the holiness, the unbounded self-devotion, the unfailing sympathy and love, of this ancient servant of God? Believe it; 'the glory of the children are their fathers.' I arose, a mother in Israel. JUDGES V. 7. THE period of Israelite history comprised in the Book of Judges is briefly summed up in one expressive sentence; 'Every man did that which was right in his own eyes.' It was a period of disorganisation and tumult. A judge arose in this place or in that. He was acknowledged by one tribe and repudiated by another. The nation was exposed to repeated and disastrous attacks from the surrounding peoples. There was no central authority at home. Again and again Israel lay at the mercy of her enemies; again and again by an unforeseen deliverance the nation was saved from extinction. It was a unique chapter in the world's history-this career of the Jewish people, 'persecuted but not forsaken,'' chastened but not killed,' 'dying, and behold it lived.' An eventful moment had arrived in this critical epoch when the words of the text were spoken. The enemy were pressing hard upon the chosen people. Their counsels were paralysed by the apathy of despair. They could only hang their hands and await their fate. Suddenly a woman's voice was heard amidst the confusion and dismay. A woman's hand was raised to wave them forward to battle. She -Deborah-arose, a mother in Israel. The foe was vanquished; the terror passed away; the sunlight broke once more through the darkness. A fresh lease of life was granted to the nation. This prominence of a woman guiding the destinies of the people has, so far as I remember, no parallel in the great classical nations of antiquity, Greece and Rome. They had their able and resolute women, wives and mothers of princes, who exercised a vast influence -too often a pernicious influence-on the fortunes of their country; but neither in Greece nor in Rome—at least in their palmy days—was there one of whom it could be truly said that she was a mother of her people, not one who beat back the enemies of her country and gave the land rest. Greek and Roman history can produce more than one parallel to Athaliah or to Jezebel, but none to Deborah. Standing out in Jewish history a unique and stately figure, Deborah is herself a prophecy and a foreshadowing of that larger dispensation, when the Oriental and the Greek ideal of woman—as then most |