What a touching story is the life of Hannah of motherly consecration of herself and her Samuel. If all who wear the crown of motherhood were as noble, as loyal, as self-giving and trustful as Hannah was, and brought up their children to know and obey the voice of the Lord, what a world this would be. O that our land were filled with Hannahs, then would we have more Samuels. CHAPTER V. Womanhood During the Reign of the Kings. ABIGAIL--CHURLISH NABAL--CHIVALROUS APPRECIATION--DAVID’S MESSENGERS--SAUL’S DAUGHTERS--HIS TREACHERY--MICHAL’S STRATAGEM--RIZPAH--HER HEROIC ENDURANCE AND LOVING FIDELITY--THE QUEEN OF SHEBA--HER VISIT TO JERUSALEM--THE GLORY AND WISDOM OF SOLOMON--THE HALF NOT TOLD--THE QUEEN’S ROYAL GIFTS. Passing out from under the Theocracy, or rule of the Judges, the first woman in White Raiment that appears on the page of the Sacred Record is Abigail. She was the wife of Nabal, a wealthy owner of goats and sheep in Carmel, not the Mount Carmel of Central Palestine, between the maritime plain of Sharon on the south, and the great inland expanse known as the plain of Esdraelon on the north, but a town in the mountainous country of Judah, to the west of the lower end of the Dead Sea. She was a woman of good understanding and of a beautiful countenance--a fit combination. Her character had written its legend on her face. The two things do not always go together. There are many beautiful women wholly destitute of good understanding, just as birds of rarest plumage are commonly deficient in the power of song. But a good understanding, which is moral rather than intellectual, casts a glow of beauty over the plainest features. But Abigail’s husband was a churl. The great establishment over which she presided would be called, in our modern times, a sheep ranch, and, under the management of such a man as Nabal, the servants doubtless often echoed the ill-temper of their master, and her wits would be often sharpened to the utmost to keep all within the limits of safety and comfort. Evidently, at her birth, Abigail had been a welcomed child in a happy home, amid plenty and even luxury, such as the times in that rude age of the world could give. Her parents named her “Source of joy.” She had grown up in a glad, breezy confidence that made her equal to any emergency. Since God has floods of glory for the gloomiest souls, why will not parents keep their children in the clear, warm sunshine of joyful love? Many drudge early and late to provide culture and comfort; but they withhold a better, richer gift. They becloud hopelessly the dear young lives with their own disappointments, and foredoom them to despondency.