Audubon Republican. [volume] (Audubon, Iowa) 1894-1925, 1894-07-12
TABERNACLE PULPIT.
THE RUSTIC IN THE PALACA"
OF THE KING.
Joseph Is Yet Alive; L win Go a nc See
Him Before L DE-" Gen. 45;2S-The
Strength and Reward of Parental
Attachments.

mage, who is now nearing the Anti
podes, on his round the world journey,
has selected as the subject for his
sermon through the press to-day.
The Rustic in the Palace" the text
being taken from Gen. ASSES, II will
go and see him before die"
Jacobshad long since passed the
hundred year milestone. In those
times people were distinguished for
longevity. In the centuries afterward
persons lived to great age. Galen, the
most cele physician of his time,
took so little of his own medicine that
he lived to lao years A man of un-
doubted veracity on the witness stand
in England swore that he remembered
an event $50 years before. Lord Bacon
speaks of a countess who had cut three
set of teeth, and died at 40 years.
Joseph Crele of Pennsylvania lived
l4O years. In 1857 book was printed
containing the names of thirty-seve
persons who lived 40 years. and the
names of eleven persons who lived $50
years.
Among the grand old people Of
whom w have record was Jacob. the
shepherd of the text But he had a
bad lot # boys. They were jealous
and ambitious and every way unprin-
cipled. Joseph, however, seemed to
be an exceptions; but he had been gone
many years, and the probability was
that he was dead. AS sometimes now
in house you will find kept at the
table vacant chair, plate, n knife,
fork, for some deceased member of
the family, so Jacob kept in his heart
plate for his beloved Joseph. There
sits the old man, the flock of l4O 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 some
what dim, and he can see further
when they are closed than when they
are open, for he can see clear back in
to 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 a 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 an
nounce 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 of all the world!
The news was too Sudden and too
glad for the old man, and his cheeks
whiten, and he has dazed look, and
his staff falls out of his hand, and he
would have dropped had not his sons
caught him and led him to a lounge
and put cold water on his face, and
famed him a little.
In that half delirium the old man
mumbles something about his son
Joseph. He says: You don't mean
Joseph, do you? my 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:
Joseph is yet alive will go and
see him before / die"
1t 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 old
men met Joseph'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 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 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
almost time for Jacob to forget Jo-
seph? The hot suns of many summers
had blazed on the heath; the river
Nile had overflowed and receded, over
flowed and receded again and again;
the seed had been sown and the har-
vest 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 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 % years of age,
and now they are IS, yet the
vision of the cradle, and the
childish face, and the first utter
ance of the infantile 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 II
years of age the boy had disappeared
from the old homestead / found in
our family record the story of an in
FAINT that had died fifty years before,
and said to my parents: What is
this record, and what does it mean?"
Their chief answer was long, deep