We often

In spite of the eighteen centuries and a half which are now nearly completed since Christ lived and died in the world, Christianity, as a moral force among men, is little more than in its infancy. Whatever power it may have had over individual hearts, in cleansing them from sin and widening them to some comprehension of God's love, the full significance of its teaching has been little felt on society as a whole. But more and more, as men become possessed by this intense feeling of sympathy with their fellows, this single-hearted desire to make all their influence on them tell for good, this death of all selfishness, this regenerator of the moral nature which Christ called forth, and which we denominate love,-more and more the evils under which the race of men now groan will disappear. speak of the triumphs of Christianity, but its triumphs have been small compared with what will be in the future. There will come a time when war will be no longer waged, because the angry passions from which it arose shall have disappeared: there will come a time when our pity for the misery of others will be so great that we shall not rest until we have removed all causes of their misery; there will come a time when benevolenee will not be stinted, because we fear to see it abused; there will come a time when all the strifes and dissensions which attend our ignorance and our narrow views of God and His universe will be forgotten, and men will be able to differ on nice points of doctrine without consigning those who hold the opposite opinion to the pains of everlasting condemnation; there will come a time when men will be no longer clamorous about their wrongs and their rights, charging Providence or destiny with their sufferings, but will be eager to learn how best they can discharge their duties; there will come a time when the tumult and discord, which now rise before high Heaven, will pass into a grand harmony of love and concord; and then shall Christ, the Prince of Peace, indeed reign on earth. That time seems very far off to us now. The fervent love of our fellow-man, which alone can make its coming possible, seems to us a thing not to be attained. Only once has it been seen in perfect form on earth, and that was in Him who taught the truth and gave the commandment. He, at least, thought it possible to bind men together by the closest ties, to awaken the fervent love of humanity in every man, to purge every heart from its selfishness; and His method was to cause all men to love Himself. Left in its simple form, the principle might have remained cold and lifeless, incapable of rousing enthusiasm, destitute of all

kindling energy; and over many it would have had no power, through its vagueness and generality. But He summoned men to love one another through their love for Himself; He gave them an example of what that love should be; He endured undeserved suffering Himself, without a murmur; and, even at the point of an unjust death, thought nothing of his own wrongs, but much of others' welfare. And shall we say that he has done all this in vain? No, it has not been in vain. It has awakened, in return, a love which has been the strength and substance of many a noble life. The love of mankind towards the Son of man, the suffering Saviour, in spite of the blindness which has misconceived it, the intolerance which has made it a means of division, and the baseness which has degraded it by a canting profession, has made men purer, nobler, more Christ-like; and our earnest prayer should be, that, in the ages to come, that love may grow towards Him and towards our fellow-men, so that at last we may be able to abide for ever in the presence of God, whose very nature is love. "Unto Him that loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood, and hath made us kings and priests unto God, His Father; to Him be glory and dominion, for ever and ever" Amen.

JACOB'S DEATH BED:

A SERMON.

BY

WILLIAM MARSHALL, D.D.,

COUPAR-ANGUS

"By faith, Jacob, when he was a-dying, blessed both the sons of Joseph; and worshipped, leaning upon the top of his staff."-HEB. xi. 21.

"The chamber where the good man meets his fate,

Is privileged beyond the common walks

Of virtuous life, quite on the verge of heaven."

So the pious Cowper sweetly sang; and we are naturally reminded of the lines by such a passage of holy writ as this. The apostle had said of the patriarchs, in the thirteenth verse of this chapter, "These all died in faith." They lived by faith, and one after another of them died in faith; and this he particularly exemplifies in the case of Jacob. It is into his dying chamber that the text conducts us. Let us enter it; let us tarry in it for a little, and contemplate the scene which it presents

to us.

