He had wandered until he was faint and weary, and then he had lain himself down on the earth, with stones for his pillow and the heavens for the curtains of his tent.  In the silence of the night his soul was opened to spiritual revealings—­to those influences from heaven which marked the change in his future life.  He saw the angels of God ascending and descending upon him.  Often before this may they have visited him—­constantly may they have hovered over him—­but now he was made conscious of the presence, watch and interposition of the heavenly intelligences of the higher presence of the God of Abraham.  From this hour we trace a different influence pervading the heart and life of Jacob.  He was awakened to higher motives—­and from this hour he entered into covenant with God, and took Him to be his God.

And Jacob awaked out of his sleep, and said, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I knew it not;” and he was afraid, and said, “How dreadful is this place!  This is none other than the house of God—­and this is the gate of heaven.”  And Jacob rose up early in the morning, and took the stone that he had put for his pillow, and set it for a pillar, and poured oil upon the top of it.  “And he called the name of that place Bethel.”  And Jacob vowed a vow, saying “If God will be with me, and will keep me in the way that I go, and will give me bread to eat, and raiment to put on, so that I come again to my father’s house in peace, then shall the Lord be my God, and this stone, which I have set for a pillar, shall be God’s house, and of all that thou shalt give me I will surely give the tenth unto thee.”

The future life of Jacob was not free from the infirmity of human purpose—­the imperfection of human nature.  Yet from this time he walked with God, and all his deportment was marked by deep and humble piety.  We doubt not that at this period he passed through that transforming change by which, in every age, and under every dispensation, the human soul has been enabled to enter into the mysteries of the spiritual life and enjoy communion with the Author of its existence, through that Spirit which breathed the first breath of life by which man became a living soul.

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THE RIVAL SISTERS—­LEAH AND RACHEL.

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There are two characters, which by some associations of memory, or caprice of fancy, are ever blended in our recollections—­the one of ancient, the other of modern days—­the one of sacred, the other of profane history.  Catharine of Arragon, the unloved consort of the King of England, and Leah, the daughter of the Syrian shepherd, the hated wife of the Hebrew patriarch.  There may seem to be as little assimilation of character and destiny, as there is of condition, between the daughter and the wife of a Syrian shepherd, and the daughter of one of the proudest monarchs of Spain and the wife of the haughtiest king of England; but they were both women, and both wives of those who loved them not; and this fact, whatever the condition of woman, stamps her lot as one of wretchedness.  The wife neglected and despised is a woman sorrowful, whether she be the inmate of a tent or the dweller in a palace—­whether she tend the flock or grace the throne.