and water from
the fountains of the rock will flash from the golden tankards; and the
old harpers of heaven will sit there making music with their harps;
and Christ will point you out amid the celebrities of heaven, saying,
"She suffered with me on earth, now we are going to be glorified
together." And the banqueters, no longer able to hold their peace,
will break forth with congratulation, "Hail! hail!" And there will be
handwritings on the wall--not such as struck the Persian noblemen with
horror, but fire-tipped fingers writing in blazing capitals of light
and love and victory: "God hath wiped away all tears from all faces!"

THE OLD FOLKS' VISIT.

"I will go and see him before I die."--GEN. 45:28.

Jacob had long since passed the hundred year mile-stone. In those
times people were distinguished for longevity. In the centuries after
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 Pennsylvania, lived one hundred and forty years. In 1857 a
book was printed containing the names of thirty-seven person 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
shepherd of the text. But he had

A BAD LOT OF BOYS.

They were jealous and ambitious and every way unprincipled. Joseph,
however, seemed to be an exception; 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, 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 forty years in their flight having alighted
long enough to leave the marks of their claw on forehead and cheek and
temple. His long beard snows down over his chest. His eyes are
somewhat dim, and he can see further 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 the