OCTOBER, 1880.

STUDIES IN THE LIFE OF JACOB.

BY THE REV. T. GRAHAM TARN.
IV.-Starting out in Life.

Gen. xxviii. 10, 11. Among the crises in the history of any man, must be reckoned that period when he leaves home, and steps out into life's great highway alone. It is & period which youths often garland with the flowers of joyful anticipation, and for whose tardy approach they impatiently wait. They are eager to escape parental control, to hold the reins of life, to become the architect and builder of their own fortunes, and to tread the wider world into which they have just glanced. That wider world, as seen by the eyes of youth and hope and inexperience, is a veritable Paradise, full of pleasant fruits and fragrant flowers and exquisite joys. But when the time for saying farewell arrives, when the paternal roof must be left, and the young life, wrenched from the surroundings of early days, must be placed beyond the immediate counsel and comfort of parental love, then solemn emotions come trooping into the heart. Starting out in life is not altogether the joyous thing they had imagined, the realisation is not quite equal to the anticipation; for the enjoyment of that hour is marred by lingering regrets, by the pain of parting, and by an instinctive shrinking from the mysterious future.

And no one can view this new departure without intense interest. As the ship puts out of port to cross the broad ocean, one instinctively asks : Will its voyage be safe and pleasant, or will it be stormy and tempestuous ? Will it be driven out of its course, strike on some rocky shore, and lie there a broken, dismasted, stranded wreck; or will it hold on its way and enter the desired haven? As the young man sets out in life we ask: What will become of him ? What thoughts will that mind originate ? What deeds will those hands perform? What manifold and widespread influences will omadate from him ? Will he ascend the upward path of purity and glory, or descend into the dark abyss of sin and woe? This element of uncertainty concerning the future destiny invests the departure from home with great solemnity and importance, especially when coupled with the fact that much depends upon the temper and attitude with which life is first faced.

Jacob had now reached this particular stage of his history. He was just leaving home, and under circumstances that can scarcely be

VOL. XIII. N.S. X.

called auspicious. By his craft and trickery he had made his father's house too hot for him, and his departure was little better than a flight. Esau was greatly enraged at the deception practised upon his father, and vowed that he would quench the thirst of vengeance in his brother's blood. So, in order to avert from the household the crime of fratricide, Jacob was secretly despatched to the house of his uncleLaban at Haran. Ostensibly, hò went in quest of a wife amongst his mother's kindred ; really, he left home to escape the anger of Esau. He started out alone, and we can well believe with a heavy, troubled heart. He had before him a journey of four hundred and fifty miles, through a tract of country in some parts extremely dangerous, yet he had no convoy of servants to attend his steps and defend him from the brigands of the desert. Ho stole away secretly in the early morning, - before the servants were stirring ; he took his trasty staff, and placed enough provisions in his scrip to supply his immediate wants, and yet not to weight him and retard his progress. Stealthily he sallied out into the darkness, and before the sun had well appeared above the horizon he had travelled a considerable distance from the encampment. Fearing lest Esau should pursue him, he struck into unfrequented paths and travelled with all possible speed. Every mile traversed towards Padan-aram increased his chance of safety, and tended correspondingly to ease his mind of fear. . During the long and lonely journey of that first day, he had abundant time for meditation and reflection. His memories of the past were not of the happiest kind; the stern voice of conscience was speaking in the innermost chambers of his soul, and refusing to be silenced; the thought of his baseness haunted him; the burden of guilt weighed upon his spirits. He had time to examine himself in the fresh clear light which altered circumstances often shed upon a man's nature, and to explore his defects of character. He had lived all these years, and yet was only now beginning to know himself. Sin, insidious and unknown, had long been working within : now it manifested itself to the spirit, as disease manifests its presence in the body—that is, by pain. The diagnosis of his spiritual condition was alarming. He never knew how much dross there was in his nature, until the fierce flames began to gather and hiss about his spirit. His view of sin was being modified by that day's experience. He was learning that sin was not, after all, such a successful thing as he had fancied, that the law of righteousness could not be violated with impunity, and that the way of transgressors is hard. Hear his lamentation : « Fool! oh fool that I was, to break the hedge and pluck the flower which God would in due time have placed in my hand, and thus expose myself to the serpent's bite. Poor was the bargain I made when I sacrificed my filial affection and my truthfulness for the coveted blessing. The thorns which I have reaped are of the tree I planted !'" In sinning against God he had wronged his own soul. .. And the pain which arose from looking back and looking within

