Herald and news. [volume] (West Randolph, Vt.) 1878-1943, 1894-07-26
POOR RELATIONS.
Rev. 7. Dewitt Talmage Discourses
on Family Pride.
A Situation in Life which Tests Parental
Affeetion-The Rustic in Palace
Lessons Drawn From the Lives
of Jacob and Joseph.

All no iONShe oSiiloH through the press
was, ''The Rustic in the Palace the
text being taken from Gen. xiv, %; 81
viii go and see him before | die
Jacob had long since passed the hun.
bred year milestone. In those times
people were distinguished for their
longevity. In the centuries afterward
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 wears.
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
sets of teeth, and died at one hundred
and forty years. Joseph Creole, of
Pennsylvania lived one hundred and
forty years. In 1851 a book was printed
containing the names of thirty-seven
persons who lived one hundred and
forty years. and the names Of eleven
persons 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 a bad lot
Of boys They were jealous and am
bilious 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 fam-
", 50 Jacob kept in his heart a place
for his beloved Joseph. There sits the
old man, the flock of one hundred and
forty years 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 far
Their when they are closed than when
they are open, for he can see clear back
into the time when beautiful 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 door to see who has
arrived, and his long 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 minister, next
to the king in the mightiest empire in
the world! The news was too sudden |
and too glad for the old man, ana his
checks whiten, and he has dazed look, |
and his staff falls out of his hand and |
he would have dropped had not the
sons caught him and led him TO a lounge |
and put cold water ON his face and
famed him little.
In that half delirum 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 resuscitated him, and the news
was confirmed, the tears begin their
winding way down the crossroads of
the wrinkles, and the sunken lips of
the old man culver, and he brings his
bent fingers together as he says: $40
seph is yet alive. L will go and see him
before / die"
II did not take the old man a great
while to get ready, warrant you. He
put on the best clothes that the shep-
herds 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 this old man; and when the wagon
with the old man met Joseph's chariot
coming down to meet him, and Joseph
got cut of the chariot and got into the
wagon and threw his arms around his
fathers neck, it was an antithesis of
loyalty and rusticity, of simplicity and
pomp, of filial 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 die"
What strong and unfailing thing is
parental attachment! Was it not al
most time for Jacob to forget Joseph?
The hot suns of many summers had
blazed on the heath; the river Nile
had overfowed and receded, over
flowed and receded again and
again: the seed had been sown
and the harvest reaped; stars rose and
set; years of plenty and years of fam
inc had passed on: but the love of Jacob
for Joseph in my text is overwhelm-
ingly dramatic. o, that is cord that
is not snapped, though pulled on by
many decades Though, when the lit
tie child expired, the parents may not
have been more than twenty-five years
of age. and now they are seventy-hve'
yet the vision of the cradle. and the
childish face. and the first utterances
OF the infantile lips fresh to-day. IN
spite Of the passage of half century
Joseph was as fresh in Jacobs memory
as ever. though. at seventeen years Of
age. the boy had disappeared from the
ola h,,r,aetaad I found in our family