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JACOB.

A Study of Divine Grace. BY THE REV. H. MARTYN HART, M.A. "The God of Jacob is our refuge."

OW. infinitely hopeful is the name "the God of Jacob!" It is from no sense of satisfaction in the character of the man that the Great Father of Mankind would be known by this name; rather is it as a physician might be known in connection with some dreadful disease and its complete cure. As in such a name would be the physician's honour and the sufferer's hope, so in this name is seen what is the true glory of God and the hope of the world.

The facts narrated concerning Jacob are few and far between. Apparently when a youth, we find him in the family tent, just sitting down to a savoury bowl of pottage when Esau enters. His brother has been

hunting, he has returned unsuccessful, and, having fasted long, is consequently unusually irritable and reckless.

Naturally enough, he asks his brother to share with him the lentil broth; and now we learn the jealousy which fills Jacob's heart. The brothers were twins, and yet it seems that admittedly the birthright belonged to Esau, and it also seems that Jacob had not quietly acquiesced in his brother's right, but that he had contemplated sharing, if not entirely possessing, the inheritance. From what we know of Isaac's love for Esau, we may well believe that this dispute had been definitely settled by the father's expressed opinion. In Esau's mood, the cold and cal

culating Jacob sees an opportunity of inducing him to part with the coveted birthright; and so anxious was he, that he made his generous, though reckless, brother swear that, in return for the "mess of pottage," he would give up the inheritance. Here Jacob shows himself as a mere bargain-maker.

We turn away from that scene with none of the pleasantest opinions of Jacob's character. And now years pass away, and when in middle life, even when seventy-seven years old, we find Jacob taking advantage of the blindness of his old father, and by a course of such deceit as has seldom, if ever, been paralleled in the sad annals of human perfidy, gaining by appalling wickedness the blessing from a father whom he supposed to be dying. We watch him leave the encampment at Hebron without one expression of regret―nay, his very permission to go was obtained from Isaac by another lie. The third night he is sleeping on the hillside close to Luz. Cunning people are always suspicious; he would not trust himself to the Canaanites in the town; he slept in the woods which clothe the sides of the valley, with a stone for his pillow.

No one would venture to say that that man was a religious man. As far as we have his character before us, it is without one redeeming trait, except, perhaps, there are traces of love to his mother. The name of God, as far as we know, has not been upon his lips, except when he ventured to use the great name, which was "the fear of his father," to support his deceit.

And yet, wicked as he was, that God who wills not the death of a sinner, saw that Jacob was capable of change, and therefore He dealt with him. The strata still crop out of the sides of the hill of Bethel, so as to give the hill profile the resemblance of mighty steps. It was the last impression on Jacob's eye, and he dreamt of that hill-stair towering above him into heaven. God peopled his dream with angels, and then God's own words reached him from the light into which the angels went! He seems touched, but not softened; "he is greatly afraid," and he says "he knew not that God was" in that place, and one feels inclined to add, if he had known it, he would have sooner trusted himself to sleep in Luz.

How cold and bargaining is his rejoinder to the gracious and magnificent promise-he will trust God provided God helps him in his straits! There is no heartiness, no real surrender of himself, no shame, no offer to go back to Hebron and pour out a broken

heart in asking his father's and his brother's forgiveness. No, he is expecting much, and of that much he promises a liberal tenth—a promise, too, he never kept till the time when he had become a changed man. He is a bargain-maker with God-amid the hopeful light of angels' wings, the solemn silence of the Eternal.

Nor had he, apparently, altered when he left Laban's service, where he had had, for twenty years, his own measure meted out to him, craft for craft, cunning for cunning. When he left Syria, his family were idolators, and they were following his own example. His favourite wife stole the household gods of her father, and then she told him a lie to hide them!

Now God commands him to go to Bethel. Though it was the place of the forgotten vow, we hear nothing of sorrow, or humble, renewed dedication. But only one craven thought fills his heart-the fear of Esau! He had not even enough faith to argue that if God told him to go to Bethel, he would surely arrive there in safety, and therefore, some way or other, he would be preserved from Esau's just wrath.