I. See Jacob, when a-dying, leaning upon the top of his staff.

Moses tells us in Gen. xlvii. 31, that "Israel bowed himself upon the bed's head;" and some have felt a difficulty about what they have termed the seeming discrepancy between Moses and Paul. There is no discrepancy between them. The occasions to which the historian and the apostle refer are different. When Moses says that "Israel bowed himself upon the bed's head," he refers to the visit which Joseph paid him, when he took an oath of him that he would carry up his remains to Canaan, and lay them in the sepulchre of his fathers. The whole paragraph runs thus: "And the time drew nigh that

Israel must die; and he called his son Joseph, and said unto him, If now I have found grace in thy sight, put, I pray thee, thy hand under my thigh, and deal kindly and truly with me; bury me not, I pray thee, in Egypt: but I will lie with my fathers; and thou shalt carry me out of Egypt, and bury me in their burying-place. And he said, I will do as thou hast said. And he said, Swear unto me. And he sware unto him. And Israel bowed himself upon the bed's head." When Paul says that "Israel leaned upon his staff," he refers to a subsequent visit which Joseph paid him, when he heard that sickness had overtaken him, in addition to the infirmities of age. "It came to pass after these things, that one told Joseph, Behold, thy father is sick: and he took with him his two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim," Gen. xlviii. 1.

It may be farther observed, that our best critics and commentators are agreed, that the statement of Moses, referring to the former of those occasions, "Israel bowed himself on the bed's head," would be better translated, "Israel worshipped upon his staff's head:" he worshipped, leaning on, or bending over the head of his staff. We are much inclined to think that Jacob did this on both the occasions referred to. If he required to do it when he was only infirm, much more must he have required to do it when he was also sick. That he did it on the first occasion, the historian expressly affirms; and it appears to us that the apostle affirms no less expressly that he did it on the second. Thus understood, there is no shadow of discrepancy between Moses and Paul: Paul only adding, as to the second visit, a very natural circumstance which Moses had not noted.

Jacob, when on his deathbed, "leaned upon the top of his staff." What a picture of human frailty! What an illustration of the touching words of the ninetieth psalm, that the very "strength" of old men "is labour and sorrow!" The days of the years of Jacob's pilgrimage had stretched out to a hundred forty and seven years, and exhausted nature was now ready to sink under the load. He, whose vigorous constitution had enabled him to bear so much travel and labour, and so much exposure by day and by night, was now reduced to a state of the utmost feebleness; and if he is to be raised for a little from his recumbent posture, he must be propped with his staff. "The glory of young men is their strength;" but they have need to consider and lay to heart, that in extreme age "the keepers of the house tremble," and even "the grasshopper is a burden."

He

But we have more here than the patriarch's bodily frailty. He was worshipping; and he had put his body-he had studiously put his body, though in his feebleness it required no small effort to do so-into the best posture for that solemn work. assumed the attitude which might best help and best express his heart's devotion. "Bodily exercise profiteth little." In worship, bodily attitude profiteth little. But it is not, therefore, a matter of absolute indifference. God is to be glorified in our bodies as well as in our spirits. The seraphim are represented as covering their faces and their feet with their wings when they adore in His presence. Our blessed Lord himself, in the days of His flesh, kneeled when He prayed: He kneeled three times in the garden, and poured out the agony of His soul with strong crying and tears. So Jacob, sinking, as he was, under the debility of approaching dissolution, when he would worship, rose on the bed on which he lay: he "strengthened himself, and sat upon the bed;" though he had to support himself in that posture by leaning upon his staff.

We may add, that in this he sustained to the last, and very beautifully sustained, the confession which he had made all his life long. He had "confessed that he was a stranger and a pilgrim in the earth." Wherever we see him in his sojournings, we see him with the pilgrim's staff in his hand; and, lo! he has it in his hand still, he is grasping it, and leaning on it, on his dying bed.

May not this staff, too, have been the very same staff with which he had passed over the Jordan long, long ago, when he was fleeing to Padan-aram from the wrath of Esau ? And if so, what a train of most thrilling associations would cluster around it! Many a year had it been the companion of his wanderings; and now that he was about to lay it aside for ever, what memories, what moving and melting memories, the very touch of it would awaken in his breast!

II. See Jacob, when a-dying, worshipping.

He "worshipped, leaning upon the top of his staff." He "worshipped." Men generally die as they live; and Jacob's death-bed exercise was in fine keeping with his life. He had his infirmities, as every one has; but he was a man who, with all his infirmities, had led a devout life, a life of worship. He raised his altar to God wherever he went; he lived near the throne; he breathed much of the atmosphere of that "better country,"