But it was not so with Jacob; and because it was not so, hope of betterment dawned upon his character. He _valued_ the thoughts that had come to him. He was awed. Awe, or reverence, is the originating spring of worthy character. His was not a simple mind easily affected. Jacob was a cool, calculating, careful, worldly-wise man, almost the last type of man that finds it easy to be awed. But to him--with whom money and sheep and slaves and retinue were now and were long afterward to be very prominent objects of ambition--there was a feeling that, after all, God and God's blessings are the supreme things of life. So he did not let the awe of the hour pass unimproved. He acted on that awe. He then and there as best he could confessed God and his faith in Him, raising a pillar of stone in God's name and anointing it with oil in significance that the spot upon which it stood was consecrated to God. Thus he erected the first of all those tabernacles, temples, synagogues, churches, cathedrals, chapels, that have been a testimony to faith in God all over the earth. And then, as though an outward thing was not enough, but some inner thing of character was now required, he vowed a vow--the best vow probably that he, with his idea of God and of money, knew how to vow. He vowed that if God who had thus shown him his opportunity and duty would be true to His promises and would take care of him as covenanted, he, Jacob, would uphold the worship of God and would give a tenth of all he might ever obtain unto God. That vow laid hold on Jacob's life. It began to work a change that only many, many years advanced toward completion. But it began the change. When a soul, in a best moment of life, seeing duty clearly, or beholding a new revelation of God, crystallizes the emotions thus aroused by a vow that consecrates its dearest treasures to God, then the soul has taken its first step toward strong and beautiful character. Here it was that Esau failed. He seems to have had more traits that men would name attractive than had Jacob. An open-hearted, open-handed, out-spoken man, rough but kind and generous and ready, he at life's beginning appeared to have more in his favor than this grasping, secretive brother. When Esau's best hours came--hours when the sense of his own misdeeds rankled in his heart and when he was aware that repentance and reformation and a new application to duty should be his--he felt his situation deeply; he even, as a man of his temperament could do, shed tears of grief over his mistakes and losses. But he did not realize with awe the gravity of his situation, nor did he turn to God and to duty with a softened, chastened spirit, and vow his life in devotion to God. Jacob's right use of his best hours set Jacob's face towards God and character. Esau's wrong use of his best hours set Esau's face away from God and character.