The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1894-07-20
FAMILY LOVE.
Rev. DR.. TalmAge on Filial Love
and PaternaI Affection.
An Application OF the Story of Jacobs
Visit to his Son Joseph i'm Egypt,
Whom He Had MOurned as
Dead for Many Years.

DNt%N ASA ~At~tAF ANt+A7s
The following sermon was selected
y Rev. T. Dewitt Talmage for pre-
rentation TO his reading congregation
this week The subject is: "The
Rustic in the Palace" F" and the text:
I viii 20 and see him before die.-Geuesis
XIV, p.
Jacob had long since passed the one
hundred-year milestone. In those times
people were distinguished for longev-
ity. IN the centuries afteward persons
lived TO great age. Galen, the most
celebrated physician Of his time, took
so little Of his own medicine that he
lived TO one hundred and forty years.
"A man of undoubted veracity on the
witness-stand in England swore that
he remembered an event one hundred
and fifty years before. Lord Bacon
speaks of a countess who had cut three
Eets of teeth and died at one hundred
and forty years Joseph Crele, of Penn
sylvania, lived one hundred and forty
years In 1857 a book was printed con-
tanning the names of thirty-seven per-
sons who lived one hundred and forty
VI
who lived one hundred and fifty years.
Among the grand old people of whom
we have record was Jacob, the shep-
herd of the text. But he had bad lot
of boys. They were jealous and am
bltiOus and every way unprincipled.
Joseph, however, seemed to be an ex-
ception; but he had been gone many
years, and the probability was that he
was dead. As sometimes now in a
house you will find kept at the table a
vacant chair, a plate, a knife, fork,
for some deceased member of the fami-
", so Jacob kept in his heart place
for his beloved Joseph. There sits the
old man, the flock of one hundred and
forty wears in their fight having
alighted long enough to leave the
marks of their claw on forehead and
cheek and temple. His long beard
SHOWS down over his chest. His eyes
are somewhat dim, and he can see
farther when they are closed than
when they are open, for he can see
clear back into the time when beauti-
full Rachel, his wife, was living, and
his children shook the oriental abode
with their merriment.
The 'centenarian is sitting dreaming
over the past when he hears wagon
rumbling to the front door He gets
up and goes to the front door to see
who has arrived, and his 1ong-absent
sons from Egypt come in and announce
to him that Joseph, instead of being
dead, is living in an Egyptian palace,
with all the investiture of prime minis
ter, next to the king in the mightiest
empire ofan the world. The news was
too sudden and too glad for the old
man, and his cheeks whiten, and he has
a dazed look, and his staff falls out of
his hand, and he would have dropped
had the sons not caught him and led
him to a lounge and put cold water on
his face and famed him little.
In that half delirium the old man
mumbles something about his son Jo-
seph. He says: 'You don't mean Jo-
seph, do you? Ny dear son, who has
been dead so long. You don't mean
Joseph, do you?" But after they had
fully recnscitated him, and the news
was confirmed, the tears begin their
winding way down the crossroads of
the wrinkles, and the sunlxen lips of
the old man quiver, and he brings his
bent fingers together as he says: 'Jo-
seph is yetalive. viii go and see him
before die.
1t did not take the old man a great
while the get ready, L warrant you.
He put on the best clothes that the
shepherds wardrobe could afford. He
got into the wagon, and though the
aged are cautious and like to ride
slow, the wagon did not get along fast
enough for the old man; and when the
old man met Joscph's chariot coming
down to meet him, and Joseph got out
of the chariot and got into the wagon
and threw his arms around his fathers
neck, it wac an antithesis of royalty
and rusticity. of simplicity and pomp,
of flial affection and paternal love,
which leaves us so much in doubt
about whether we had better laugh or
cry, that we do both. So Jacob kept
the resolution of the text will go
and see him before l die"
What a strong and unfailing thing is
parental attachment Was it not almost
time for Jacob to forget Joseph? The
hot suns of many summers had blazed
on the heath; the river Nile had over
flowed and receded, overflowed and re-
ceded again and again, the seed had
been sown and the harvest reaped,
stars rose and set; years of plenty and
years of famine had passed on; but the
love of Jacob for Joseph in my text is
overwhelmingly dramatic. Oh. that is
a cord that is not snapped, though
pulled on by many decadesi Though
when the little child expired the
parents may not have been more than
twenty-five years Of age, and now they
are seventy-five, vet the vision of the
cradle, and the childish face, and the
first utterauces Of the childish
lips are fresh to-day, in spite of
the passage of a half century.
Joseph was as fresh in Jacobs memory
as ever, though at seventeen years of
age the boy had disappeared from the
old homestead. I found in our family
record the story of an infant that had
died fifty years before, and I said TO
my parents: s'What is this record, and
what does it mean?" Their chief an
swer was long, deep sigh. It was yet
very tender sorrow. What does all
that mean? Why, it means that our
children departed are ours vet, and
that the cord Of attachment reachin
across the years win hold us until it
brings us together in the palace, as
Jacob and Joseph were brought to-
gether. That is one thing that makes
Did people die happy. They realize it
IS union with those from whom they
- l.