Chapter IV

Summary

Before regarding the laws instituted for the widows of Israel, let us pause one moment on the full tide of anguish and unprotected isolation comprised to woman in that one word “widow,” that we may comprehend our Father's love to the full extent. What woman's heart, awake to kind and generous feelings, can look upon a widow without sympathy—without the yearning prayer, that consolation may be granted her, and her fatherless babes find friends to guide them through a stormy world? We know no description so thrillingly powerful of this, the heart's desolation, as the lines we subjoin.

“Lone sharer of a widowed lot,

Where is the language, though a Seraph hymned

The poetry of heaven, to picture thee,

Wrecked as thou art, whose life has now become

Affliction's martyrdom? for such is love

Doomed to remain on desolation's rock

And look for ever where the past lies dead.

What is the world to thy benighted soul?

A dungeon! Save that where thy children's tones

Can ring with gladness its sepulchral gloom.

Placid and cold, and spiritually pale

Art thou. The lustre of thy youth is dimm'd,

The verdure of thy spirit o'er. In vain

The beaming eloquence of day attracts

Thy heart's communion with creation's joy.

Like twilight imaged on a bank of snow

The smile that waneth o'er thy marble cheeks.”

Robert Montgomery.

Such, indeed, is the earthly sadness of the widow. One with him who has departed, how may she tread the earth's dark vales alone?