against itself.” All the lines of the narrative are dark, all its transactions are painful, and all the characters in it appear to disadvantage. But while these poor people in the tent are elaborating their little plans, the All-wise and Almighty God, sitting on bigh, looks down upon them with pity, and, holding the situation in His own hand, takes the broken threads and weaves them into the web of His own purposes.

The initiative in this chapter of wrong-doing was taken by Isaac. He was now 137 years old, and he felt that the complex mechanism of his frame was almost worn out, and that the hour of dissolution was drawing nigh. Time had laid its enfeebling hand upon him, and he was burdened with increasing weakness and infirmities. Gone was the elasticity of his step ; gone, the keenness of his vision; gone, the brightness of his life. He believed that the sun of life was swiftly nearing the western horizon, that the tide of life was fast ebbing away. A general feebleness of faculty was beginning to be felt, and a strange haze was settling down upon all around. His frail, perishable, earthly tent was being taken down by unseen hands-stake after stake aprooted-rope after rope slackened-until the trembling tabernacle threatened to fall to the ground. Chief among the tokens of decay was the loss of sight. His eyes, "like lamps, whose wasting oil is spent,” had waxed dim, and that avenue of instruction and enjoyment was quite closed up. And the blindness of age has not even the compensation afforded to blindness in early years, by the general quickening and intensifying of the other faculties; in Isaac all the powers were impaired, though the eyes had suffered most. There is one aspect in which these painful heralds of death are not to be regretted, for they detach the grasp from earthly objects, and slide a man gently down the declivity that leads to the grave; they shut out the scenes and pleasures of this world, that the mind may ponder more deeply upon the heavenly realities, and the heart centre its affections more firmly upon them. So far, then, from the infirmities of old age being an unmitigated evil, they are, in most cases, & positive good. They are messengers whom God has commissioned to say to the trusting soul, “ Arise ye, and depart, for this is not your rest. Here ye have no continuing city, therefore look for the city which hath foundations whose builder and maker is God."

Believing himself to be tottering on the very brink of the grave, Isaac desired to make his last will, and bestow his dying benediction upon his favourite son. He called Esau to his side and requested him to go out into the field, take some venison, and prepare savoury meat, that, refreshed and strengthened by it, he might enter upon the solemn and important duty of blessing his first-born child. We can easily believe that the command was received with great pleasure by the huntsman, affording him, as it did, the opportunity of indulging

love for the chase, and at the same time gratifying the wishes of med father; and doubtless his steps were quickened by the

pleasant thought that, though he had sold the birthright, he would not after all miss the blessing. To a certain extent the conduct of Isaac was praiseworthy, for he desired to make due preparation for death. He realized that the hour of death was uncertain, and though as a matter of fact he lived forty-three years after this episode, yet he was wise to accept the warning which his increasing dimness of faculty gave, and set bis house in order, so that when death came he could calmly leave the things of earth. He could not die until he had conveyed the partriarchal benediction, and he was not likely to die one moment the sooner because of having discharged this bounden duty. The blessing was something more than simply the good wishes of a fond father—though any who have felt the pressure of a dying father's hand upon their heads, and listened to the faltering accents of paternal blessing, will not be disposed to undervalue that-it amounted to a prophetic intimation, and an instalment of the son into the direct line of patriarchal succession and covenant promise. The force of affection which is concentrated into last words, makes them unusually impressive, but the effect is deepened when, as in the case before us, they have a supernatural import. Isaac was now moving in the deepening twilight, and he would not have the night overtake him until he had transmitted that mysterious heirloom of promise which he had received from his father. How desirable it is that we should all live in constant preparedness for our final departure! Whether we are young and stalwart, or whether we are old and decrepit, we know not the day of our death. We have no lease of life, we cannot boast even of to-morrow, for we know not what a day may bring forth. Our hold upon the great tree of humanity is feeble as the fluttering leaf, which may be detached by any gust of wind. Surely if death be 80 certain, and the hour of death so uncertain, and if there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom in the grave," it is extreme folly to delay the settlement of any important temporal concerns which may with equal advantage be dealt with at the present time; and the summit of human folly is reached by those who indefinitely postpone attention to the concerns of their souls. Death cannot but be easier to a Christian man when all his worldly affairs have been previously arranged, and he has nothing to do but wait the coming of the Bridegroom, with his lamp trimmed and burning; and I do not well see how death can be other than agony to a man who, amid the pangs of dissolution, has doubtfully to summon his scattered powers for a hasty act of repentance and faith. Wise and holy living is the best preparation for dying.

