CHAPTER XXIV.

MORE TROUBLES FOR JACOB -THIS A WORLD OF CARE AND ANXIETY -MERELY A CHANGE OF TROUBLES WHILST ON PILGRIMAGE, AND TRIAL, AS SUCH, INDISPENSABLE ESAU COMING FORTH TO MEET JACOB WITH FOUR HUNDRED MEN-JACOB'S ANGUISH HIS POLICY HIS PRAYER-HIS PREVAILING WITH THE ANGEL OF THE EVERLASTING COVENANT-" THE LAME TAKE THE PREY -ENCOURAGEMENT.

WE find Jacob again, in the next chapter, in the very depths of anguish. How truly was illustrated, in this patriarch's case, the words of the immortal Bunyan :

"The Christian man is never long at ease;

When one fright's gone, another doth him seize."

Jacob was anxious for a change. He was weary of his service with Laban. He sought, in all probability, more ease-additional comfort. Apart from the consideration, that God told him to "return to the land of his father, and his kindred," it was a dangerous expedient. When the Lord draws us out, or drives us out, from one scene of action for another, it is one thing; the seeking it of our own fleshly mind and will, is another. But, presuming

that the path of duty is made clear, and that we have an undoubted conviction that it is the Lord who is leading us hither and thither, it will be the extreme of folly to suppose that that path into which the Lord is about to conduct us is exempt from trial. Assuredly we shall find it to be only an exchange of trials-a variation of perplexity and discomfort and sorrow-all the way of the wilderness. And those of us who know most of our own hearts, are sensible that such trials and such sorrows are absolutely indispensable. We cannot do without them. We must, whilst on pilgrimage, have that which will stir us up and arouse us yet more and more to a conviction, that "this is not our rest-it is polluted." Instead, therefore, of seeking to shun the cross, or to shift it, it behoves us the rather to seek that the Lord should reconcile us thereto, by giving us to trace His hand in the appointment, and by seeking that the purpose for which it was laid upon us should be answered.

After Laban had left Jacob, and, in connexion with their separation, had set up their Mizpah, saying so touchingly, "The Lord watch between me and thee, when we are absent one from another," the patriarch had not proceeded far on his way before "messengers returned to him, saying, We came to thy brother Esau, and also he cometh to meet thee, and four hundred men with him." As a natural consequence, we read that "then Jacob was greatly afraid and distressed."

Hence it is clear, that, however bright the mani

festation, or however undoubted the intimation of the Lord's mind with respect to the pursuit of any particular course, it does not exempt us from circumstances which may becloud the path, and, as far as appearances are concerned, render our position a questionable one. Moreover, as in Jacob's case, we often see that the very special manifestation is only the immediate prelude to some extreme trial. It is upon these grounds that some of the Lord's children are less anxious for those bright and joyous manifestations, knowing the trial of faith to which they so commonly lead. They, on the contrary, are more desirous of the sober, settled, stablished peace, than the rapture and the joy, attendant upon which is frequently the most painful reaction.

Jacob, as heretofore, resorts again to his own wisdom; but, oh, of what little avail would it have been had not the Lord been his Defender and Keeper! He "divided the people that was with him, and the flocks, and herds, and the camels, into two bands; and said, If Esau come to the one company, and smite it, then the other company which is left shall escape."

His last resource was best. He betakes himself to prayer. "And Jacob said, O God of my father Abraham, and God of my father Isaac, the Lord which saidst unto me, Return unto thy country, and to thy kindred, and I will deal well with thee: I am not worthy of the least of all the mercies, and of all the truth, which thou hast shewed unto thy servant; for with my staff I passed over this Jordan:

and now I am become two bands. Deliver me, I pray thee, from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau: for I fear him, lest he will come and smite me, and the mother with the children. And thou saidst, I will surely do thee good, and make thy seed as the sand of the sea, which cannot be numbered for multitude."

Here was, first, the language of appeal, and that upon the twofold ground of Jehovah's character and covenant; next, there was the language of acknowledgment, and this, too, upon a twofold ground -his own utter unworthiness, and what the Lord had done for him; then there was application-and this upon the ground of his extreme peril, and the pledge the Lord had given him in regard to the increase of his seed.

Again he resorts to the exercise of his own fleshly wisdom: "I will appease him," he says, "with the present that goeth before me, and afterward I will see his face; peradventure he will accept of me." Hence he prepares a goodly present for Esau. Again he betakes himself to prayer: and here was at once his wisest policy and his best security. "And he rose up that night, and took his two wives, and his two womenservants, and his eleven sons, and passed over the ford Jabbok. And he took them, and sent them over the brook, and he sent over that he had. And Jacob was left alone; and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day."

Observe, reader, that it was the night-season

and thus it is commonly with the deep exercises of the mind: ardent wrestling, during the night-time of the soul, in its contact with the darkness that may be felt; yea, it may be the "horror of great darkness," which Abraham encountered. Moreover, Jacob must be left alone," like his Master in after-day. There can be no intrusion. It must be a singlehand combat-hand to hand, heart to heart. Then, after the night-season, the gloominess, and darkness, the felt danger and seeming desertion; the ardent, intense wrestling connected therewith, and springing therefrom; then, at length, comes "the breaking of the day ;" and, with the first break of day, the veriest glimmer of light, comes the voice. Yea, does not that very voice bring the dawn? It was all silence before; and what so painful as this ? No word—no reply-no apparent giving heed! Dense darkness and profound silence; yea, so profound as to lead to the most painful conjecture that it is an indication of no interest, no favour; but the contrary-indignation, and perhaps wrath and destruction. Oh, how agonizing all this! What a relief, then, if the voice is but heard; but, more especially, if in the language of inquiry or request. But, before that voice, observe what was most significant in Jacob's case: "And when he saw that he prevailed not against him, he touched the hollow of his thigh; and the hollow of Jacob's thigh was out of joint, as he wrestled with him."

The Almighty Wrestler (for who was this "man" that wrestled with Jacob but the man Christ Jesus,