Audubon County journal. (Exira, Iowa) 1884-1993, 1897-10-14
nhysician OF hi

BAL! !Sss5-@ = most celebrated
" -~>~ physician OF MS
time, took so little of his own medi-
cine, that he lived to one hundred and
forty years. A man of undoubted vera
city on the witness stand in England
swore that he remembered an event
one hundred and fifty years before.
Lord Bacon speaks of countess who
had cut three sets of teeth, and died
at one hundred and forty years. JOS
eph Crele, of Pennsylvania, lived one
hundred and forty years. In 1857
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 hun
dred and fifty years.
Among the grand old people of
whom we have record was Jacob, the
shepherd of the text. But he had bad
lot of boys. They were jealous and
ambitious 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 house
you will find kept at the table va
cant chair, plate, a knife, fork, for
some deceased member of the family,
SO Jacob kept in his heart a place for
his beloved Joseph. There sits the old
man, the flock of one hundred and for
ty years in their flight having alight-
ed long enough to leave the marks of
ri oh nd
temple. His long beard SHOWS down
over his chest. His eyes are some
what 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 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 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 mightest empire of
all the world! The news was too sud
den 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 the sons 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 Jo-
seph, do you?" But after they had
fully resuscitated him, and the news
was confirmed, the tears began 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: 10
seph is yet alive. l will go and see
him before l die
1t did not take the old man grea,
while to get ready. warrant you. He
put on his best clothes that the shep.
herds wardrobe could afford. He got
into the wagon. and though the aget
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 out of the chariot and got into the
wagon and threw his arms around his
fathers neck, it was an antithesis o.
royalty and rusticity, of simplicity an(
pomp, of tilial affection and paterna
love, which leaves us so much in doub
whether we had better laugh or cry
that we do both. So Jacob kept tn.
resolution of the text will 60 ant
see him before die
What strong and unfailing thin.
is paternal attachment! Was it not al
most time for Jacob to forget Joseph
The hot suns of many summers hat
blazed on the heath; the river Nile hat
overfowed and receded, OVERLOOKED ant
receded again and again; the seed hat
been sown and the harvests reaped
stars rose and set; years of plenty ant
years of famine had passed on; bu
the love of Jacob for Joseph in my tex
is overwhelmingly dramatic. Oh, tina
is cord that is not snapped, though
pulled on by many decades. Though
when the little child expired the par
ent may not have been more tina,
twenty-five years of age, and now the,
are seventy-five, yet the vision of tn,
cradle, and the childish face and tn,
first utterances of the infantile lips ar,
fresh to-day, in spite of the passag
Of half century. Joseph was as fresl
in Jacobs memory as ever. though IA
seventeen years Of age the boy had dis
, appeared from the old homestead.
found in our family record the stor,
Of an infant that had died fifty year
before, and | said to my parents "Wha
Is this record, and what does it mean?
Their chief answer was a long, dee
sigh. 1t was yet to them a very ten
der sorrow. What does that all mean
Why, it means our children departe
are ours yet, and that cord of attach
ment reaching across the years will
: hold us until it brings us together il
the palace, as Jacob and Joseph wey
, brought together. That is one thin
. that makes old people die happy. The
l raallZa IL ia rnuuiop with tboca fror