A large company was winding its way slowly out of the vale in which the river Jordan runs. The sun was just beginning to strike hotly upon them, and make them long for rest and shelter, as they toiled up the open sandy hills and amongst the great masses of rock with which that country was strewn.

It was a striking sight to see those travellers. First went three troops of kine, lowing as they went; camels with their arched necks, stooping shoulders, and forward ears; asses with their foals; ewes and lambs; and goats with their kids, which mounted idly upon every rock that lay by their road-side, and then jumped as idly down again; and before and after these, drivers in stately turbans and long flowing robes, keeping the flocks and herds to their appointed way. Then came large droves of cattle, and sheep, and goats, and asses, stirring up with their many feet the dust of the sandy plain, till it fell like a gentle shower powdering with its small grains all the rough and prickly plants which grew in tufts over the waste. Then was there a space; and after that were seen two bands of camels,—the best they seemed to be of all the flock, those which came last especially,—and on them were children and women riding, over whom hung long veils to shelter their faces from the hot breath of the sandy desert through which they had travelled. And after all these came one man, with his staff in his hand and a turban on his head, walking slowly, as one who walked in pain and yet walked on, following those who went before.

If you had stood near to that man, you might, perhaps, have heard him speaking to God in prayer and thanksgiving; you might have heard him saying to himself, “with my staff passed I over this Jordan, and now I am become two bands:” or you might have heard him earnestly calling upon the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac his father, to keep him safe in the great danger which now lay close before him. His mind was certainly very full of that danger; for he kept looking up from the sand on which his eyes were often fixed, and gazing as far as he could see over the hills before him, as if he expected to see some great danger suddenly meet him on his way, and as if, therefore, he wished to be quite ready for it.

If you looked into his face, you could see at once that he was not a common man. He was not a very old man; his hair was not yet grey upon his head; and yet it seemed, at the first glance, as if he was very old. But as you looked closer, you saw that it was not so; but that many, many thoughts had passed through his mind, and left those deep marks stamped even on his face. It was not only sorrow, though there was much of that; nor care, though he was now full of care; but besides these, it seemed as if he had seen, and done, and felt great things—things in which all a man’s soul is called up, and so, which leave their impress behind them, even when they have passed away.

He had seen great things, and felt great things. He had seen God’s most holy angels going up to heaven, and coming down to earth upon their messages of mercy. He had heard the voice of the Lord of all, promising to be his Father and his Friend. And only the night before, the Angel of the covenant had made himself known to him in the stillness of his lonely tent, and made him strong to wrestle with him for a blessing, until the breaking of the day. So that it was no wonder, that when you looked into his face, it was not like the face of a common man, but one which was full of thought, which bore almost outwardly the stamp of great mysteries.

But what was it which now filled this man with care? He was returning home from a far land where he had been staying twenty years, to the land where his father dwelt. He had gone out a poor man; he was coming home a rich man. He was bringing back with him his wives, and his children, and his servants, and his flocks, and his herds; and of what was he afraid? Surely he could trust the God who had kept him and blessed him all these twenty years, and who had led him now so far on his journey?

Why should he fear now, when he was almost at his father’s tent?

It was because he heard that his brother was coming to meet him. But why should this fill him with such fear? Surely it would be a happy meeting; brothers born of the same father and of the same mother, who had dwelt together in one tent, kneeled before one father’s knees in prayer, and joined together in the common plays of childhood,—surely their meeting must be happy, now that they have been twenty years asunder, and God has blessed them both, and they are about to see each other again in peace and safety, and to shew to each other the children whom God had given them, and who must remind them of their days of common childhood. And why then is the man afraid? Because when he left his father’s house this brother was very angry with him, and he fears that he may have remembered his anger all these twenty years, and be ready now to revenge himself for that old quarrel.

And yet, why should this make such an one to fear? Even if his brother be still angry with him, and have cruel and evil thoughts against him, cannot God deliver him?—cannot the same God who has kept him safely all these twenty years of toil and labour, help and save him now? Why then does he fear so greatly? He has not forgotten that this God can save him—he has not for a moment forgotten it; for see how earnestly he makes his prayer unto Him: hear his vows that if God will again deliver him, he and all of his shall ever praise and serve him for this mercy. Yet still he is in fear; and he seems like a man who thought that there was some reason why the God who had heard him in other cases should not hear him in this.

What was it, then, which pressed so heavily upon this man’s mind? It was the remembrance of an old sin. He feared that God would leave him now to Esau’s wrath, because he knew that Esau’s wrath was God’s punishment of his sin. He feared that Esau’s hand would slay his children, as God’s chastisement for the sins of his childhood. He remembered that he had lied to Isaac his father, and mocked the dimness of his aged eyes by a false appearance; now he trembled lest his father’s God should leave the deceiver and the mocker to eat the bitter fruit of his old sin. It was not so much Esau’s wrath, and Esau’s company, and Esau’s arms, which he feared—though all these were very terrible to this peaceful man,—as it was his own sin in days long past, which now met him again, and seemed to frown upon him from the darkness before him. In vain did he strive to look on and see whether God would guide him there, for his sin clouded over the light of God’s countenance. It was as when he strained his eyes into the great sand-drifts of the desert through which he had passed: they danced and whirled fearfully before him, and baffled all the strivings of his earnest gaze.

But the time of trial was drawing very near. And how did it end? Instead of falling upon him and slaying him and his; instead of making a spoil of the oxen, and the asses, and the camels, and giving the young children to the sword, Esau’s heart melted as soon as they met; he fell upon his brother’s neck and kissed him; he looked lovingly upon the children who had been born to him in the far land; he spake kindly of the old days of their remembered childhood, of the grey-haired man at home; and he would not take even the present which his brother had set apart for him.

Jacob knew who it was that had turned his brother’s heart, and he felt more than ever what a strong and blessed thing prayer and supplication was. Nor did he forget his childhood’s sin against his God. It had looked out again upon him in manhood, and reminded him of God’s holiness, of his many past misdeeds, and made him pray more earnestly not to be made to “possess the iniquities of his youth.”

* * * * *

Father. What should we learn from this account of Jacob’s meeting Esau?

Child. That God remembers and often visits long afterwards the sins of our childhood.

F. Does not God, then, forgive the sins of children?

C. Yes, He does forgive them, and blot them out for Christ’s sake.

F. Why, then, do we say that He visits them?

C. Because He often allows the effects of past sins to be still their punishment, even when He has forgiven them.

F. Why does He do so?

C. To shew us how He hates sin.

F. What should we learn from this?

C. To watch against every sin most carefully, because we never can know what may be its effects; to remember how God has punished it, often for years, in His true servants; to pray against sin; to think no sin little.

F. What should we do, if we find the consequences of past sin coming upon us?

C. Take our chastisement meekly; humble ourselves under God’s hand; pray for deliverance, as, “Remember not the sins of my youth, nor my transgressions: according to thy mercy remember thou me for thy goodness’ sake, O Lord” (Ps. xxv. 7).

F. What should be the effect on us when God hears our prayer, and delivers us?

C. It should make us more humbly remember our sins and unworthiness, and strive to shew forth our thankfulness, “not with our lips only, but in our lives.”

Finis

london:
printed by gilbert & rivington,
St. John’s Square.