[Illustration] V. Hagar's Bottle. AN empty skin-bottle is before us, such as is used by Orientals to the present day to carry what they emphatically term "the gift of God;" a title to which our Saviour appears to have alluded when He said to the woman of whom He had asked water, "If thou knewest the gift of God;" seeking to raise her thoughts from the earthly well to the heavenly Fountain. Of the value of water in the wilderness, we, in our moist climate, can scarcely form an adequate conception. Let me briefly quote from a description of travelling in an Arabian desert, given by a graphic author: * "On either hand extended one weary plain in a black monotony of lifelessness . . . A dreary land of death, in which even the face of an enemy were almost a relief amid such utter solitude . . . Day after day found us urging our camels to their utmost pace, for fifteen or sixteen hours together out of the twenty-four, under a well-nigh vertical sun . . . Then an insufficient halt for rest or sleep, at most of two or three hours, soon interrupted by the often repeated admonition, 'If we linger here we all die of thirst.'" * Palgrave. But the scene which rises before us, the wilderness of Beersheba, is not peopled with pilgrims and travellers urging on their weary camels; there are but two figures in it—an exhausted, grief-stricken woman, and the fainting lad at her side. That skin-bottle is in her hands—empty. She has watched it shrinking as the precious fluid within was gradually used, or wasted by evaporation; dry and parched as is her own tongue, she has feared to relieve her burning thirst lest she should too soon exhaust the priceless treasure. With a sickening feeling of fear Hagar has given the last draught to her Ishmael; and then, with faint hope, squeezed the skin hard with her feverish hands, trying to press out one more drop—but in vain. She looks anxiously around her, but can see no means of refilling that empty bottle. Then, in anguish, Hagar turns from the parched shrub under which she has cast her son; she wanders away—but let the account be given in the touching words of Scripture: "She went and sat her down over against him a good way off, as it were a bowshot: 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." While Hagar was weeping, her son appears to have been praying; for it is written, "God heard the voice of the lad." Ishmael's cry was answered: "The angel of God called to Hagar out of heaven, and said unto her, What aileth thee, Hagar? fear not; for God hath heard the voice of the lad where he is. And God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water; and she went, and filled the bottle with water, and gave the lad drink." When the cool bubbling liquid filled out the swelling skin-bottle in the hand of the rejoicing, thankful mother, as she bent eagerly over the well, far more emphatically than the first supply was it to her—the gift of God.