days to have been! How little do we ever know what a day may bring forth! What trust in God she must have felt, to leave her loved father and mother and brother, and the home of her childhood, to go forth with a stranger to her marriage, to a new home, and new duties, and trials, which even in the happiest married life must come to us all, sooner or later.

Now, all this time, how deeply anxious must Isaac have been feeling, the whole happiness of his future life depending upon this journey of Eliezer's! We can well imagine that he was greatly excited and restless, awaiting his return half in eagerness, half in fear, and trembling lest he should bring to his home a wife not acceptable to him.

Isaac, just then, was sad at heart, doubtless, for he had lost his loved and loving mother. His father was a very old man, his friend and faithful servant was gone away, and he felt desolate in his tent, so he went out into the bright green fields at 'eventide to meditate.' Some think that this

means he went to pray. We may well hope and believe that this child of promise' loved prayer and meditation alone with his God, and that he would feel his only true comfort in pouring out his anxieties into His ear, and earnestly beseeching Him to prosper the journey taken by Eliezer.

We next read that 'Isaac lifted up his eyes, and saw, and behold the camels were coming.

And Rebekah lifted up her eyes; and when she saw Isaac, she lighted off the camel.'

To 'lift' the eyes is entirely a scriptural expression. We read in the Psalms, 'I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills;' Abraham and Lot lifted up their eyes, and 'beheld the plain of Jordan.' And the words are very frequently used in the Bible.

With her wonted courtesy Rebekah got off her camel, and with true womanly modesty she put on her veil, which is a large white garment entirely covering the whole person of the Eastern woman out-of-doors, so that they resemble ghosts moving about the country. Thus Isaac could not see the face, until after Eliezer had informed him of all that he had done, when we are touchingly told, ‘Isaac brought her into his mother Sarah's tent, and took Rebekah, and she became his wife, and he loved her, and Isaac was comforted after his mother's death.'

What a sweet and peaceful end to the mission of Eliezer! How happy must all that family now have felt! The aged Abraham, contented and thankful that his beloved son was thus blessed in a wife so interesting, whom all could love; Isaac, in a wife of his youth in whom 'his heart could safely trust,' as he thought; Rebekah, to be so warmly welcomed and kindly received; and Eliezer, that he knew God had led him forth and back by the right way, and had found for him a good helpmeet for his honoured master's son.

'And Abraham gave all that he had unto Isaac,' doubtless wishing, ere he died, to see the young people happy, easy, and comfortable. 'Then Abraham gave up the ghost,' being one hundred and seventy-five years old, and was 'gathered to his people.'

And now, dear friends, you will agree with me that the character of Rebekah in her girlhood was so virtuous, so beautiful, that it is most sad to have to notice, that this character greatly changes in after-life, and is a sad and mournful contrast to the bright promise of her youth, in the numerous faults which appeared suddenly to spring up in her heart and life. Isaac was not a clever or a firm character; and, perhaps, he yielded too easily to Rebekah. He was forty years of age when he married her, so he ought to have led her rightly. She was evidently strong-minded; perhaps, he indulged her too much, and thus she became spoilt. Or, perhaps, admiration had injured her, for she had great beauty, which is a snare and a dangerous possession to any woman. The Scripture tells us, 'Favour is deceitful and beauty is vain; but a woman that feareth the Lord she shall be praised.' Whatever was the cause, we cannot but see a dark shadow cast over her whole married life.

For twenty years Rebekah was without children, as in the case of Sarah, and afterward of Rachel and Hannah. God loves to make His

F

children wait upon Him patiently. David cried, 'I waited patiently for the Lord, and He inclined unto me and heard my cry.' 'O rest in the Lord! Wait patiently for Him, and He shall give thee thy heart's desire,' are the words of a sacred song founded upon Scripture truth. In answer to earnest prayer, God sent to Isaac and Rebekah the blessing so long desired, of children.

Two sons-twins-were sent to gladden their hitherto childless home. Doubtless, there was great rejoicing at this event. Previously to their birth, God had told Rebekah, when speaking of the boys who should be born to her, 'The one people shall be stronger than the other people, and the elder shall serve the younger.'

At once the different characters of the two brothers, Esau and Jacob, could be seen. We have all noticed, dear friends, how varied are the dispositions of our children, often forming as great a contrast as the mould of their features, or the colour of their complexions.

Their habits soon made a marked difference in their lives. Esau liked hunting and the sports of the field, and an out-of-door life, while Jacob loved better to be quiet, to remain at home with his beloved mother, whose favourite he knew himself to be.

Isaac was sixty years old when his sons were born to him. He appears to have preferred Esau from a very unworthy reason, which was, that Esau

with his bow and arrow could procure dainties for his appetite. 'Isaac loved Esau because he did eat of his venison: but Rebekah loved Jacob.'

In Egypt and Syria there is a kind of soft, red bean called lentils, very delicate in flavour, which, the natives commonly cook with onions, making a savoury, nourishing pottage, and this forms a usual meal with them at mid-day.

Here, neither of these brothers appears in a favourable light. Esau returned weary and faint from hunting, and, being exhausted, could not wait to make 'pottage' for himself. Seeing Jacob's was ready for use, he very naturally asked for some of it. A kind brother would have offered it to him unasked, but Jacob seized this tempting opportunity to deprive Esau of his rights as the firstborn son, and of his father's blessing; and instead of gladly supplying his brother's necessities with brotherly kindness, only answered by a request to Esau, 'Sell me, this day, thy birthright.' The privileges of the firstborn were most important; the chief being that they were the family priests,* also they had a double portion of the inheritance.† Esau, we fear, was thoughtless and careless, and looking only at the pleasure of the moment, found the tempting pottage too delightful, too inviting, to be resisted for the sake of the blessing, which was distant, and of which he seems to have lost sight in his hunger. 'What profit shall + Deut. xxi. 17.

* Exod. iv. 20.