of us measure; how much deep gratitude for the past, and deep hope for the future, the eternal future, was breathed out in the words "With my staff I passed over this Jordan, but now I am become two bands," none of us can tell. We are fond of saying that the patriarchs saw but little light beyond the limits of the visible world, that their hope of immortality was feeble, their vision of eternity dim. That it was not in broad sunlight there can be no question. "Life and immortality were brought to light by the Gospel." But that there were moments when the unseen realities seemed lit with a gleam of heaven's own sunlight, when they came forth out of the mists and became supernaturally clear, is I think as plain. Familiar these things could not be, but real they were; perhaps those men had an awful sense of their realness which our familiarity destroys. But, be that as it may, Jacob had, I believe, very solemn realizing thoughts about what might be behind the veil, through which his pilgrim fathers had passed on their way to possess the promise with which earth seemed but to mock them, on high. That world could be no shadowy world to his spirit which had received such pilgrims to its bosom-into which the men who had the promises, but had touched nothing of their gift, passed as into the "better country, that is a heavenly,” as the real home of their souls. I think that belief in immortality was not dim, that the hold on it was not feeble, in such men as these. By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went. By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise. For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God." By faith Moses, when he was born, was hid three months of his parents, because they saw he was a proper child; and they were not afraid 66 66 of the king's commandment. By faith Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter; choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season; esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt: for he had respect unto the recompense of the reward. By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king: for he endured, as seeing Him who is invisible." (Heb. xi, 8-10; 23-27.) Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Rebekah, where were they? These all died in faith; evidently on the threshold, not at the end of their glorious career. And had not the angels of God ascended and descended on his faithful head that night when he first went forth from his father's house a pilgrim, when he, the man who had the birthright, began to tread his forefathers' round of exile, hunger, and pain? And had not the angel hosts met him at Mahanaim, and welcomed him back to the land from which, angel-led, he had gone forth; and did not one, the angel, the angel of the covenant, meet him at Peniel, one in whom the powers of the world to come were revealed to his sight and touch; did he not wrestle the night long with that angel for a benediction, which left him a broken cripple for this life, a prince of God through eternity? Feeble vision of the invisible! dim knowledge of immortality! Perhaps these men had so little to say about it, because they had never dared, as we have, to question it; they cared to demonstrate it, or prate about it, as little as we about the vital air, the kindling sunlight, the providence of a father's wisdom, the tenderness of a mother's love. But Jacob was to have a deeper and more vivid apprehension of it before long. His Rachel was with him there-the mother of one of the bands he led. Rich in possessions, rich in children, rich in love-love which the years had purified and consecrated, love in the strength of which he had been able for long years to toil and wait-he recrossed the Jordan; but he : was to become richer soon; "Now I am become two bands" was soon to have a deeper and holier meaning-the man who had grown into two bands as the pilgrim of earth, was soon to enlarge the sphere of his possession, and head the two bands. in the two worlds. "And Jacob called the name of the place where God spake with him, Beth-el. And they journeyed from Beth-el; and there was but a little way to come to Ephrath; and Rachel travailed, and she had hard labour. And it came to pass, when she was in hard labour, that the midwife said unto her, Fear not; thou shalt have this son also. And it came to pass, as her soul was in departing, (for she died) that she called his name Ben-oni but his father called him Benjamin. And Rachel died, and was buried in the way to Ephrath, which is Beth-lehem. And Jacob set a pillar upon her grave; that is the pillar of Rachel's grave unto this day." (Gen. xxxv, 15—20.) . . . . How the memory clung to him let his dying words declare. "And as for me, when I came from Padan, Rachel died by me in the land of Canaan in the way, when yet there was but a little way to come unto Ephrath and I buried her there in the way of Ephrath ; the same is Beth-lehem." (Gen. xlviii, 7.) The pilgrim patriarchs for generations had no possession in the land of promise but a grave; they laid their dead there, and consecrated it for their children, the living spirits they sent on before them, to take possession of their true home-land and to await them there. Our sepulchres consecrate earth for us; that is the one holiest spot of earth in the estimation of all peoples-the field where they have laid their dead. Our living consecrate heaven for us, it is the one homelike spot in the universe for us-the place where they are gathering, gathering fast. "In the father's house are many mansions”—they are making a home there to welcome us. : "There our best friends our kindred dwell; "With my staff I passed over this Jordan, now I am become two bands." I. The contrast here presented between the early loneliness and poverty of life and its growing riches, is universal. There is no creature born into this world more feeble, helpless, possessionless, than the human infant; more absolutely, abjectly dependent upon the loving care and ministry of others. There is no being in this great universe, no, not the chiefs of the angelic hosts, so rich, as the man who bears up the treasures of a well-spent godly life through death into the mansions of eternity. Once the weakest, poorest creature in the universe, and then the richest and the strongest-and the link between them a godly life. Godliness makes man's life, like God's thought, a progress, gathering riches and lustre as it travels; ungodliness makes it like the life of perishing nature, a circuit; it emerges from the darkness, seems to grow rich and strong for the moment, but sinks down again into beggary, misery, and everlasting night. The righteous hath hope in his death, to him it is the gate of an endless progress and expansion; the wicked hath sorrow and dread, for to him it is the way back into Chaos, and the blackness of darkness for ever. But what is life but a constant gathering of riches? The child is rich in the love and ministry which he has a right to claim, but poor in independent power, independent possessions, independent friends. The work of life is to win them, to lay the hand on the things that are needful for the nurture and culture of the being, and to lay the touch of the heart on the persons whose love and communion it demands by those sure instincts which never fail. Compare the man and the woman of forty with their childhood. They have made themselves a name and a place in life; they are centres of attraction to troops of friends; they have little ones perhaps growing up in their homes who pay to them that reverent obedience which they pay to their Father God. They have furnished their minds with stores of knowledge, the universe has opened up its secrets, the past is peopled with heroic shapes, the future with visions which the eye of faith alone is strong enough steadfastly to behold. How rich has life become to them, how full its storehouses of knowledge, power, and love. Trace it on; at seventy, the puling, helpless, possessionless infant, has grown into a patriarch, whose white hairs are a crown of honour, before which all men joyfully bow. The sons and the daughters have each grown into a band of children; and little infants, of whom he has all the joy and none of the care, come climbing around his knees, and twining soft throbbing tendrils around the boughs of his strength, lending to his age the grace and the charm of youth again. His wisdom has grown ripe with large experience, his affections and sympathies rich with frequent ministries, he fills the place of a prince in his circle, and when he falls, a wide company of men feels beggared for awhile by his loss. And the link between the two ends is uprightness-the godly uprightness, the uprightness of the man who has an eye heavenward, who looks up where he was meant to look to heaven and to God. But of all the treasures which a man can gather, there are two which are transcendent-knowledge and love; and of these the supremely excellent is love. That which is stored in the mind, that which is stored in the heart is the true treasure; the rest is mere surplusage. God gives it, but the devil can steal it. The man who has it is none the richer, the man who loses it none the poorer, in the estimations of the heavenly world. There are men around us into whose lap fortune has poured her golden treasures with lavish hand; "they have more than heart can wish," "their eyes stand out with fatness," they have the world, cap in hand, at their feet. But they would give at this moment half their is |