The Yale expositor., 1897-10-08

! II
X 1850 physician OF his
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 a 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, knife, a 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
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 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 inyestiture Of prime minister, next
to the king in the mightiest 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 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 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 your" But after they had
fully resuscitated him, and the news
was confirmed, the tears began thei.
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: 90
seph is yet alive. l will go and see
him before l die"
1t did not take the old man a great
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 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 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
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 a strong and unfailing thing
is paternal 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
overlooked and receded, overlooked and
receded again and again; the seed had
been sown and the harvests 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 decades. Though
when the little child expired the par
ent may not have been more than
twenty-five years of age, and now they
are seventy-flve, yet the vision Of the
cradle, and the childish face. and the
first utterances of the infantile lips are
fresh to-day, in spite of the passage
of half century Joseph was as fresh
in Jacobs memory as ever though az
seventeen years of age the boy had dis
appeared from the old homestead. l
found in our family record the story
of an infant that had died fifty years
before, and said to my parents: what
is this record, and what does Il mean?"
Their chief answer was i long, deep
sigh. 1t was yet to them a very ten
der sorrow. What does that all mean?
Why, It means our children departed
are ours yet, and that cord Of attach
ment reaching across the years will