DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.67419#0039
EARLY NEEDLEWORK.
17
scene which this simple mention conjures up ! With
all the earnest fervour of that separated race who
hoped each one to be the honoured instrument of
bringing a Saviour into the world, Hannah, then
childless, prayed that this reproach might be taken
from her. Her prayer was heard, her son was born ;
and in holy gratitude she reared him, not for wealth,
for fame, for worldly honour, or even for her own
domestic comfort,—but, from his birth, and before
his birth she devoted him as the servant of the
Most High. She indulged herself with his presence
only till her maternal cares had fitted him for duty ;
and then, with a tearful eye it might be, and a fal-
tering footstep, but an unflinching resolution, she
devoted him to the altar other God.
But never did his image leave her mind : never
amid the fair scions which sprang up and bloomed
around her hearth did her thoughts forsake her
first-born; and yearly, when she went up to the
Tabernacle with Elkanah her husband, did she
take him “a little coat” which she had made. We
may fancy her quiet happy thoughts when at this
employment; we may fancy the eager earnest ques-
tionings of the little group by whom she was sur-
rounded ; the wondering about their absent brother;
the anxious catechisings respecting his whereabouts ;
and, abowe all, the admiration of the new garment
itself, and the earnest criticisms on it; especially if
in form and fashion it should somewhat differ from
their own. And then arrives the moment when the
garment is committed to its envelope; and the
mother, weeping to part from her little ones, yet
longing to see her absent boy, receives their adieux
17
scene which this simple mention conjures up ! With
all the earnest fervour of that separated race who
hoped each one to be the honoured instrument of
bringing a Saviour into the world, Hannah, then
childless, prayed that this reproach might be taken
from her. Her prayer was heard, her son was born ;
and in holy gratitude she reared him, not for wealth,
for fame, for worldly honour, or even for her own
domestic comfort,—but, from his birth, and before
his birth she devoted him as the servant of the
Most High. She indulged herself with his presence
only till her maternal cares had fitted him for duty ;
and then, with a tearful eye it might be, and a fal-
tering footstep, but an unflinching resolution, she
devoted him to the altar other God.
But never did his image leave her mind : never
amid the fair scions which sprang up and bloomed
around her hearth did her thoughts forsake her
first-born; and yearly, when she went up to the
Tabernacle with Elkanah her husband, did she
take him “a little coat” which she had made. We
may fancy her quiet happy thoughts when at this
employment; we may fancy the eager earnest ques-
tionings of the little group by whom she was sur-
rounded ; the wondering about their absent brother;
the anxious catechisings respecting his whereabouts ;
and, abowe all, the admiration of the new garment
itself, and the earnest criticisms on it; especially if
in form and fashion it should somewhat differ from
their own. And then arrives the moment when the
garment is committed to its envelope; and the
mother, weeping to part from her little ones, yet
longing to see her absent boy, receives their adieux