But though Isaac was right in desiring to make " a final testamentary arrangement,” yet his method of procedure was strangely perverse and self-willed in seeking to give the blessing to Esau. We cannot imagine that he had either misunderstood or forgotten the declaration of God at the birth of his sons; we can only conclude that, led away by natural affection, he resolved to ignore the Divine oracle. His moral nature was somewhat blanted and enfeebled by a life of ease and self-indulgence; his mental perception was so bedimmed that he failed to discern the greater fitness of Jacob for the covenant blessing ; and so he purposed to act in direct opposition to the Most High. Desire and duty wrestled in him for the mastery, and in his weakness, affection for his son was permitted to triumph over obedience to his God. And lest his action should in any wise be challenged by his wife, he sought to perform it in secrecy, and not with that amount of publicity and religious solemnity which such a deed demanded. Sad it is to see an old man, a man in whom there undoubtedly dwelt the spirit of goodness, thus withholding his confidence from the chosen partner of his life, and setting himself to contravene the will of God. This was the commencement of the entanglements, and complications, and difficulties which distracted the family circle. Tbe succeeding events revealed to Isaac what he should have known before-how futile it is for the puny will of man to oppose the sovereign will of God. As well might a child endeavour to turn the current of some mighty stream, or stay the sun in his daily course, as feeble man seek to turn aside the Divine purposes from their falfilment. " There are many devices in a man's heart ; nevertheless the counsel of God, that shall stand.” God will fulfil Himself, even when the co-operation of human instrumentalities is denied, by overraling the actions of the disobedient. By our self-will we cannot thwart God, but we can terribly injure our own souls, blast our own happiness, and blight our own prospects. We can never reach the true ideal of life, we can never taste its purest blessedness, until our will has been harmonized with the Divine will, and until it becomes the supreme purpose of our being to carry out the Divine parposes, whether they are painful or pleasant, whether they gratify or crucify our natural inclinations. The deepest joys of life are found, not in pleasing ourselves, but in doing always those things which please God. If, Isaac-like, we oppose God, we may expect a heritage of trouble; if, Christ-like, we obey God, we shall reap an ever-abiding satisfaction. Our life should be a constant prayer, “ Thy will be done,” and a constant endeavour to answer that prayer.

While Isaac was thus seeking to bestow the blessing totally irrespective of the Divine appointment, Rebekah, who had incidentally overheard his conversation with Esau, resolved to thwart the purpose of her husband. She was filled with alarm when she thought that, by his perversity, the promise of God might be violated, her darling son robbed of the blessing, and her brightest hopes dashed to the ground. With all the energy of her nature, she determined that, by fair means or foul, the blessing should be turned into the proper channel. The crisis was momentous, the emergency must be met with promptitude, the slightest delay might prove fatal, and render action futile. She was fully equal to the occasion. Casting overboard all conscientious scruples, she conceived the bold plan of Jacob personating Esau, deceiving his blind father, and thus, by stealth, securing the blessing. She instantly communicated her scheme to Jacob; overcame the timidity and doubt with which he at first regarded it, by offering to bear any evil consequences which might result; took two kids of the goats and made savoury meat; dressed Jacob in the garb of Esau, and covered his hands and the smooth of his neck with the skins of the kids to deceive the old man's sense of touck. Thus arrayed, she sent him into the presence of his blind father, and awaited the issue with eager interest.