Of course it may be said this is a very improbable view of a man's character with whom God dealt so intimately. But miracles

and the revelation of God is a miracledo not necessarily convert men. Balaam was not saved, Judas was not saved, Malchus, as far as we know, was not saved. It is the law, as enunciated by the Lord Jesus Himself, that it the ordinary means-Moses and the Prophets-will not arrest men, even a preacher from the dead cannot. The story is given to show the marvellous patience of God with one so slow of heart to believe.

But twenty years of hard discipline cannot pass over a man and leave him untouched. Jacob was now close upon one hundred years old, and the voices of his heart had gradually become silent, and when the great fear came upon him he trembled. Esau was coming with four hundred men-no other word did the messenger bring back, there was nothing to indicate his brother's intention-and of course a guilty conscience feared the worst.

If there be a soft and tender place in a heart, it is generally enlarged by sorrow. Apparently, years ago, the only pleasant feature in his character was love to his mother. That tenderness his love for Rachel and his children had nurtured, and it had glowed the more because of the cold winds to which, for twenty years, he had been exposed.

So it seemed that more for "the mother and the little ones" he feared than even for himself. His character had improved, and now, what can he do, where can he turn? He cannot cope with four hundred armed men. He has only one refuge. It was the refuge which is always open. "The name of the Lord is a strong tower; the righteous runneth into it, and is safe." But, alas! a man who has made no religious profession in his family finds it a very difficult matter to begin. How many a man would have family prayers, if he dare but make a beginning! It was a meaning requirement which caused the cleansed leper not to go to his own tent for seven days. It is easy to be religious anywhere but at home. It was so, that when Jacob felt he must meet God, and beseech His help, he could not call his household about him to join with him in supplication. But alone, he recrossed the Jabbok, and there, unseen by any human eye, he cast his burden on the Lord. God was ready to draw near to him-far closer than he expected, and as an angel wrestled with him all night. At length, with a disjointed hip, he would wrestle no longer; and it was then, when he could only helplessly cling, that he prevailed.

The morning rose upon Jacob with newness of life. No man can deal as closely with God as he had dealt and remain an unchanged man. Jacob that night was what we call converted; he was a changed character, and, to indicate that great change, God altered his name. He was to be henceforth called Israel.

One hundred years of habit is not easily broken. He passed over the river again, and came to his company. How he explained his lameness, or whether he told them of what had transpired since last he saw them, we know not. But one thing is clear-he said nothing of having now a new name. He did not say he was a changed man, and was going to live a new life. Esau met him, and his fears proved groundless. Now he ought to have gone up to Bethel. What hindered him? The ungodliness of his family. He had set them a bad example all his life, and they had all followed it; there was no fear of God amongst them. Israel felt, with the horror of that pressure still upon him, that he dare not take his family to Beth-el-the house of God, the gate of heaven-until they were in a fit state to worship so great and terrible a God. To hasten his determination God appeared to him again, and commanded him to take his

name Israel, and use it; which was, to make an open profession that he was going from henceforth to serve God. This he did, and began to "order his household after him," by collecting all the strange gods, the idols, and making the daughters of the tribe give up their finery, their earrings, and he buried them in the earth beneath the oak in his own field in Shechem. Then he went up to Bethel to worship. Yes, a man may so " order his household" that they may have family prayers and go to church; he may repress this and command that, but he cannot alter hearts and habits which have grown with years of growth. Jacob's sons had not met God, and they remained as their father's example had made them.

But I take it to be the great lesson of this last history of Genesis, to show that the effects of a past bad example may be undone, the misspent time may be redeemed. If this were not possible, what a burden of sorrow a man who had turned round with his face heavenwards would carry to his grave ! Israel saw the wickedness of his sons; Dinah's disgrace, Simeon and Levi's treacherous cruelty, Reuben's shameful sin-all fell upon his heart; but the record only says of the one, "And Jacob held his peace," and of the other, "And Israel heard it." Very different would have been his action if those troubles had come upon him before he was at Penuel.

