their families in
justice and wisdom and piety. If there had been no people in the
world but people like Esau, we should be savages at this day,
without religion or civilization of any kind. They are of the
earth, earthy; dust they are, and unto dust they will return. It is
men like Jacob whom God chooses--men who have a feeling of religion
and the unseen world; men who can look forward, and live by faith,
and form plans for the future--and carry them out too, against
disappointment and difficulty, till they succeed.

Look at one side of Jacob's character--his perseverance. He serves
seven years for Rachel, because he loves her. Then when he is
cheated, and Leah given him instead, he serves seven years more for
Rachel--'and they seemed to him a short time, for the love he bore
to her;' and then he serves seven years more for the flocks and
herds. A slave, or little better than a slave, of his own free
will, for one-and-twenty years, to get what he wanted. Those are
the men whom God uses, and whom God prospers. Men with deep hearts
and strong wills, who set their minds on something which they cannot
see, and work steadfastly for it, till they get it; for God gives it
to them in good time--when patience has had her perfect work upon
their characters, and made them fit for success.

Esau, we find, got some blessing--the sort of blessing he was fit
for. He loved his father, and he was rewarded. 'And Isaac his
father answered and said unto him, Behold, thy dwelling shall be the
fatness of the earth, and of the dew of heaven from above; and by
thy sword shalt thou live, and shalt serve thy brother; and it shall
come to pass when thou shalt have the dominion, that thou shalt
break his yoke from off thy neck.'

He was a brave, generous-hearted man, in spite of his faults. He
was to live the free hunter's life which he loved; and we find that
he soon became the head of a wild powerful tribe, and his sons after
him. Dukes of Edom they were called for several generations; but
they never rose to any solid and lasting power; they never became a
great nation, as Jacob's children did. They were just what one
would expect--wild, unruly, violent people. They have long since
perished utterly off the face of the earth.

And what did Jacob get, who so meanly bought the birthright, and
cheated his father out of the blessing? Trouble in the flesh;
vanity and vexation of spirit. He had to flee from his father's
house; ne