew and rain of
heaven, and rejoicing in the beams of the sun--still pointing to heaven
while sheltering those beneath it.

Jehovah seems to permit such examples to stimulate woman to usefulness
and to vindicate their capacity; and thus there ever have been and are
still Deborahs--mothers in Israel--those who, dwelling under their own
roof, in the seclusion of domestic life, yet send forth an influence
which extends far and wide.

The sound, rational piety of such women, and their lives of humble
faith, of prayer, and of consistent usefulness, have often awakened a
high tone of religious feeling and led to extensive revivals of pure
religion.

Without departing from their allotted sphere, without forgetting the