Seeing that his sons were unfit to carry down the great spiritual blessings which God had given to his fathers, he determines to make Joseph his heir. This boy had only known Israel; he was not old enough to remember much of Jacob. His father proclaimed his intention by the coat with long sleeves which he gave Joseph to wear, indicating that he was to be the gentleman of the family. He was to do no work. No wonder this aroused the jealousy of his brethren; and, finally, having an opportunity of getting rid of him, they sold him into Egyptian slavery. When Adoni - bezek sat looking at his bleeding hands and feet after they had cut off his thumbs and great toes, he applied to himself a great law of God, “As I have done, so hath God requited me." Most sins carry with them their own punishment. The craft with which Jacob had cheated his father showed itself in his whole nature; his sons had learnt the lesson, and now they use craftiness in turn, and how hard and villainous a set of men they were you may reckon, when they could sit down to eat bread upon the edge of the well into

which they had cast their brother, and then deliberately watch the heart-broken grief of their father for days, nay, for years, and not one amongst them would come forward with the palliating truth!

But Israel lived on a consistent and a holy life. There is no preaching like that of example; that must tell sooner or later, and in seventeen years the example of the father had changed the sons.

When in the ninth year of Joseph's reign in Egypt his brethren presented themselves before him as grand vizier, there was only one question to be solved ere he could bring them down to enjoy the good of the land of Egypt, and that question was, "Were the sons of Jacob the same jealous, unscrupulous, violent men they used to be?" To devise a mode of solving this query, Joseph "put them in ward" for three days, when, having completed his plan, he ordered them to be brought before him.

He felt that after his supposed death, Jacob would probably make Benjamin his heir. Had these men managed to get rid of Benjamin, as they had got rid of him? He would send them back to bring his younger brother, that he might see him for himself. How money-loving they used to be! Joseph ordered, therefore, that their money should be returned in their sacks' mouth.

In due time they returned, bringing both their younger brother and their money-facts which spoke to their improved condition. At the feast to which Joseph invited them he ordered that five times more dishes should be placed before Benjamin, giving him a greater choice, and honouring him above the others. Joseph watched and list ened; but no look, no word of jealousy, escaped them. It was evident they had no

angry feelings towards the father's favourite. One more trial establishes his growing conviction. His silver cup is placed in Benjamin's sack, and the steward of his house is sent after the brothers, with the order that he in whose sack the cup was found should remain in Egypt a bond-slave to the grand vizier. Here was an admirable opportunity to have got rid of Benjamin, had they been so minded. But they all return, and Judah, in language whose touching pathos has never been equalled, besought the "lord of the country" for his brother's freedom.

This was proof enough, the men were no longer the sons of Jacob; they were, as the record styles them, the sons of Israel. The consistent example of a pious father had been, by God's grace, the means of influencing his family; the past was undone, and now Israel could say, "I have ordered my household after me." And if the powerful influence of Israel's holy life needs a further confirmation, we have it in the love of the Egyptian people. They followed his coffin far on its way to Machpelah; and when the "very great company, all the servants of Pharaoh, the elders of his house, and all the elders of the land of Egypt, with chariots and horsemen," came to the theshing-floor of Atad, they "mourned" with no hireling cries, but "with a great and sore lamentation."

Egypt had lost a friend, nay, more than a friend; from amidst them had passed a great and holy man, whose godly life had been a power for good and an object of affection throughout all the land of Egypt.

Such are the triumphs. What testimony of grace a mystery and a hope-is this name of our God, "the God of Jacob""the God of Jacob is our refuge"!

"FEARFULLY AND WONDERFULLY MADE.”
Glimpses of the Marvels of the Human Frame.

BY MISS CHESSAR.

