blood and language, led the government to use measures of restraint and oppression, growing more and more severe till they were reduced to actual slavery, and most inhuman methods used to prevent their increase. Thus they were segregated from the race of Egypt, and a certain degree of national feeling was developed, the beginning of that race solidarity which has made them a peculiar people ever since.

The first three generations, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, form a distinct epoch, commonly known as the Patriarchal Age. The great events of Abraham's experience we have already noticed, and we have seen that he was the worthy founder of a great institution. His immediate successors shared with him the honor of special revelations, and the privilege of laying that foundation on which the church of God was built.

Abraham was a great man, and, even aside from his peculiar honor as a man chosen of God to initiate a great scheme of redemption, would command our interest and respect by virtue of his character and talent. We cannot say so much of his son or grandson.

Isaac seems to have been a man of strict integrity, peacable and pious. He was honored by a special revelation, renewing the great covenant promise made to Abraham. "In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed." Gen. XXVI:4. He was directed to remain in the land of Canaan which his seed should possess in the years to come. So Isaac dwelt in the land where he was born and prospered, and in a good old age came to his grave "as a shock of corn cometh in in its season." The best biography of Isaac is the simple statement that "he digged again the wells of water which they digged in the days of Abraham." He was a fine example of the quiet, faithful, unheroic saints, who do no brilliant deeds nor lead great enterprises but at the post of common-place and routine duty keep the faith and work out the purposes of God.

Jacob was a different type from either Isaac or Abraham.

He lacked the greatness of Abraham and the integrity of Isaac. Shrewd to the verge of dishonesty, and calculating to the point of meanness. He was his mother's favorite, and failed to develop in his early life the traits of manliness essential to nobility. Yet he had in him, underneath the crust of selfishness, the potency of good which the hard school of adversity and sorrow developed into positive and lofty virtue. He is the type of those

"Whose youth is full of foolish noise,

Who wears his manhood hale and green."

It is suggestive of the breadth of the divine purpose that it lays hold of such diverse and faulty agencies, and elevates to honor not only the noble Abraham, but the common-place Isaac and the faulty Jacob. Jacob occupies a large space in the narrative of the world's redemption. He forms the last link in the patriarchal chain, and gives his name to the nation that was to be the priest of the world. To him God repeated his promise, Gen. XXVIII:14. Thus to the third generation, in the self-same words, God establishes his covenant, "Thou shalt be a blessing. In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed."

This prediction of a Holy Catholic Church, is the central fact of all the story of the patriarchs. It is the only point of great and permanent importance in their experience. They left no mark on the political condition of their times; they made no contribution to science or to art. They were neither kings nor warriors, statesmen nor philosophers nor poets. They were not identified with any affairs beyond the narrow limits of their pasture fields and wells of water. Yet these men have somehow been impressed upon the world's imagination as no other men who ever lived have been. Their names are known and honored, their descendants have persisted for some forty centuries distinct, peculiar and forceful. Only as we look back

from the vantage ground of accomplished facts can we at all appreciate the greatness of their calling, and the fact that their calling is their greatness. Only as foundation stones in the temple which the living God has builded do they have immortal

names.

Jacob's prophecy upon his death bed, Gen. XLIX, wherein he gives that wonderful forecast of the future of each of his sons, was in fact, what it seemed to Jacob to be, a vision of the distant future; the evening forecast of a day to come after the long dark watches of the night had dragged their weary length along.

The central feature of that prophecy is too remarkable to pass unnoticed. It is a part of the predicted destiny of Judah, and reads, "The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, till Shiloh come, and unto him shall the gathering of the people be," Gen. XLIX:10. However this may be interpreted in all its details, there can be no doubt of the essential point, that the tribe of Judah should survive as a tribe until a prince should come to whom, in some sense, the "peoples" of the world should gather. In the light of the promises already given, together with those that followed ages later by the mouth of Isaiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel, there can be no doubt that this prophecy distinctly means the Messiah The Prince of Peace.

With this remarkable prediction the voice of inspiration paused, and no word of revelation is recorded for some three hundred years.

ISRAEL IN EGYPT

The story of Joseph is probably the finest specimen of narrative literature that has ever been written; at least I know of none in which so many points of excellence are found so well combined.

Good stories, like all good things, must be made of good

material, must be narrated with artistic skill, and must have some important bearing on the welfare of the world. Fiction can only approximate this ideal; history may realize it, but is rarely presented with artistic skill; biography more frequently approaches perfection, but the best subjects of biography are not often picturesque enough to make an interesting story.

In the story of Joseph we have a rich abundance of the most interesting matter; a hero of attractive personality, and marked ability; he achieves remarkable success, and at every step of his progress his hold on our admiration and affection grows. The personal element is constantly illuminated by our interest in the great scheme of the world's redemption of which his life is one important link.

The incidents of the story are full of picturesque and thrilling interest. His childhood and his father's special affection; the base villainy of his brothers who sold him into slavery; the Egyptian slave market; the house of Potiphar; the loyalty of the boy who would not wrong his master, nor betray the lewdness of his master's wife; the dreams of the butler and the baker; Pharaoh's dream; Joseph's promotion and success; and his magnanimous treatment of his older brothers and his affection for his little brother, Benjamin. I know of no other story so rich in varied interest, nor any which is told with such exquisite skill. The style is as simple as a child's, yet it would tax the most artistic writer of short stories to tell it half so well. Moses was great in so many different ways that we rarely appreciate the fact that he stands among the very first of the great literary artists.

In addition to its literary merit, the story of Joseph records some incidents of heroism that are of the finest quality. The story of Judah begging to be taken as substitute for Benjamin, to endure the horrors of the Egyptian prison that his father might be spared the anguish of losing his favorite son, the child of his old age, is one of the finest bits of heroism ever achieved

by man. There are some nasty stories recorded against Judah, but we are willing to forget them when we hear him say, "Now therefore, I pray thee, let thy servant abide instead of the lad, a bondman to my lord: and let the lad go up with his brethren. For how shall I go up to my father and the lad be not with me? lest peradventure I see the evil that shall come to my father." Read the whole story-Gen. XLIV.

The place of Joseph in the story of our redemption is of great importance, yet it seems entirely secular. He does not appear to have had any special revelation, nor any spiritual insight into the divine purpose which he was helping to accomplish. He was, as we would say, a layman; and his function was, like that of Cyrus of whom God said, "I have girded thee, tho' thou hast not known Me." So do men in every age advance God's kingdom by faithful loyalty to the work God's Providence brings to their hand, though they may not be highly spiritual, nor enjoy the prophetic vision.

From the time of Joseph to the time of Moses, we have no record of the spiritual of the seed of Abraham. It was a period of preparation, in which a nation was growing, segregated from the nations of the world, yet kept in close contact with the best the world had to give them.

It is not to be supposed that during all those weary years the children of the patriarchs thought nothing of the promises, nor that they failed to ponder and discuss the wonderful calling to which they were called. It is certain that the traditions of the visions of the patriarchs were cherished, for when Moses was raised up for their deliverance he found some,-perhaps but few-who still clung to the promises made so long before, and cherished the hope which Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob saw so brightly shining on the fair, but far, horizon.

God's plans make small account of time. With him a thousand years are as a day. The promise to the patriarchs embraced three separate articles, a personal, a national, and a uni