will you cut and carve your own way, impatient of control, unwilling to wait? God's choice!-how many have slighted it, since poor Esau's time! How constantly men despise the best and take the poorest.

Hast thou marked the old way which wicked men have trodden? . . . which said unto God, Depart from us: and what can the Almighty do for them?-JOB Xxii. 15, 17.

They made light of it, and went their ways, one to his farm, another to his merchandise.-MATT. xxii. 5.

Ye have said, It is vain to serve God.-MAL. iii. 14.

-As Esau- -What good will my birthright do me? Caring nothing for the Lord's promise, and as little for the Lord himself. For listen :

What will ye give me, and I will deliver him unto you? And they covenanted with him for thirty pieces of silver. And from that time he sought opportunity to betray him.-MATT. xxvi. 15, 16.

-As the Lord had long ago foretold; in words the sadness and the irony of which may balance each other, but are equalled by nothing else.

So they weighed for my price thirty pieces of silver. that I was prized at of them.-ZECH. xi. 12, 13. Thus Esau despised his birthright.-GEN. xxv. 34.

A goodly price

-What shall it profit ?-A moment's ease, sometimes; a little that looks like present gain; a shred of worldly honour; a few days more of mortal life. And yet, what shall it profit?

For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels; and then he shall reward every man according to his works.MATT. xvi. 27.

-'Then,'

Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.-MATT. xxv. 34.

Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father.-MATT. xiii. 43.

-And for the sake of that 'then,' can you not bear the poor miserable little 'now'?

Looking diligently, says the apostle,-lest any man fail of the grace of God.-As Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright.— HEB. xii. 15, 16.

One morsel of meat.' One day's pleasure, one good bargain, one handful of gain. What shall it profit?

For ye know how that afterward.-HEB. xii. 17.

-'Afterward' is a great word. If only we could ever turn it into beforehand!

David's heart smote him afterward.-1 SAM. xxiv. 5.

Bread of deceit is sweet to a man, but afterward his mouth shall be filled with gravel.-PROV. xx. 17.

Afterward came also the other virgins, saying, Lord, Lord, open to us. But he answered and said, Verily I say unto you, I know you not.-MATT. xxv. 11, 12.

For ye know how that afterward, when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected: for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears.-HEB. xii. 17.

-No place to undo his doing; for our time of action is now, the afterward' is beyond our reach. For one morsel of meat Esau had sold his birthright; and now when he saw that a larger morsel went with it, straightway he would have it back. But he found no place. This

birthright-what good shall it do me?' he had been contemptuous enough before; but now, suddenly, it becomes 'my birthright,' which Jacob-rightly named '-hath taken away. It was nothing to throw down, until the picking up again became desirable. But now,

He cried with a great and exceeding bitter cry.-GEN. xxvii. 34.
Esau lifted up his voice and wept.-GEN. xxvii. 38.

-Poor Esau! And poor many another one like him, led away, ruined, by himself. For it is easy to blame Jacob, but no earthly power could have taken from Esau his birthright, save only his own free-will.

Behold, I have set before thee an open door, and no man can shut it.-REV. iii. 8.

-Why? because thou art a mighty man of valour? Listen:

For thou hast a little strength, and hast kept my word, and hast not denied my name.-REV. iii. 8.

-A little strength well invested; that is all
-Poor Esau !

He would have inherited the blessing.-HEB. xii. 17.

-Afterward,' when it looked worth having. When the morsel of meat was eaten, and the minute's need was past. The foolish virgins came when the last of the procession had swept within the gates; and Judas flung down his thirty pieces when he found that they had bought his soul. And heaven will look attractive to everybody when earth is gone. The 'farm' for which one put

off salvation will be waste land then; the 'merchandise' will find no market. They tell of a time in Ceylon, when through some fault or mismanagement there were great warehouses filled with spices which could not be sold,and they were burned. And rivers of sweetness flowed out from the burning, and the air was loaded with fragrance, and it was all loss.

No man buyeth their merchandise any more.-REV. xviii. 11.

-And even the 'wife,'-the dearest earthly relations which have kept men from Christ,-will then be but compound loss; heart bitterness doubled and piled up. For in that day, failing the one great Friend, we shall have none. What will it be 'afterward'?

What will ye do in the end thereof?-JER. v. 20.

For ye know how that afterward, when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected: for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears.—HEB. xii, 17.

IV.

The Well of Haran.

And Jacob kissed Rachel, and lifted up his voice, and wept.-
GEN. xxix. 11.

IT is a pretty picture we take up now; with no more dark about the harmless tears than is just enough to show their brightness. A mere sun-shower, 'forgot as soon as shed;' clearing off with a rainbow into the fair blue.

Jacob was ready for joy, to begin with. Quitting home had not been very pleasant, even to get out of peril and find a wife; but then he had had his vision and had vowed his vow; and after that Jacob 'lifted up his feet,'-so the word is,-stepped on with wings to his heels.

Jacob lifted up his feet, and came into the land of the people of the east.-GEN. xxix. 1.

-A wide, waste pasture-field. No trees in sight, no hills breaking the horizon; but endless rolls of land, thickset with flowers after the rainy season, and sprinkled over with sweet-smelling aromatic shrubs. Wild and boundless and

strange.

And he looked, and behold a well in the field, and, lo, there were three flocks of sheep lying by it; for out of that well they watered the flocks; and a great stone was upon the well's mouth.-GEN. xxix. 2.