II. NERVES AND THEIR WORK.

ANIMALS, it has been said, differ from they can feel, and they can move, and so are

being able to feel and to move by the action of their will. Many animals have, it is true, a very small amount of feeling, and many have very little power of moving as they choose. The lovely seaanemones which we find waving their arms in the rock-pools on the coast feel very little, and cannot move from place to place; but

called animals. Man, who in one sense is only "a little lower than the angels," in another sense is merely the highest of all the animal creation; and he too feels and moves. True, he does much more; he wills, and thinks, and reasons; he recognises the existence of a Power mightier than his own, and he adores and worships.

it sends out its orders also by means of nerves. In the case of the burn which has been mentioned, a telegram of pain has gone from the finger tips to the brain, and a telegram has been despatched by the brain to all the muscles needed to move the hand: Pain, not to be endured; hand, to be at once removed." The messages thus brought are protective; they tell the brain that mischief is being done, and the brain interferes to prevent it. If the pain be, however, one that is being inflicted for good, as the pain which a lancet in a surgeon's hand would give, our brain receives the message of the suffering limb, but replies, " Bear the pain."

We want now to consider the way in which we feel and move. If we wish to move from place to place, as soon as the thought comes into our head, we move our legs, our arms, our whole body, as a result of the thought. Sometimes, however, the movement is not brought about by a thought, but by a feeling." If a man without knowing it were to put his hand on a hot stove, the feeling of heat would make him lift up his hand suddenly. But what has happened to him in the meantime? Two things. He has had a feeling of painful heat; and the feeling has caused him to move his hand. Now, if we were to examine the skin of the hand, possibly we might find a blister, if the iron had been very hot. The skin which rises up in a blister may be cut without our feeling any pain. But if by chance the point of the scissors were to touch the skin which is underneath the blister, a sharp feeling of pain would come, and we should probably jerk the hand away. We see now that the message of pain begins under the outer skin. In the inner skin there are small beginnings of nerves. The prick of a needle brings blood and causes pain, because a capillary and also the end of a nerve have been wounded by it. From the little nerve ends very small nerve fibres can be traced; and these as several little strings are twisted together to make one thicker string are found uniting together to form cords or nerves, which grow larger as more fibres come together. In the case of the hand these nerves run up the arm, pass into the body at the shoulder, and, in the end, pass into the great nerve which runs through our spine, and which is called the spinal cord. The nerves of the legs are joined to the lower part of this cord, and those from the trunk of the body to the central parts of its length. At the top of it there is the great nerve mass of the brain, which lies in the skull.

The nerves have now been spoken of as coming to the spinal cord and the brain from all parts of the body; but we may also speak of them, if we choose, as going out from the brain and spinal cord. To use a common and very true figure of speech, the brain is like a great central telegraph office. Lines of communication go out from the central office all over the country, which not only bring messages to the centre from the outlying stations, but take messages out again. Our brain is the head office, in more senses than one. It receives news of what is going on in the outer world by means of messages which the nerves bring to it; and

Sometimes we read that an accident has happened to a telegraph wire, and it is broken. Then we know no messages can pass along it; neither from out-post to head station, nor from head station to out-post. It is so, also, with our nerves. If by any chance a great nerve were cut through, all the parts below the cut through which the branches of that nerve run would be without both feeling and power of controlling its movement. Suppose the nerve which runs down the inner portion of the arm by the elbow to the little and ring-finger to be the one injured, then we might cut or burn these fingers, but we should feel no pain. The message would only go from the ends of the nerves so far as the place where the nerve was cut; the central office of the brain would not receive it—would not be conscious of it, and we should feel no pain. This shows that it is the brain which is the centre of our feeling. Moreover, a message might be sent from the brain bidding the muscles that move these fingers lift them away; but that message, too, would not reach its destination because of the cut, and we should say that the power of movement was gone. When injury to a nerve has taken away the power of feeling and the power of voluntary motion from any part of the body, we say that part is paralyzed. Pressure upon a nerve will for a time produce a feeling of deadness. We know the dead feeling in the leg when we have been sitting so as to press on the nerve that runs down the leg, and the feeling of "pins and needles," which becomes more acute when we try to move the leg.

The message along the nerves moves very slowly as compared with one sent by a real telegraph. The proof of the comparative slowness with which the message is carried is this, that while the messages are being taken to the brain from the hand and back again the time is long enough to let the fingers

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