holy angels, they had met him on his way, and he had known them to be God's mighty host: but Jacob could not be satisfied with only angels near him; he thought upon his sin, and he wanted his Saviour, nothing else could satisfy him; he had turned from the angels to God in earnest prayer. Was Jacob left long alone? No, there wrestled a MAN with him, until the breaking of the day; and that MAN was his Saviour-the Lord from Heaven. And when the morning light dawned in the eastern sky, He said to Jacob, "Let me go, for the day breaketh." But Jacob held his Saviour fast, and said, “I will not let thee go, except Thou bless me." And he said unto Jacob, "What is thy name?" And he said, "Jacob." And the Lord said unto him, "Thy name shall be no more called Jacob, but Israel (a Prince of God), for as a Prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed." And the Lord BLESSED him there. And Jacob said, "I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved."

Then Jacob lifted up his eyes, and looked,

and behold Esau came, and with him four hundred men. And Jacob passed on before, and bowed himself to the ground seven times, until he came near to his brother. But all was peace now. God had softened Esau's heart; and he ran to meet Jacob, and embraced him, and fell on his neck, and kissed him, and they wept. When a man's ways please the Lord, he maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him.

And Esau lifted up his eyes, and saw the women and the children; and said, Who are those with thee? And Jacob said, The children which God hath graciously given unto thy servant. Then Jacob's family came near and bowed before their uncle Esau. Esau did not like to take the present that Jacob sent him he said, "I have enough, my brother, keep that thou hast unto thyself." But Jacob urged him to receive it, and he took it. Esau would have stayed with Jacob, to protect him as he travelled; or he would have left some of his four hundred men to guard him. But Jacob better loved to have the holy angels'

gentle care so he said, "What needeth it ?" And Esau returned to his home.

Jacob travelled on his way, and came to Shechem, in the land of Canaan; and there he bought a piece of ground; it was only a small piece, but it was all that Jacob possessed of that land which was one day to belong entirely to his children's children. Jacob bought it to build an altar there, and offer a sacrifice to God. Joseph, the beloved child of his father Jacob, and the favoured child of God, stood by the altar that his father had built to worship God. And there, where that altar stood, four hundred years afterwards the many thousands of Israel laid the honoured bones of Joseph, to rest until his Saviour's voice shall call him from his grave. And there, fourteen hundred years later, the blessed Jesus sate, wearied with his journey, to rest on Jacob's well. John iv. 5, 6.

It is not the will of your Father in Heaven, that one of these little ones should perish.Matt. xviii. 14.

H

XIV. JOSEPH.

JACOB had now been some time in the land of Canaan, and yet he had not reached his father's house; he had not reached that home he had longed so much to see again. He was not afraid of Esau now: why then did he not return? Perhaps it was his mother he had longed so much to see, and now he heard that she was gone to her rest. Jacob would hear from Esau his brother, that his mother was no more on earth; and from that time he seems to have lingered on his journey, as though he could not, for a little while, bear to return to the home where he had thought that she would be. Deborah, his mother's nurse, had come to him we do not know when she came; she must have been a very aged woman, but she did not mind the fatigue of travelling, that she