blessed Jacob, believing him to be Esau. In the Douay Bible I find the following note on this remarkable narrative: “St. Augustine (_L. contra mendacium_, c. 10), treating at large upon this place, excuseth Jacob from a lie, because this whole passage was mysterious, as relating to the preference which was afterwards to be given to the Gentiles before the carnal Jews, which Jacob, by prophetic light, might understand. So far it is certain that the first birthright, both by divine election and by Esau’s free cession, belonged to Jacob; so that if there were any lie in the case, it would be no more than an officious and venial one.” How glorious to be a patriarch, and to have a real saint laboring years after your death to twist your lies into truth by aid of prophetic light! Lying is at all times most disreputable, but at the deathbed the crime is rendered more heinous. The death hour would have awed many men into speaking the truth, but it had little effect on Jacob. Although Isaac was about to die, this greedy knave cared not, so that he got from the dying man the sought-for prize. God is said to love righteousness and hate iniquity, yet he loved the iniquitous Jacob, and hated the honest Esau. All knaves are tinged more or less with cowardice. Jacob was no exception to the rule. His brother, enraged at the deception practised upon Isaac, threatened to kill Jacob. Jacob was warned by his mother and fled. Induced by Rebekah, Isaac charged Jacob to marry one of Laban’s daughters. On the way to Haran, where Laban dwelt, Jacob rested and slept. While sleeping he dreamed; ordinarily, dreams have little significance, but in the Bible they are more important. Some of the most weighty and vital facts of the Bible are communicated in dreams; and rightly so; if the men had been wideawake they would have probably rejected the revelation as absurd. So much does that prince of darkness, the devil, influence mankind against the Bible in the day time, that it is when all is dark, and our eyes are closed, and the senses dormant, that God’s mysteries are most clearly seen and understood. Jacob “saw in his sleep a ladder standing upon the earth, and the top thereof touching heaven; the angels also, of God ascending and descending by it, and the Lord leaning upon the ladder (Gen. xxviii, 12 and 13, Douay Version). In the ancient temples of India, and in the mysteries of Mithra, the seven-stepped ladder by which the spirits ascended to heaven is a prominent feature, and one of probably far higher antiquity than the age of Jacob. Did paganism furnish the groundwork for the patriarch’s dream? “No man hath seen God at anytime.” God is “invisible.” Yet Jacob saw the invisible God, whom no man hath seen or can see, either standing above a ladder or leaning upon it. True, it was all a dream. Yet God spoke to Jacob, but perhaps that was a delusion too. We find by scripture that God threatens to send to some “strong delusions that they might believe