* The Koran.
212 THE BARTERED BIRTHRIGHT
severing, moying onward with deliberate settled purpose, through years of sufifering and of prosperity, of exile and return, of bereavement and recovery. The birthright is always before him. Rachel is won from Laban by hard service, " and the seven years seemed unto him but a few days for the love he had to her." Isaac, and Rebekah, and Rebekah's nurse, are remembered with a faithful, filial remembrance ; Joseph and Benjamin are long and passionately loved with a more than parental affection — bringing down his grey hairs for their sakes "in sorrow to the grave." This is no character to be contemned or scoffed at : if it was encompassed with much infirmity, yet its very complexity demands our reverent attention ; in it are bound up, as his double name expresses, not one man, but two ; by toil and struggle, Jacob, the Supplanter, is gradually transformed into Israel, the Prince of God; the harsher and baser features are softened and purified away ; he looks back over his long career with the fulness of experience and humility. " I am not worthy of the least of all the mercies and of all the Truth which Thou hast shown unto Thy servant." Alone of the Patriarchal family, his end is recorded as invested with the solemnity of warning and of prophetic song. " Gather yourselves together, ye sons of Jacob ; and hearken unto Israel your father." We need not fear to acknowledge that the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac was also the God of Jacob.
T To compare the characters of Jacob and Esau in a sentence is difficult, but the contrast is instantly apparent. Let me use an illustration. You have seen a morning of pure and perfect radiance, passing at noon into a black turbulence of wind or tempest, or a haze of dull and heavy gloom. This is a transcript of the life of Esau. You have also seen the troubled day breaking through thick mists, and you have watched, with almost eager interest, the sun battling his way through heavy masses of clouds, shining feebly at first in faint victory, but at last going down in full and peaceful glory. Such is the life of Jacob.^
1 give you the end of a golden string
Only wind it into a ball, It will lead you in at Heaven's gate
Built in Jerusalem's wall.*
> W. J. Dawson, The ThreAOd if Mamkood, 124. * William Blake.
GENESIS XXV. 34 213
5. Three warnings may be given here to the young man of to-day.
(1) Bo not sacrifice your spiritual interests to the appetites of the flesh. — Such fallen creatures are we, it happens every day that the interests of the soul and the desires of the body are in conflict. Your carnal nature, the animal in you, prompts you to that against which conscience protests, and from which the soul recoils. The flesh pulls you one way, the spirit another.
^ The morsel may have been sweet ; but what a price Esau paid for it ! It is easy for us, as we read the story, to cry " Fool ! " — ^but this very folly is being committed every day. It is as old as our fallen humanity. For the sake of a piece of fruit, our first parents sacrificed their whole inheritance, "brought death into this world, and all our woe, with loss of Eden." One look back upon Sodom, and Lot's wife becomes a pillar of salt ! Achan covets a Babylonish garment, and a wedge of gold, and forfeits his life in consequence. For the sake of a woman's caresses Samson loses his hair, his strength, his sight, his all. David, for the sake of Bathsheba, loses a year's communion with God, and hands his name down with an ugly blot upon it to all posterity. Ahab, coveting a pretty garden, commits murder, and brings down Heaven's judgments on his head. Judas, for a few shillings, betrays his Master.^
(2) Do not sacrifice the future for the present. — This is just putting the same thing in a different form. Esau saw before him the possibility of an immediate enjoyment; his future interests were distant, and vague, and shadowy. " Ah," he said, " let the future take care of itself ; I must have the dainty morsel while I can get it."
^ Some time ago a ship went down, having struck a hidden reef. Fortunately there was time enough to get the passengers and crew into the boats, which safely held off from the foundering vessel. Just before the last boat started, the captain and mate, having seen that all were safe, stood upon the gangway ready to leave the ship. She was fast sinking — no time to be lost. The mate said to the captain, " I have left my purse below ; let me go and get it." " Man," replied the other, " you have no time for that ; jump at once." " Just a moment, captain — I can easily get it " ; and away the mate rushed below. But in that moment the ■hip went creeping down. I hear the gurgling flood 1 The
* J. Thain Davidioii.
214 THE BARTERED BIRTHRIGHT
captain has barely time to save himself, when, swirling in the awful vortex, the vessel disappears ! By and by the body of the mate was found, and in his stiffened hand was tightly grasped the fatal purse. When the purse was opened, what do you think it contained ? Eighteenpence ! And for that paltry sum he risked and lost his life.^