We cannot deny that her conduct is open to severe reprobation. Her aim was not wholly wrong, but her actions are entirely unjustifiable. She sought the blessing for Jacob, not merely because he was her favourite son, but because of God's promise concerning him. So far she was right; but she was utterly wrong in endeavouring to gain her object by heartless fraud. She might have talked the matter over with Isaac in a right spirit, clearly setting before him the ordination of God and his own daty, and endeavouring to lift the whole question out of the region of parental partiality. Had tbat failed, she could still have resorted to God in believing prayer, presenting her plea at the throne of grace, and trustfally leaving Him to care for the execution of His own purposes. But she had too little belief in her own powers of persuasion to attempt to influence Isaac by direct appeal, and too little belief in the power of prayer to endeavour in that oblique but effectual way to alter his resolve. With all the readiness of an Oriental mind she entered into this intrigue, and sought to assist God in the fulfilment of His promise by base falsehood and duplicity. It is difficult to understand how Rebekah, in many respects a good woman, could coolly plan this acted and spoken lie, apparently without shame on account of its heinousness, and without any sense of the utter incongruity of serving God by a lying stratagem, unless we take into consideration the general tone of the Eastern mind and the low standard of morality, especially with regard to speaking the truth. Truthfulness, for its own sake, is one of the virtues of later growth, and one which even now has a firmer hold upon the conscience of the Western races than of the Eastern. We must not judge Rebekah by our own standard, which has been elevated by eighteen centuries of Christian influence, our condemnation will be unduly severe. We must have regard to the stage of moral development attained at that early period of human history. The moral sense of truthfulness was not sufficiently cultivated to deter her from deception, and so she presents to us the sorry spectacle of a mother initiating her son into a course of treachery, that she may thereby outwit her husband. We cannot doubt the intensity of her love for Jacob, but the wisdom of it was distinctly at fault, for wise love would have counted it a greater evil to stain his conscience than to lose the blessing. The power of a mother can bardly be over-estimated, and therefore how necessary that it should always be found on the side of righteousness and truth, and that

children should ever be taught from a mother's lips and life, not to sacrifice principle or commit sin, be the inducement what it may! If it be true that

" The mother in her office holds the key

Of the soul : and she it is who stamps the coin

Of character," then how vast the responsibility which devolves upon her, and how earnestly should she seek to train up her children with a deep batred of all dissimulation and departure from truth! Better that the dearest objects of desire should be snatched away before our eyes, than that they should become ours through a course of falsities and double-deal. ing, for “ any possession dishonourably acquired can never be happily enjoyed.”

" Perish policy and cunning,

Perish all that fears the light,
Whether losing, whether winning,
Trust in God and do the right."

(To be continued.)

THE SIN OF JEAN MATTHIEU.

A STORY IN THREE CHAPTERS.

CHAPTER II.-- DEEPER STILL. . It is almost needless to say, after Jean Matthieu began to speak, the events related in the last chap- not to excuse himself for his positer, that Jean did not go out again tion, he could not do that, but to that day. The girls went out for a explain it, and to beg for just a walk, but came back speedily, morsel of bread for his sick wife. frightened and hurt because some The baker refused to listen to children had thrown mud at them, him, but pointed to the door, say. and called them names.

ing: “You are not welcome hereMonday morning came, and the come, go, lest somebody see you simple breakfast of coffee and eggs here. Go! If you choose to starve was ready, but there was no bread. your family by insulting our holy It was far past the time for the Church it is not my affair. It is baker's boy to bring it. Where not I who do it.” could he be ? Jean Matthieu went Very sadly, Jean Matthieu left out to see. He went to the baker's, the shop. Perhaps the miller woull and asked for the morning loaf, sell him a handful of meal, and landing out the money for his they could bake some cakes, but the week's score which was due that mill was a long way off, and in the morning.

meanwhile his family were hungry. 6. You can have no bread here, He hurried home. They had a few Jean Matthieu. I am a good potatoes in the house ; these were Catholic. I don't sell bread to boiled, and pieced out the morning heretics."