rd stood above it, and said, I
am the Lord God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac: the land
whereon thou liest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed; and thy
seed shall be as the dust of the earth, and thou shalt spread abroad to
the west, and to the east, and to the north, and to the south: and in
thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed.
And, behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither
thou goest, and will bring thee again into this land: for I will not
leave thee, until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of. And
Jacob awaked out of his sleep, and he said, Surely the Lord is in this
place, and I knew it not. And he was afraid, and said, How dreadful is
this place! this is none other but the house of God, and this is the
gate of heaven._" (Gen. xxviii. 10-17.)

Precisely the same influence was formative of the character and
destinies of his race. This high and grand quality, this openness to the
influence of the "powers of the world to come," which is surely the
grandest of all qualities, renders the highest Divine culture possible,
with eternally blessed and glorious results. But it was marred and
debased both in Jacob and in his people by the alloy of selfish, base,
and carnal elements, of the earth earthy, which it was the great aim of
all the Divine discipline under which he and his people suffered so
sharply, to purge away and to destroy. And herein he represents a wider
family than Israel. This Divine tincture, in a measure, is in all of us,
mixed with the baser earthy matter. God's chosen ones, the subjects of
His highest culture in all ages, have mostly the earthy element in full
force, struggling with the Divine. No model men were the chosen people
of ancient times, nor the saints of apostolic days. The one question is,
Hast thou faith? "_Lord, I believe, help Thou mine unbelief_," is
substantially the confession of Jacob, of Israel, and of all who in any
age form part of the Church of the living God. When Jacob, when the
Jews, suffered themselves to forget the Divinity which was with them,
which was in them, their superior power revealed itself as simply
masterly craft. Jacob, viewed in one light, is just the most
accomplished and successful schemer of his times; in another light, he
is the grandest spiritual prince. His people repeat the anomaly. The
race of the grandest spiritual power, of the most intense religious
belief, have earned th