BOYS OF THE BIBLE. 83

tage, and so through Esau’s own fault the order was changed,
and God will now be spoken of through all the ages of time
as “the God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob.”
Esau’s name did not slip out of this divine association; it
was not dropped out through any one’s caprice; it was sub-
stituted by another name, because Esau, in an hour of hun-
ger, would be fed without delay, though the meal cost him
eternal fellowship with the Divine.

In the Epistle to the Hebrews, Esau is spoken of as a
“profane person.” Profanity does not simply mean the
taking of God’s name in vain, or the indulgence in the use
of language that is as foolish and vulgar as it is profane.
The really profane man is he who does not recognize the
sacredness of sacred things. There are not a few men to
whom there is nothing sacred. Faith is only superstition,
they say; religion at best is a dream. They laugh at our
Sabbaths; they jest at our worship, and make a mock at
prayer. These are really the profane among men. A soul
that knows nothing sacred is like a temple without an altar.
Such a man was Esau to some very considerable extent.
Not a bad man by any means, a much better man than his
brother Jacob was then, or indeed, than he was for many a
year. It was not until that awful night by the rushing
fords of Jabbok, that Jacob gave any sign of noble man-
hood. Esau was a huntsman; he loved the chase, and his
mistake was that he made of what should have been a
passing recreation, the whole of life. Hunting is all very
well in its way, but life is more than hunting. Life has
great duties as well as pleasant recreations. And the man
who thinks so mnch of passing gratifications that he will
sacrifice life’s grandest purposes for them, is a profane man,
and such a man was Esau. But this was not all. There