God and Saviour; and the words, the good words, shall be like angels welcoming you to heaven-" Well done, good and faithful servant, enter into the joy of thy Lord."

If you keep the day, keep it unto the Lord; if otherwise, I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed upon you labour in vain.

X Vision.

A VISION.

GENESIS xxviii. 17.

"How dreadful is this place! This is none
other but the house of God, and this
is the gate of heaven."

SO Jacob spake, when he awaked out of his sleep, after having dreamed that beautiful dream, about the ladder reaching all the way from earth to heaven, and from heaven to earth.

Jacob had done wrong. He was rightly called by that name, which means a supplanter. He planted himself in another man's place. He had bought the birthright which Esau despised; and now, he had procured the blessing also. (Isaac had but one blessing of this sort.) The mother had set her mind on Jacob having this blessing; it was accomplished by unworthy means, yet God willed that the result should be so.

The world is, seemingly, full of confusion and disorder; and some men are tempted to draw an argument from this, that there is no God; or that He

X

hath forsaken the work of His own hands. This is a mistake. All things work together for good to them that love God. It will appear all right at the last, as it is all right now. God is King. Wait, be patient. Thou art in confusion; trust in Christ. He will weather the storm for thee and in thee. We may set our mind on a thing, and yet, unless it be the will of Heaven, it cannot be brought about. A little patience, a little waiting, a little attention, will convince us that the thing had better not be. How good God is to frustrate us oftentimes in our foolish expectations and desires!

Well! Jacob must leave his home; he must needs go to Padan Aram to the house of Bethuel, his mother's father. And he went out from Beersheba and went toward Haran. And he lighted upon a certain place, and tarried there all night, and there he had the dream. God seemed to comfort him in his troubles, and in his desolate state. He had been foolish and sinful; he had listened to evil counsel, yet God did not forsake him. "Behold I am with thee," the great God said ; "I will not leave thee, until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of." Have you ever been driven out into the wilderness? Turned your back on home by painful necessity? Seen, at a distance, friend after friend, and joy, and comfort, and smiles of the world melt away, like the rainbow? Think of the great God of Jacob, and the infinite resources of salvation.