was increased by the misery of his outward lot. Pampered at home and shielded from all hardship, he took not kindly to his wilderness journey. Had his training been like that of Esau, he might more easily have responded to its demands upon his powers of endurance and more fearlessly have braved its dangers ; but his domestic habits had unfitted him for the privations and perils of such a journey. Nor was he sure of the reception that would be accorded him when he reached his destination. The future was dark and mysterious. Before him were untrodden paths, new scenes, fresh companionships, and his heart sickened as he tried vainly to draw the curtain and peer into its unexplored recesses. The only pleasant thoughts that he could muster were that his mother loved him deeply, and that his father had blessed him before his departure ; but even these thoughts were partially bereft of comfort when he remembered that the benediction still lingering in his ears was first of all obtained by fraud, and had not yet been confirmed by his father's God, and that the folly of his mother's love involved at least a temporary forfeitare of its blessings. Altogether, his state of mind was by no means to be envied.

If he had been attended by a travelling companion, even though but a servant, who could have whispered words of comfort and courage in his ear, his attention might have been diverted from his sin and folly, and the wretchedness of his lot might have been in some measure alleviated. What a relief it is when our pent-up feelings find expression, and meet with human sympathy! But Jacob was alone ; there was no human eye to look kindly into his, and, with an eloquence not born of language, proclaim the existence of tender compassion, and no human voice to break the silence that was painfully oppressive. Solitude may have pleasures, but those pleasures are not the heritage of the consciously sinful and inexpressibly sad. To Jacob solitude was pain, not pleasure. To increase his distress the shades of night began to gather round him before the first stage of bis journey had been completed. He had meant to reach the city of Luz and stay there for the night, but he failed to traverse those forty-eight miles and was benighted as he climbed the western slopes of the mountain on which the city stood. Lange has started the idea that Jacob reached this spot, in the neighbourhood of Luz, “ not after the first day's journey, but after several days' journey;” but there are many reasons for supposing with Dean Stanley that this was “the first halt of the wanderer.” We cannot regard it as beyond his power to cover more than forty miles in one day, and the probability that he did so is increased if we take into consideration tho start before sunrise, the rapidity with which he journeyed to escape pursuit, and the fact that he did not halt till after sunset. He knew that it was useless to push on through the darkness, for even if he did not miss the path, and succeeded in reaching the city, most likely he would find the gates closed, and therefore he resolved to spend the night in the open air.

He selected a sheltered spot, and chose a stone that might do duty for a pillow. Weary and fatigued, he lay down to rest; the cold ground, his pallet; the stone, his pillow; the darkness, his curtains; the heavenly expanse, his roof; the silent stars, his watchers; while the night winds fanned his fevered brow and softly sung him to sleep. So ended that memorable day, which many years after he remembered as “ the day of his distress; ” but, ere he slept, out of the depths he cried unto God. Prayer is the only language of atter distress; it is the natural resort of men in extremity. It is one of the strongest instincts of human nature, and asserts itself in the presence of any great necessity or peril. Men who have disavowed any belief in God, and men who have sinned against Him grievously, have bent the knee to God in the hour of calamity or distress. Jacob's thoughts were too bitter to be confined in his own breast, his burden too heavy to bear alone, and so he prayed unto the God of his fathers. He had some half-formed glimmering notion that Jehovah was not a local deity, like the gods of the Canaanites, and that perchance his cry might fall upon a listening ear, and move to compassion the heart of the invisible God. Whether heard or not, he could not keep silence. Pray he must, and pray he did.

