and critical instances with a set purpose, that men
might not make an idol of the number? That men might not think in the
one case that the firstborn were the world's sole masters, nor dream in
the other that a college of twelve was essential to the conduct of all
the great spiritual movements of mankind.

II. The question of the birthright seems to us to be one on which there
is, popularly at any rate, a good deal of misunderstanding. We will look
at it a little more closely, before we proceed to consider the
unavailing repentance which will form the topic of a second discourse.

There is something which reaches beyond the merely
historico-representative character, in the history of these twain. Most
of the earnest and generous students of the Old Testament would, we
imagine, if they were to make frank confession, sympathise with Esau as
a wronged and ill-used man. A sentiment of pity for the big, burly
hunter, so helpless in the hands of the subtle and masterly Jacob, takes
possession of us as we read the history. It seems a hard penalty to pay
for a moment's weakness under the pressure of the pangs of hunger; while
the crafty treacherous falsehood by which the blessing as well as the
birthright was won from him enlists us wholly as to that transaction on
his side. This sentiment of compassion is much strengthened by the vague
impression that, through the craft of Jacob, Esau suffered a terrible
and irreparable loss. And younger sons, as they see the paternal acres,
the family mansion, and the dignity of the family name, passing to the
elder, are prone to make the same moan, and to reckon themselves the
predestined victims of the social order of the world. Learn from this
history how the matter really stands. Esau had all the birthright which
he honestly cared for; while Jacob had simply that birthright which,
blessed be Christ, is within reach of every child of every household
upon earth. Do not waste your pity upon Esau, on the ground of what he
lost. Pity him rather on the score of what he did not care to win. It
would be a great mistake to suppose that Jacob's treachery left the
elder brother a broken and ruined man; on the contrary, the ruin in the
worldly sense fell on the man who won the birthright; and though the
blessing was added, he went a broken and halting man to the end of his
days. That exceeding great and bitter cry, which was wrung from the
disinherited when he saw the paternal blessing following the