and brother. Jacob which signifies Supplanter, is transformed into Israel, a Prince with God; with this testimony: "For as a prince, hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed." What could be a greater encouragement to him, when he was just at the point of meeting his brother Esau, who was advancing towards him with 400 men, and conscious as he was of having given much cause of offence? But we are the fittest for every service, for every trial, when we have settled matters with our gracious and heavenly Protector. He, who by a touch disjointed Jacob's thigh, could by a word have scattered Esau's host. But behold, a greater miracle! By a simple act of his sovereign will, He has in a moment changed Esau's heart. They meet, they converse, they love, as brothers ought to love.

After this, Esau returned to his possession in Mount-Seir, with the present his brother had made him; and Jacob pursued his journey to Canaan. According to the promise and covenant of the God of Bethel, ratified more than twenty years before, he arrives in peace and safety at Shechem, the city of Hamor, the Hivite, of whom he bought a field; in the same place Abraham first pitched his tent, upon coming into Canaan. There he erected an altar, and dedicated it, by

the name of El-elohe-Israel, God, the God of Israel. This event happened in the year of the world 2266; before Christ 1738 years; after the flood 610, and in the 98th year of Jacob's life. Isaac, his father, was then living at Beersheba, 157 years old.

Jacob, after an absence of more than 20 years, has returned to the land of his nativity. He has purchased an estate; he has spread his tent; he has erected his altar; his mountain stands strong. But perhaps the life of no other man, affords a like instance of accumulated distress; for his heaviest afflictions spring up out of objects from which the heart most seeks and expects delight. His only daughter, prompted by female vanity, or some motive equally deserving blame, ventures unattended beyond the verge of paternal protection, and falls into danger and shame. Two of her brothers, Simeon and Levi, fired with indignation at the treatment of their sister, concert a plan for destroying all the inhabitants of Shechem. They rush upon them, and put them all to the sword.

We no where meet with an instance of more savage, indiscriminating barbarity. For the offence of one, a whole nation is mercilessly cut off; and rapine closes the scene of blood; for they plundered the city, and carried off captives

the wretched women, whose husbands they had slain. It is matter of surprise that it did not occasion a confederacy of the neighbouring states, to exterminate such a band of robbers and murderers from the face of the earth. Jacob is justly alarmed with the apprehension of this, and, warned of God, removes from the neighbourhood of Shechem, to Bethel; a spot that brought to his recollection calmer, happier days; when he had been blessed with the visions of the Almighty on his way to Padan-Aram.

As if it was necessary to avert Divine vengeance, he now purges his family of every vestige of idolatry. We may conclude it was no easy matter, when they lived in an idolatrous country, to avoid superstitious ideas respecting. worship.

While Jacob was on his way from Bethel, to present to his venerable parents, the wives and children which God had given him, Rachel, his much beloved Rachel, died by the way, after bearing him another son, to whom she gave the name of Benomi, that is, "the son of my sorrow.” It was wise and pious of the father, to preserve rather the memory of the benefit received, than of the loss sustained, by substituting the name of Benjamin, the son of my right hand; to mark and record submission to, and trust in Providence,

rather than perpetuate his grief by retaining the maternal appellation. While this wound was still bleeding, the patriarch's heart was pierced through with another stroke, if not so acute, perhaps more overwhelming.

His eldest son, Reuben, degrades and dishonours himself by the commission of a crime, which modesty blushes to think of,

and such

as is not so much as named among the Gentiles." We might sit and weep awhile over the grave of Rachel; but from the incestuous couch of Reuben imagination flies with horror and disgust. Judah, his fourth son, had connected himself with a Canaanitish woman, whose progeny involved him in complicated guilt, and covered him with shame.

What a licentious, irregular, and disorderly family, is the family of pious Jacob! After an absence of more than 20 years, Jacob had rejoined his aged father, then in his 163d year, at Arbah, afterwards called Hebron, the city where Abraham and Isaac sojourned.

What must have been the delight of a parent at embracing a long lost, darling son! and at finding him abundantly increased, in children and in wealth! Jacob must have been agitated by various and mixed emotions. It would be natural for the old man to inquire into the charac

ter and qualities of his grand-children. The answer to these inquiries, must have awakened, in the bosom of the father, very painful-and-melancholy sensations. But it might be some alleviation to Jacob, to have the privilege of pouring his sorrows into the bosom of a father; who, from his own experience, would be qualified to apply the sovereign balm to the aching heart of his son.

But the calamities of neither father nor son, are yet come to a period; for in little more than six years from their re-union, Joseph, the memorial of Rachel, the delight of Jacob, the prop of Isaac's old age, disappeared, and was not heard of till his venerable grandsire, had slept many years in the dust. Jacob, under the pressure of a burden nature was scarcely able to sustain, was called upon to perform the last sad office of filial affection, and to lay his hands upon the already extinguished orbs of his honoured father.

Jacob's fondness for his son Joseph, must have in some degree blinded his judgment. He exposes him to the jealousy and to the hatred of his connections, by dressing his darling in a coat of many colours. What a foundation of mischief here was laid! The brothers must have been less inflammable than they were well known to