God answered him in the day of his distress. He was not Godforsaken, although he seemed to be. God had purposes of mercy toward him, even though he was now smarting beneath the rod of chastisement. That day's experience, agonizing as it was, was part of the Divine benediction, it was the beginning of God's disciplinary dealing with him. It was the hand of love which wielded the scourge, and struck its thongs into the quivering flesh; it was the hand of love which mixed the cup of bitterness and pressed it to his lips. The seeming harshness was only love in a sterner guise. The lessons which Jacob needed most of all to learn could only be gained in the school of adversity; it required that season of strain, and dread, and fiery anguish to burn into his inner consciousness the vital truth that sin is utterly ruinous, and that no man can flourish by it. When he was reduced to the lowest point of weariness, dejection, and helplessness, then God drew near to him in self-revelation, with comforting words of promise and of hope. The wound was thoroughly probed, and now God poured into it His healing balm. The extremity was reached, and now his Divine Helper appeared, for, as Bishop Hall has well remarked, "God is most present with us in our greatest dejection, and loves to give comfort to those that are forsaken of their hopes."

It is no uncommon thing for God to lead men into the solitudes, that there they may gain a greater measure of self-knowledge, that the cry of penitence may ring forth from their troubled spirits, and that their hearts may be comforted and changed by the renewal of His grace. There is considerable danger lest sinful men should forget their transgressions amid the busy scenes of life, and fail to hear " the still small voice” amid the ceaseless din of human voices, and allow

the obtruding temporalities of life to hide from view the spiritual verities. When the sun of prosperity shines, and fortune favours, and friends flock round his pathway, the sinner often thinks but little of God and the immortal spirit; but when some great sorrow is flashed into his life, or when the hand of affliction lays him low, then he feels his urgent need of God, and cries out in his trouble, “ Arise, and save me." Uninterrapted prosperity may be the saddest calamity that can befall a man; while a painful unsettlement may be a priceless blessing.

What an illustration of these truths the life of Manasseh presents ! For many years he was intoxicated with sin, and ran riot in wickedness. He despised the God of his father Hezekiah, and lapsed into foul idolatries; he sank into the lowest depths of evil, and dragged his subjects after him into the foul mire. But the chastising hand of God was placed upon him; he was burled from his throne, led away to Babylon a fettered captive, and there in the solitude of his imprisonment or exile, like Jacob, he indulged in salutary reflections and turned unto God. " When he was in affliction, he besought the Lord his God, and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers, and prayed unto Him; and He was intreated of him, and heard his supplication, and brought him again to Jerusalem into his kingdom." That heavy affliction was to him the source of a new life, the startingpoint of a new course. Nor is this an exceptional case. There are many who can date their conversion from the lonely hours of enforced seclusion, either in the sick chamber or in the darkened house of bereavement, and who can fill with meaning the Psalmist's words, " It is good for me tbat I have been afflicted.” “ Before I was afflicted I went astray; but now I have kept thy word.”

But why should not this solitude and reflection and penitence and contact with God be voluntary and spontaneous ? Why compel God to smite you, before you will relax your grasp of sin and turn unto Him? Why should you wait until you are widowed, or until that merry, musical, prattling voice is silenced in your household, before you will utter a heart-felt cry for mercy ? God calls you to personal private intercourse with Him. “Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord : though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow: though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.” Give heed to that call of His Word, lest you hear the sterner, more painful call of affliction. Are you afraid to be alone with God? Do your numerous sins, and dark passions, and guilty conscience inspire you with fear; and do you recoil from the presence of the Omniscient and Infinitely Holy One ? Is your life a constant endeavour to evade true, solemn contact with the Eternal God ? May I remind you that when you cross the threshold of death you must confront that awful presence, and stand naked and solitary beneath His searching eye ? No escape then! Alone with God then! And awful will be that interview, if in penitence you have never sought His face on earth.