HAGAR AND ISHMAEL.

ISHMAEL, jealous as it may be inferred at his father's partiality for the younger son, had jested at the weaning of Isaac. This act of disrespect was probably encouraged by his mother, who saw in Isaac's birth all her hopes defeated of beholding her son enjoy the privileges of the first born; Abraham, therefore, at Sarah's instigation, dismissed both from his family. "And Abraham rose up early in the morning, and took bread, and a bottle of water, and gave it unto Hagar, putting it on her shoulder, and the child, and sent her away: and she departed, and wandered in the wilderness of Beer-sheba. And the water was spent in the bottle, and she cast the child under one of the shrubs. And she went, and sat her down over against him a good way off, as it were a bow-shot for she said, Let me not see the death of the child. And she sat over against him, and lift up her voice, and wept." Hagar appears seated by Ishmael under a small tree that overshadows a projecting bank. The moment chosen by the artist, is just before she quits him in order that she may not see him die. A vast wilderness lies before them, where they can see nothing but the cheerless prospect of a solitary death. Hagar abandons herself to grief ere she takes a last farewell of her only son. Ishmael is spent with thirst and fatigue, and the mother, supposing him to be dying, sits down by him and weeps. The water-vessel is overturned, and no relief appears to be nigh. The relaxed attitude of the mother indicates the total absorption of her grief, while the uplifted eyes of the boy, the depressed mouth, the nerveless position and want of tension in the limbs, show the complete prostration of bodily energy and a painful resignation to death.