BOYS OF THE BIBLE. 93

become two bands. Deliver me, I pray thee, from the hand
of my brother, from the hand of Esau: for*I fear him, lest
he will come and smite me, and the mother with the children.
And thou saidst, I will surely do thee good, and make thy
seed as the sand of the sea, which cannot be numbered by
multitude.”

The costly gifts with which he desired to conciliate Esau
went on before—“two hundred she goats and twenty he goats,
two hundred ewes and twenty rams, thirty milch camels with
their colts, forty kine and ten bulls, twenty she asses and
ten foals.”

_ Then came the long, dark night, the wrestling with the
angel, the mysterious conquest of Jacob, and with the gift of
the new name, we are told that “the sun rose on Israel ?—
not on the hills and vales, but on Israel. It was a sunny
day for the wanderer; for on this day he met Esau, and was
reconciled. There was to be no intimate brotherly fellow-
ship; that could never be in the very nature of the case.
But the feud was ended. Jacob and Esau parted forever,
but the old enmity was to cease; they were to part friends.
Esau leaves Jacob to his inheritance, and passes on to the
solitudes of the dark mountains of Seir.

Jacob the “supplanter,” now changes into Israel the
“Prince of God.” A new world and a new life is before
him. We shall meet him again when we come to talk of
that wonderful son of many dreams and large ambitions.
The old age of Jacob was calm and beautiful as an Indian
summer, the clouds were no longer dark and_ lurid, but
beautiful with the light that tells of peace after a life of
storm and care.

With the last scene in Israel’s life we close this story.
From the day he left his father’s house a fugitive, till the