The Gavelyte, April 1908

TH~ GAVEL \'TE, circumstances is I,;aac to be permitted to go along or have any part iri the transaction himself, even shoulrl the project utterly fail. If cr,mpari~on could show the difference in physical and moral make-up, it might be added ti.at his son Jacob, a generation later, undertook the same journey for the same purpose, 011 foot and alone, with abundant suc– eess. Isaac grrw into a very wealthy man. Much credit is not due him for this, as he inherited a large estate from hii3 father. This estate, by natural process of accumulation, wonld of neces::-ity make him a wealthy man, for in those days servants were honest and grafters unknown. As a lover of peace, Isaac has been extolled, but his was "the peace at any price" method. We have not mucii admiration for a man who secures something of value, to which he has a natural right, and then abandons it and 111oves on at the command of someone else'~ hired man. The one thing in Isaac's life that commends itself is a slow, doubtful piety, that moves him at different times to acts of religious worship. Bnt rven this does not sePm to have hindered him much in the gratification of his appetite 0r from the neglecting of the education of his sons. The only reason given for his preference for Esau over Jacob, is that Esau was successful in bringing something to gratify his appetite, antl for this he was willing to ignore the word of God and the superior qualifications of Jacob, to bestow a blessing where it was not inter,ded. But this calamity was happily averted, as many others have been, by the superior faith and wisdom of one, who, in this case, certainly was the better half. Isaac, at this time, was one hundred years old, and aecording tu history must have been an infirm, weak-minded, childish, old man, and in hiB own opinion, "about. to die" although he lingered for eighty years. We shall never know in this world how much that patient wife was called upon to endure before she was finally worn c,ut and gladly gave up the task of caring for him. Nor shall we know of the latter days of Isaac, who is portrayed as , it ting alone, the sad fulfillment of Rht1kespeare's later description: "Last scene of all, That ends this strangr eventful history, Is second childishness and mere oblivion. Ram~ teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything."