But he said, O thou blessed of our God,
Come, for the tent is eager for thy face.
Shall not thy husband be unto thee more than
Hundreds of kinsmen living in thy land?

And Eleazer answered: Thus and thus,
Even according as thy father bade,

Did we; and thus and thus it came to pass:
Lo! is not this Rebekah, Bethuel's child?
And as he ended, Isaac spoke and said,

Surely my heart went with you on the way
When with the beasts ye came unto the place.

Truly, O child of Nahor, I was there
When to my mother and my mother's son
Thou madest answer, saying, I will go.
And Isaac brought her to her mother's tent.
ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH.

Jacob's Dream

(Genesis xxviii. 10-12)

OH, pilgrim, halting on the rock-strewn sod

To thee this Bethel vision still appears!

The golden ladder of the love of God

Shines on the weary eyes, all wet with tears.

He leads thee on by ways thou hast not known,
He bids thee rest in desert stillness deep,

He gives thee pillows of the barren stone;
And lo! His angels dawn upon thy sleep.

He shows thee how Eternal Love unites

Thy sin-marred earth with His own sphere of bliss And sends His bright ones from their radiant heights, Laden with blessings from that world to this.

Thy solitude is no darkness unto Him,
The solitudes are peopled with His host
Close the dim eye, and rest the wayworn limb—
The Lord is near when thou dost need Him most.

S. D.

Pillow and Stone

ON a stone in olden time

UPON

A wanderer sank to rest.

A wondrous vision soothed his heart
Hów strangely was he blessed!

The arched sky was his coverlet,
The night-wind cradle song;
A ladder mounted heavenward
Which bore an angel throng.

Ah, in these sober days of ours
When we soft close our eyes,
No lofty ladder climbs above,
No angel hosts arise.

And tho our bed be richly draped
And royal fare's our own,
For oft we waken unrefreshed—
The pillow's changed to stone!

Beth-el

A RUGGED stone,

ABRAM S. ISAACS.

For centuries neglected and alone,—

Its destiny unknown.

The tide of light

Sped o'er it, and the breakers of the night,
In alternating flight.

And it was wet

With twilight dew, the sacramental sweat
That mystic dreams beget.

There Jacob lay,

Dark struggling, till the wrestler, white as day Brake from his arms away.

Upon the sod

A pillow; then, by countless angels trod,
A stepping stone to God.

JOHN B. TABb.

As Jacob Served for Rachel

'TWAS

'WAS the love that lightened service!
The old, old story sweet

That yearning lips and waiting hearts

In melody repeat.

As Jacob served for Rachel

Beneath the Syrian sky,

Like the golden sands that swiftly drop
The toiling years went by.

Chill fell the dews upon him,
Fierce smote the sultry sun;

But what were cold and heat to him,
Till that dear wife was won!

The angels whispered in his ear

"Be patient and be strong!"

And the thought of her he waited for
Was ever like a song.

Sweet Rachel, with the secret

To hold a brave man leal;

To keep him through the changeful years
Her own in woe and weal;

So that in age and exile,

The death damp on his face,
Her name to the dark valley lent
Its own peculiar grace.

And "There I buried Rachel,"
He said of that lone spot
In Ephrath, near to Bethlehem,
Where the wife he loved was not;
For God has taken from him

The brightness and the zest,

And the heaven above thenceforward kept In fee his very best.

Of the love that lightens service,

Dear God, how much we see,
When the father toils the livelong day

For the children at his knee;
When all night the mother wakes,

Nor deem the vigil hard,

The rose of health on sick one's cheek,

Her happy heart's reward.

The love that lightens service

The fisherman can tell,

When he wrests the bread his dear ones eat Where the bitter surges swell;

And the farmer in the furrow,

The merchant in the mart, Count little worth their weary toil For the treasures of the heart.

As Jacob served for Rachel

Beneath the Syrian sky,

And the golden sands of toiling years
Went swiftly slipping by,

The thought of her was music

To cheer his weary feet,

'Twas love that lightened service,

The old, old story sweet.

ANONYMOUS.

Mizpah

"The Lord watch between me and thee when we are absent from each other."-Gen. xxxi. 49.

A BROAD gold band engraven

With word of Holy Writ

A ring, the bond and token,
Which love and prayer hath lit,
When absent from each other
O'er mountain, vale and sea,
The Lord, who guarded Israel,
Keeps watch 'tween me and thee.

Through days of light and gladness,
Through days of love and life,
Through smiles, and joy, and sunshine,
Through days with beauty rife;
When absent from each other,

O'er mountain, vale, and sea,
The Lord of love and gladness,
Keep watch 'tween me and thee.

Through days of doubt and darkness,
In fear and trembling breath;
Through mists of sin and sorrow,
In tears, and grief and death,
The Lord of life and glory,
The King of earth and sea,

The Lord who guarded Israel,

Keep watch 'tween me and thee.

ANONYMOUS.

Israel

WHEN by Jabbok the patriarch waited

To learn on the morrow his doom

And his dubious spirit debated

In darkness and silence and gloom,