SCRIPTURE CHARACTERS, ETC.

I.

THE UNIVERSAL CHARACTERISTIC-" AND HE DIED." GEN. v. 5, 8, 11, 14, &c.

"And Joseph died, and all his brethren, and all that generation." EXOD. i. 6.

THE succession of generations among the children of men has been, from Homer downwards, likened to that of the leaves among the trees of the forest. The foliage of one summer, withering gradually away, and strewing the earth with its wrecks, has its place supplied by the exuberance of the following spring. Of the countless myriads of gay blossoms and green leaves, that but a few months ago were glancing in the beams of the joyous sun, not one remains; but a new race, all full of brightness and promise as before, covers the naked branches; and the woods again burst forth in beauty and song, as if decay had never passed over any of their leafy boughs. So of men, "one generation passeth away, and another

B

generation cometh, but the earth abideth for ever" (Eccl. i. 4), the same to the new generation that cometh-the same scene of weary labour, endless vanity, alternate hope and disappointment, as if no warning of change had ever been given-as if the knell of death had never rung over the generation that is passing away.

But there is one point in which the analogy does not hold there is one difference between the race of leaves and the race of men. Between the leaves of successive summers an interval of desolation intervenes, and "the bare and wintry woods" emphatically mark the passage from one season to another. But there is no such pause in the succession of the generations of men. Insensibly they melt and shade into one another: an old man dies, and a child is born; daily and hourly there is a death and a birth; and imperceptibly, by slow degrees, the actors in life's busy scene are changed. Hence the full force of this thought" one generation passeth away, and another generation cometh"-is not ordinarily felt.

Let us conceive, however, of such a blank in the succession of generations as winter makes in the succession of leaves. Let us take our stand on some middle ground in the stream of history, where there is, as it were, a break or a void between one series of events and another,— where the whole tide of life, in the preceding narrative, is engulfed and swallowed up, and the new stream has not begun to flow. Such a position we have in some of the strides which sacred history makes over many intervening years, from the crisis or catastrophe of one of the world's dramas to the opening of another: as, for instance, in the transition from

the going down of Israel into Egypt in the days of Joseph, to their coming out again in the time of Moses. Here is a dreary vacancy,-as of a leafless winter, coming in between the scene in which Joseph and his contemporaries bore so conspicuous a part, and another scene in which not one of the former actors remained to bear a share, but "there arose up a new king over Egypt, which knew not Joseph." And the historian seems to be aware of the solemnity of this pause, when, dismissing the whole subject of his previous narrative, he records the end of all in these brief but significant words,-" And Joseph died, and all his brethren, and all that generation."

The first view of this verse that occurs to us is its striking significancy and force as a commentary on the history of which it so abruptly and emphatically announces the close. The previous narra

tive presents to us a busy scene-an animated picture; and here, as if by one single stroke, all is reduced to a blank. But now we saw a crowded mass of human beings-men of like passions with ourselves-moving and mingling in the eager excitement of personal, domestic, and public interests like our own. They were all earnest in their own pursuits; and the things of their day were to them as momentous as those of our day are to us. They thought, and felt, and acted, and suffered; they were harassed by cares and agitated by passions; and, their restless energies contending with the resistless vicissitudes of fortune, the very earth they trod seemed instinct with life and the stern struggles and activities of life -when, lo! as by the touch of a magic spell, or the

sudden turn of the hidden wheel, the whole thronged and congregated multitude is gone, like the pageant of a dream, and the awful stillness of desolation. reigns. It is as if having gazed on ocean when it bears on its broad bosom a gallant and well-manned fleet-bending gracefully to its rising winds, and triumphantly stemming its swelling waves-you looked out again, and at the very next glance beheld the wide waste of waters reposing in dark and horrid peace over the deep-buried wrecks of the recent storm. All the earth, inhabited by the men with whose joys and sorrows we have been sympathizing -Egypt, with its proud pyramids and palacesGoshen, with its quiet pastoral homes-the rich land of Canaan the tented deserts of Ishmael-all passes in a moment from our view; and there is before us, instead, a place of tombs, one vast city of silent death-Joseph is dead, and all his brethren, and all that generation.

What an obituary is here! What a chronicle of mortality! How comprehensive, yet withal how precise and particular-a single intimation swelling out into the most wide, and sweeping, and wholesale generality of announcement. In the first instance, the name is given-"Joseph died "as if the intention were to enumerate in detail the whole. But the number grows and accumulates too fast-"his brethren also died." These too might in part be specifiedReuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah-Issachar, Zebulun, and Benjamin-Dan and Naphtali-Gad and Asher. But already the family branches out beyond the limits of easy computation. And all around there stands a mighty multitude, which arithmetic is too slow to

reckon, and the pen of the ready writer too impatient to register, and the record too small to contain; and all must, without name or remark, be summed up in the one indiscriminating notice—a notice all the more emphatical on that very account-Joseph died, and all his brethren, and all that generation"—

-"And all that generation:" How many thousands does this phrase embrace? and of how many thousands is this the sole monument and memorial? How startling a force is there in this awful brevity, this compression and abridgement-the names and histories of millions brought within the compass of so brief a statement of a single fact concerning them-that they all died. And these were men as alive as you are to the bustle of their little day—as full of schemes and speculations as much wrapt up in their own concerns, and the cares of the times in which they lived. Each one of them could have filled volumes with details of actions and adventures too important in his eyes to be ever forgotten; and yet all that is told of them in this divine record, and told of them as of an uncounted and undistinguished mass, is, that they all died. Or, if any particular individual has been selected for especial notice-if any one, by the leading of Providence, and by his own worth, has gained in this record an undying name-and if he has collected a small circle around him, who dimly and doubtfully stand out in his light and lustre, and are not quite lost in the common crowd, still he to whom prominency is given, and they who partly share his exemption from oblivion, are singled out only that they may be the better seen to have their part in the one event which happeneth alike to all; and of each