Asher his bread shall be fat, and he shall yield royal dainties." Asher means "fertility," or "fatness;" and Jacob says that his land, a section of Canaan, shall be what his name signifies, "He shall dip his foot in oil." (Deuteronomy 32: 24.)

"Naphtali is a hind let loose; he giveth goodly words." Now the characteristic of this tribe, like that of its symbol, was timidity. It is said, in Judges 4: 8, "And Barak, one of the tribe of Naphtali, said unto her, If thou wilt go with me, I will go; but if thou wilt not go with me, I will not go." Then the "goodly words" occur in the song of Deborah (Judges 5).

The patriarch seems to have showered all his choicest blessings upon the tribe of Joseph; and you will find his prediction confirmed in Deut. 33: 13, “And of Joseph Moses said, Blessed of the Lord be his land, for the precious things of heaven, for the dew, and for the deep that coucheth beneath."

Afterwards it is said, "Benjamin shall ravin as a wolf; in the morning he shall devour the prey, and at night he shall divide the spoil." Saul was of this tribe; and no doubt he, like many of his descendants, was stained with rapacity.

Thus we see that these predictions were minutely fulfilled many hundred years afterwards, and, therefore, that dying Israel spake as he was moved by the Holy Ghost. He closes his life in benedictions; his last words are blessings upon those around him. He had the spirit of prophecy. The future embodied what he predicted.

He expressly desired to be buried "in the cave that is in the field of Machpelah, which is before Mamre, in the land of Canaan ;" that land on which his heart was set; that land which was to him the mirror of the better country, "which Abraham bought with the field of Ephron the Hittite, for a

possession of a burying-place. There they buried Abraham, and Sarah his wife," and there their dust still remains. "There they buried Isaac, and Rebekah his wife," and they, too, rest there in the hope of the resurrection; "and there." he adds, “I buried Leah." Perhaps he dared not allude to Rachel, for that was too tender and painful a recollection. "And when Jacob had made an end of commanding his sons, he gathered up his feet into the bed,". the last agony was on him, "and yielded up the ghost," that is, the soul that God gave him. "The dust returns to the earth as it was; and the spirit returns unto God who gave it.” And the evidence that he instantly rejoined Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, and those whose bodies were buried in the land of Canaan, is the expression, "and was gathered unto

his people." These words cannot mean, "he was buried,"

because the next chapter contains the solemn and impressive account of his burial; but it means that his soul instantly rejoined the happy and rejoicing company of them whose dead bodies were awaiting the sound of the resurrection trumpet below the earth, in Canaan; but whose rejoicing spirits were amid the joys and the blessings of that land which never shall be moved, and of which the earthly Canaan, in its loveliest day, was but a dim and imperfect type.

CHAPTER L.

JOSEPH'S AFFECTION- JOSEPH'S ARRANGEMENT FOR BURYING JACOB— NATIONAL OBSEQUIES-LOOKING TO JESUS-FEARS OF THE BROTHERS JOSEPH'S LOVE-HIS DEATH.

I AM sure that we shall almost regret, that, in the course of our Sabbath-morning readings, we have come to the close of so exquisitely beautiful and touching a narrative as that of Jacob and Joseph, so true to nature, and so suggestive of practical guidance in all the ways and wanderings of our life below. But the sweetest tale must have its close; the longest life has its end; the brightest day has its shadows and its evening. We shall have in the course of another week to enter upon the more stirring procession of Joseph's descendants from the land of Egypt into that land into which his bones were carried as a pledge that God would visit them, and bring them into the midst of it, and plant them a great nation. Now, when Jacob was dead, it is said, "Joseph fell upon his father's face, and wept upon him and kissed him." This was proof of filial love. Nothing is said of the conduct

Joseph, the most dutiful son,

of the rest. They stood by. felt most poignantly the loss of the best of fathers. Sin corrupts the heart, and hardens the feelings. The holiest will always be the most sensitive. They who are truest in their relation to the Father of all, will feel the deepest and purest affection to the earthly parent, and in all other earthly relationships.

Joseph commanded the physicians, according to the custom of that country, to embalm Jacob. At the same time he

asked, like a loyal subject, though occupying a subject's first place, permission of his royal master to go with his father to the tomb of Machpelah; and, according to the oath he had taken, as well as the promise he had made, to bury him in the land that was the type of the rest that remaineth for the people of God.

We find, in this chapter, the first instance of a national funeral, on a scale of unprecedented pomp, pageantry and splendor, worthy of the occasion, and dutiful as became. Egypt, and acceptable, we read, to the Christian man Joseph, and the rest of his household, as a mark of respect to the remains of Joseph's dead and venerated parent. I have heard persons object to such national expressions of sympathy as are recorded in the chapter we have read, or were recently displayed at the funeral of Wellington. But no objections. can weigh one feather against a precedent in Scripture, inspired by the Spirit, sustained and sanctioned by Christian men, and plainly recorded here, not as a fact that we are to avoid, but as a precedent that on all similar and parallel occasions nations are to follow. And most remarkable it is that not only is this warranted here, and the foolish, though perhaps sincere, objections of some persons disposed of at once, but throughout Scripture a mean national burial is spoken of as a judgment and a posthumous punishment. For instance, we read in the book of Jeremiah, 22: 18, “Thus saith the Lord concerning Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah; They shall not lament for him, saying, Ah, my brother! or, Ah, sister! they shall not lament for him, saying, Ah, lord! or, Ah, his glory! He shall be buried with the burial of an ass, drawn and cast forth beyond the gates of Jerusalem." That was a mark of national indignity, meant to express either its indifference to what he had done, or their positive rebuke to the acts that stained his history or memory. We shall also find that our blessed Lord, so far

from condemning what is due on such great occasions, expressly, or at least by implication, sanctions or applauds it. For instance, we read in Matthew 26: 6, "When Jesus was in Bethany, in the house of Simon the leper, there came unto him a woman having an alabaster box of very precious perfume," as we ought to render it, "and poured it on his head as he sat at meat." Well, when the disciples saw it, they acted like some advocates of a spurious economy in modern times; for they said, "To what purpose is this waste?" Recollect it was an alabaster box full of precious perfume, and might have been worth a hundred pounds. “This ointment might have been sold for much, and given to the poor."

Now this last remark seems very rational; and many would accept it in a modern newspaper as a very sensible remark. But hear what our Lord says, and you will see that what is man's economy is often not true economy, and that what seems God's prodigality is often the truest economy. Jesus said, "Why trouble ye the woman? for she hath wrought a good work upon me." And yet this is Jesus, who came to preach the gospel to the poor, who came to minister especially to the poor, who visited their homes, sympathized with their sorrows, raised their dead, restored their broken circles, lived among them, died for them: "For ye have the poor always with you; but me ye have not always. For in that she hath poured this ointment on my body, she did it for my burial."

It was the highest expression of reverence and esteem she could give, and Jesus hailed it; and the disciples' remark, "This perfume might have been sold for much, and given to the poor," was neither seasonable, suitable, nor just, and therefore Jesus adds, "Verily I say unto you, Wheresoever this gospel shall be preached in the whole world, there shall also this, that this woman hath done, be told for a memorial