BOYS OF THE BIBLE. 75

“Jacob was a plain man,” the Bible says. And he was
a very mean man, too, as the Bible proceeds to show. The
probabilities are that these boys were not very much together
after their very early childhood. They had no tastes in com-
mon, the same toys would not please them, supposing there
were such things as toys in those early days. They would not
have played at the same games; they would not have chosen
the same companions; they would not have read the same
books, if they had known the luxury of books. Their paths
were very wide apart, and in these ever-widening ways the
opposite elements of their character grew.

Esau was a cunning huntsman, but Jacob was cunning
everywhere and in everything—cunning in the most objec-
tionable sense of that word. He was a shrewd, cunning
schemer. Full of policy, he would plot and counter-plot.
He worked like a beaver in the secret and in the dark. He
could “bide his time.” He could be patient and wait, if
there was anything at the end of the waiting worth waiting
for. And more than this, Jacob was one of those mean boys
who would take advantage of his brother’s weaknesses for
his own advantage. And a boy can hardly be meaner than
that.

The first marked instance recorded in the Bible of Jacob’s
meanness was when he persuaded his brother Esau to
sell his birthright for a savory meal. The story is very sim-
ple, and as significant as simple. Esau was a hunter, and
he often came home from the hunt half famished with hunger.
Most boys have some idea of what it means to be as “hungry
as a hunter,” and they will have a good deal of sympathy
with Esau. It was just like the meanness of Jacob to take
advantage of this ravenous appetite of his brother. So one
day, when Esau was more than usually late, Jacob prepared