while here, and a little while there, and travelling on to a distant place which he is very anxious to reach. The whole course of his way is called his pilgrimage.

Well might Jacob call himself a pilgrim, and his life a pilgrimage. He had been moving from place to place, and through one scene and another; and now, in his old age, had undertaken another journey, to find another home. He believed, however, that there was still a better home in heaven for all the people of God; and thither he directed his longing eyes; for there, he trusted, his wanderings and trials would all be over, and that he should find eternal rest.

Many of his ancestors had lived to a much greater age than he could expect to reach; and although he had lived to number one hundred and thirty years, how rapid had been their flight, and how few they appeared to be in comparison with a neverending eternity! He might well say that they had been evil; for God had seen fit, in his wise and holy providence, to try his servant Jacob with trouble and affliction in a great variety of ways.

Have you ever thought that you, like Jacob, are a pilgrim on the earth? Ah! you know not how many changes and trials may await you! You may have to part with your dear parents and friends,

and to leave your pleasant home. You may yet have to pass through many scenes of trouble and sorrow. And even if you should have less, much less, of affliction than Jacob had, and be more as he was in his days of comfort and prosperity, remember, your pilgrimage will soon be ended. Death must come at last, and how quickly you know not.

How many, much younger than you are, have already ended their pilgrimage. Take a walk in some neighboring grave-yard, and examine the tomb-stones, and see how many are buried there, the days of whose pilgrimage have been much fewer than yours.

But what if you should live to old age. You will have then to say as Jacob did, when you look back upon your past life, few have been the years of my pilgrimage; they have gone like "a vapor, that appeareth for a little while, and then vanisheth away."

You will look forward, as Jacob did, into an eternity which is never, never to end.

O to be prepared to go into that eternity, as Jacob was, when, on meeting Joseph, he repeated his readiness to die!

Are you ready to die? It is a solemn thing to die! The hands cease to move, and the lips to

speak; the eyes to see, and the ears to hear. The lungs breathe and the heart beats no longer. The whole body becomes stiff, and cold, and motionless, and it is soon laid in the silent grave, there to await the summons to rise again at the resurrection of the dead.

But this is a small part of death. To the Christian it should have no terrors. It should seem to him as a gentle sleep, and the grave as a calm and quiet resting-place for his frail and worn out body. So it has seemed to many who have met it in perfect peace; and to others who have met it with joy. O may it seem so to you when you come to die.

But the mere dissolution of the body is but a small part of death.

Death separates the soul from the body, and introduces it into the eternal world. Yes, this is the most solemn part of dying. Your soul, all that within you which thinks, and feels, and acts, and is capable of enjoyment and of suffering, your neverdying soul, goes into the eternal world. It goes there to be happy or miserable for ever.

It goes there to spend the long, long ages of endless existence in the enjoyment of the friendship and favor of God, and of the Savior; in the society of pure and holy spirits, who all love God and each

other; in worshipping and serving the wisest and the best of beings; in admiring the countless ways in which he shows his wisdom and goodness; in rejoicing to see others good and happy; and in making, itself, a ceaseless progress in knowledge, in holiness, and in happiness.

Or it goes there to lose this; to be banished for ever from this scene of unmingled delight; to dwell in a wretched place, with the vilest and most miserable beings; to see and to hear what is most sinful and odious; to feel the horrors of a guilty and reproving conscience; to bewan the folly of having lived and died impenitent, and without faith in Christ; to look back, and find none but painful recollections; to look around, and see no source of comfort or relief; to look forward with no hope of change; and thus, in gloomy and terrible despair, to pass hour after hour, knowing that all this misery must continue and increase, without alleviation, and without end.

Are you prepared to die? Do you truly love and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ?

CHAPTER XXVII.

Jacob and his family settled in Goshen.-God's goodness to them.-His goodness to the reader.—Is the reader grateful to God?

JACOB again implored the blessing of God upon Pharaoh, and then left him.

Immediately after this, Joseph took the proper steps to have his father, and his brethren, and their families, put in possession of the land which Pharaoh had directed to be given to them as the place of their residence.

We are told that it was the best of the land, a choice and favored spot; and there, after all his wanderings and trials, Jacob, in his declining years, was happily settled, with his sons and their families around him. Joseph, the truly dutiful child and affectionate brother, furnished them with all that, was necessary, in the continued season of famine, for their support and comfort; while his situation as governor of Egypt, and the esteem in which he was held by the people, were a sufficient security that his father and brethren should receive nothing but