Almost twelve hundred years were yet until when Hannah uttered this prediction of the Messiah; and yet her faith, overleaping the ages of intervening time, beheld his glory, and triumphed in his salvation. No darkness could blind her perceptions, nothing could repress her love: she lived as it were, in advance, and, like many of her illustrious predecessors and of her posterity, believed in Christ to the saving of her soul.
These ages are passed away, and many more are numbered since the actual manifestation of the Son of God in human nature. We are partakers of his day; we live in the light of his glory: from the ages of prediction, we are advanced to those of accomplishment; from the time of shadows to the era of reality. And have we improved upon the past, in the strength of our faith or in the warmth of our attachment to the Lord of glory? Would a fair comparison of our state of mind with that of early saints, in far distant ages, prove advantageous or unfavourable to our character? Is our piety proportionate to our privileges? Does the intensity of our love equal the clearness of our discoveries? These are salutary questions, and questions of practical importance. Let us aim to be able to put them often to our consciences without a blush.
Very little more information is communicated respecting Hannah: her history is merged in that of her distinguished son. We have, however, a beautiful picture of her maternal character, a record of the blessing which the aged priest pronounced upon the family, and an account of five other children which Providence gave them: "Samuel ministered before the Lord, being a child girded with a linen ephod. Moreover his mother made him a little coat, and brought it to him from year to year, when she came up with her husband to offer the yearly sacrifice. And Eli blessed Elkanah and his wife, and said, The Lord give thee seed of this woman, for the loan which is lent to the Lord. And they went unto their own home. And the Lord visited Hannah, so that she conceived and bare three sons and two daughters."
The good mother and the eminent saint are delightfully blended in the wife of Elkanah, and the influence of each is obvious in Samuel. Eli seems to have beheld him with unusual affection. He had been early trained to gentleness, docility, and goodness. Discipline at home commenced from his first infancy, and continuing to the moment of his removal to Shiloh, prepared him for the course of life to which he was so soon introduced. Too often the petulance and frowardness of children indicate the defective nature of their education: indulgence has permitted the wild plant to shoot forth its branches with irregular luxuriancy, and it has become both unsightly and enfeebled for want of being properly pruned. To suffer the propensities and passions of children to go unrestrained is the extreme of cruelty, being the most direct means of rendering them burdens to society and tormentors to themselves.
Hannah, with admirable firmness, relinquished her youthful charge to the care of Eli at the call of duty, and with no less admirable affection and prudence, continued to maintain that kind of intercourse which tends to promote mutual love. A passionate mother would have urged her husband to remove to Shiloh, for the sake of having her little darling perpetually under her eye; a prudent one chose to remain at Ramah, only bringing her present at the annual festivals. True love knows when to separate, and is ready to make necessary sacrifices to the good of a valued child. He was in excellent hands, training to a noble work, under a venerable priest, and in conformity to a solemn vow. Providence was not unobservant of his mother's heroism and piety, and she is amply repaid, not only by his superior excellence, but by her own increasing family. One child is lent to the Lord, five are given. She possessed with gratitude, she resigned with magnanimity, and she is recompensed by multiplication.
Let children never forget the debt they owe to maternal tenderness, a debt which the devoted affection and kindness of a whole life can scarcely discharge. Let the fond parent who nursed your infancy, corrected your frowardness, sowed the seeds of knowledge and piety in your heart, watched, wept, and prayed over you, be ever dear, ever respected, and loved. She who has sustained your weakness, may live to need support from your strength; she who hold you up in the helplessness of infancy, may require your supporting arm, and deserves your sympathizing aid in the years of her decrepitude.
Young persons need to be reminded, however, that even the impiety of parents is no sufficient reason for disrespecting them as parents; and if you possess the inestimable treasure of religion, it will be best evinced in soothing the cares, ministering to the necessities, and setting an example of every duty before the eyes of those who are still so unhappy as to be destitute of it. But you who are born of the children of God, and who have been nourished and educated under the wing of parental piety, can never be too thankful to the God of your salvation, and at some future period may have to adopt the poet's elevated strain:
"My boast is not that I deduce my birth
From loins enthroned, and rulers of the earth;
But higher far my proud pretensions rise--
The son of parents pass'd into the skies."
Cowper.