The Bossier banner., 1894-08-23
TALMAGE'S SERMON.
The Beauties Of Paternal Love and
Filial Affection.
The Story of Jacobs Visit to Joseph and
Its Lessons-Honor and Care for the
Old FoIks-Family Reunions
Across the Bar.

will go and see him before I die.-GeneSiS
XIV, %.
Jacob had long since passed the one
hundred-year milestone. In those times
people were distinguished for fongev-
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
sets of teeth and died at one hundred
and forty years. Joseph Crele, of Penn
sylvania, lived one hundred and forty
years. In 1857 book was printed con-
tanning the names of thirty-seven per-
sons 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-
of boys. They We're 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-
ly, so Jacob kept in his heart 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
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 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 minis
ter, next to the king in the mightiest
empire of all 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? My dear son, who has
been dead so long. You don't mean
Joseph, do you?" But after they had
fully recuscitated 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: go
seph is yet alive. l will go and see him
before l die.
1t did not take the old man 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 Joseph's chariot coming
down to meet him, and Joseph got out
of the chariot and got into the wagor
and threw his arms around his father;
neck, it was an antithesis of royalty
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 OF
cry, that we do both. So Jacob KEEP
the resolution of the text will gc
and see him before | die"
l am often asked as pastor every
pastor is asked the question-s'Wil MY
children be children in Heaven and for
ever children" Well, there was M
doubt great change in Joseph from
the time Jacob lost him and the tim,
when Jacob found hiIn-between tn,
boy seventeen years of age and tn,
man in mid-life, his forehead devel
oped with the great business of state
but Jacob was glad to get back JOSEPH
anyhow, and it did not make much diff
| ference to the old man whether tht
| boy looked older or looked younger
And it will be nough joy for tha
| parent if he can get back tina
son, that daughter, at the gate o
Heaven, whether the departed loved on
shall come cherub or in fu1l-grow1
angelhood. There must be a chang
wrought by that celestial climate an,
by those supernal years, but it vii
only be fys'n loveliness to more lowell
ness, and ssom health to more radian
health. o parent, as you think of tn
darling, painting and white in mem
braneous Group, ] want you to know
will be gloriously bettered in that Ian,
where there has never been a dealt
ane where ali the inhabitants will liy