CHAPTER IV.

JACOB AND HIS FAMILY.

It was in Jacob and the next two generations of his family that there first began to appear signs of the fulfilment of God's promise, that the descendants of Abraham should be numerous and become a great nation. We might therefore expect to find the life of Jacob and his sons very fully told.

You heard, in the history of Abraham and Isaac, how there arose a very bitter feeling in the heart of Esau against his younger brother; and that this was the cause of Jacob's going to the house of his uncle Laban. Though he was thus, as it were, under a cloud, as to his worldly prospects, in consequence of his having joined in the deceit suggested by his mother, yet God did not by any means abandon him, or withdraw the promise which was soon about to show signs of approaching fulfilment, that he should

"The seven years seemed unto him but a few days, for the love he had to her."

P. 35.

1

the auth, a pooly, at in b's se d should all festions of he outh be blesse!

Thus eufort-l, Jaeb went or his way. bovine to try die store shig bad for ad hi pallor

.

! he called

of GCL !