CHAPTER XXII.

Che First Youthful Patriarch Going from

Bome.

THE life of every person, if duly inspected, will be found to bear abundant testimony to the truth, that, while "a man's heart deviseth his way, the Lord directeth his steps." Not unfrequently is he thrown into the midst of scenes he little thought of, and of associations that are not of his own seeking. Events occur in his history which surprise none more than himself, and which conduct to results that sometimes disappoint his hopes, but are more often better than his fears.

These thoughts are suggested by a scene, with which we are all familiar, which the sacred historian sets before us in a most touching narrative. "And Jacob went out from Beersheba, and went toward Haran. And he lighted upon a certain place, and tarried there all night, because the sun was set; and he took of the stones of that place, and put them for his pillows, and lay down in that place to sleep. And he dreamed, and behold a

ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven; and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it. And behold the Lord stood above it and said, I am the Lord God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac; the land whereon thou liest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed. And thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth, and thou shalt spread abroad to the west and to the east, and to the north and to the south; and in thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed. And behold I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest, and will bring thee again to this land; for I will not leave thee until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of. And Jacob awaked out of his sleep and he said, Surely the Lord is in this place, and I knew it not. And he was afraid, and said, How dreadful is this place! this is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven. And Jacob rose up early in the morning, and took the stone that he had put for his pillow, and set it up for a pillar, and poured oil upon the top of it. of it. And he called the name of that place Beth-El. And Jacob vowed

a vow, saying, If God will be with me and keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat and raiment to put on, so that I come again to my father's house in peace; then shall the Lord be my God; and this stone which I have set up

for a pillar shall be God's house; and of all that thou shalt give me I will surely give the tenth unto thee."

Among the many thoughts suggested by this narrative, the first is, that YOUNG MEN ARE NOT UNFREQUENTLY PREPARED FOR USEFULNESS BY GREAT

TRIALS. Jacob was comparatively young. The more permanent relations of domestic life were, with him, yet unformed; every resolution he adopted, and every step he took, would give a coloring to all his future course in the present world, as well as affect his destiny beyond the grave. He was the third, in lineal descent, from the primogenitor of the Hebrew race; dedicated to God in his infancy, and educated in his fear. His father Isaac, though not one of the most distinguished, was one of the loveliest characters in patriarchal history. His son Jacob, the child of Rebekah, his first love, was obviously the favorite of his parents; nor was it any ordinary event that could have induced them to consent to his separa tion from them. But an eventful life was before him; and one marked by such responsibilities, that God saw fit to prepare him for them by no ordinary dispensations of his providence. He was destined to become a noble man, the pride of his family, and to give his own distinguished and heaven-imparted name to the whole Israel of God.

But he did not reach this distinction without

trials. There were occurrences in his early history, deeply affecting, and deeply and forever humbling to his own mind. The deception and falsehood he had been guilty of toward his father, and the fraud he had practised on his brother Esau, were melancholy events; nor can the stig ma they have left upon his character ever be blotted out. The immediate result of them was, that he was filled with remorse and fear, became an exile from the bosom of parental partiality and love, and was subjected to trials which plunged him into deep, and well-nigh irrecoverable perplexity.

The hope and prediction of his mother, that his absence would continue but a "few days, until his brother's anger turn away from him, and he forget that which he had done unto him," was never fulfilled. We nowhere read that she ever again set her eyes upon her darling son. A murderous spirit rankled in the bosom of Esau; years of absence, of toil, of watchfulness, of disappointed hopes-years of which he says, "in the day, the drought consumed me, and the frost by night, and my sleep departed from mine eyes"-passed away, before he could look for a peaceful, or even a safe return.

It is not always that particular trials are so obviously the result of particular transgressions. In the present instance, they were the immediate consequences of his sin. Perplexity and distress

followed him in all his exile, they poisoned his sources of joy, and dashed his honeyed cup with bitterness. God brought him to repentance and forgave his sin; but he so "visited his iniquity with the rod, and his trangressions with stripes," that the discipline and trial of his long and embarrassing exile became the preparative for other scenes of still deeper trial, out of which he came as purified gold from the furnace. They were the very discipline he needed to fit him to become the selected depositary of God's gracious covenant, and so many gracious communications to the world. Severe and self-procured as they were, they were the means of making him what he was, when he wrestled with the angel of the covenant at Peniel, when his pilgrim character sanctified the Holy Land, and when, in Egypt and before Pharaoh, his hoary head was a crown of glory, and "the servants of Pharaoh, the elders of his house, and all the elders of the land of Egypt, with both chariots and horsemen, a very great company," paid their homage at his grave.

It is no uncommon thing for the young to be thus disciplined for usefulness and honor. Few have attained to this distinction, who cannot look back upon seasons of trial in their younger days. The tenderness and sympathy of home, even with all their fitting counsels, not unfrequently create too strong a sense of dependence on human helpers.