This is very sad, but I think knowing about it is a help to you and me, dear children, because we see that in spite of all, God loved him and forgave him, and taught him as He led him through his long life, to try more and more to please Him in everything. Jacob had bargained with his hungry brother Esau for his Birthright, and had got it from him. After a time when Isaac, his father, was very old and was soon going to die, Rebecca heard Isaac asking Esau to go out hunting and bring him home some savoury meat, for he wished to bless him before he died. Directly Esau was gone, Rebecca called Jacob to her, and together they planned to deceive Isaac, who was nearly blind with age, by Jacob's dressing up in Esau's clothes and pretending to be his first-born son. So Jacob got his father's blessing as well as the Birthright; and Esau was so terribly angry that he said he would kill his brother when his father was dead. When Rebecca heard of this, she begged Jacob to fly to Haran, where her brother Laban lived, and stay there until Esau was pacified. Then she went to Isaac and told him that they would send Jacob to get a wife from her old home, and Isaac agreed, and Rebecca sent her son away and never saw his face again. Oh, sad deception! What sorrow it brought on both Rebecca and Jacob! So Jacob set out on his long journey and one night he came to a lonely places far from any village where people lived. Jacob was tired and the sun had set, and he had no light to guide him, so he thought he would lie down where he was, and go to sleep till daylight. Then he had a wonderful dream, and this is what he saw: Right in front of him was a ladder set up on the earth, and it went up till the top reached right to heaven. And he could see the angels of God going up and coming down upon it. But beyond all, in the radiant glory, the Lord stood above the ladder and spoke to Jacob. He told him that He was the Lord God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and that by and by through his children's children should come the One who was to be the Blessing of the whole world. We know the name of that Holy One Who is the world's blessing; it is Jesus Christ, Who came into the world to save sinners! Then Jacob awoke from his dream and said, "Surely the Lord is in this place! . . . This is none other than the gate of heaven!" So he took the stones on which he had been resting, and set them up for an altar to the Lord, and made a vow that he would serve God all his life, and would give to God the tenth part of everything that God gave to him. Now it seems to me, children, that this Ladder up to heaven comes into our lives every day. Jesus, our Saviour, is like the ladder which rested on the earth close to Jacob; and He is gone back to heaven now to be there to help us in every way: that is the top of the ladder which reached to heaven, where the Lord stood and spoke to Jacob.