A bride for the heir.-4. Rebekah and Isaac, or the wedding of the bride.
I. THE PENSIVE BRIDEGROOM.
1. Mourning for his mother. Isaac's meditation clearly includes this. Good mothers, when they die, should be deeply and affectionately sorrowed for by grateful and loving sons. A son who loves his mother living forgets not to lament her dead. The best testimonial of filial piety is to know that a son tenderly regards his mother while she lives, and cherishes her memory when she is gone.
2. Musing on his bride. This too the language will admit. Scarcely could the thought of Eliezer's mission be excluded from Isaac's mind. Doubtless he would often, during the interval of his absence, have his silent wonderings about its return with the God-provided spouse. Almost certainly too his prayers would ascend to heaven on her behalf. He who asks a wife from God is most likely to receive one, and he who frequently prays for the wife of his youth is most likely to love her when she comes. Note that Isaac's mournings and musings were in the field at eventide. While any place and time will suffice for heart exercises, some places and times are more suitable than others, and none more so than the solitude of nature and the darkening of eve.
II. THE VEILED BRIDE. Springing from her camel at the sight of her intended husband, "she took a veil and covered herself." The actions indicated—
1. Rebekah's politeness. Etiquette required both. It was satisfactory at least that Isaac was about to receive as his wife a lady, one acquainted with the gentle manners of the day. Refinement, while desirable in all, is specially beautiful in woman. Elegance of manners are only second to beauty of form in a bride.
2. Rebekah's modesty. Nothing can palliate immodesty in any, least of all in the gentler sex. Hence, not only should maidens be educated with the greatest possible attention to the cultivation of pure and delicate emotions, but nothing should ever tempt them to east aside that shield of maidenly reserve which is one of their surest protections in the midst of life's dangers and seductions.
III. THE PRIMITIVE WEDDING.
1. The giving of the bride. This we can suppose was performed by Eliezer, who, by his recital of "all things that he had done," practically certified that Rebekah was the maiden whom Jehovah had provided, and now in formal act handed over to him to be his wife.
2. The taking of the bride. "Isaac took Rebekah, i.e. publicly and solemnly accepted her in the presence of witnesses as his bride. Thus, without elaborate or expensive Ceremonial, Rebekah "became his wife."
3. The home-coming of the bride. "Isaac brought her into his mother Sarah's tent," and thus installed her in the honors as well as invested her with the privileges of matron of his house.
IV. THE HAPPY HOME.
1. Isaac loved Rebekah. "So ought husbands to love their wives as their own bodies" (Ephesians 5:28). It is their duty; it ought to be their happiness; it certainly will prove their interest.
2. Rebekah comforted Isaac. So ought wives not merely "to reverence their husbands" (Ephesians 5:33), but to soothe their sorrows, cure their cares, and dispel their despondencies.
Learn—
1. That the son who sorrows for a mother will likely prove a husband that can love a wife.
2. That maidens' charms are most attractive when seen through a veil of modesty.
3. That those marriages are most auspicious which are made by God.
4. That those homes are happiest where husband and wife love and comfort one another.
HOMILIES BY F. HASTINGS