Page:The Story of Joseph and His Brethren.djvu/71

68 beautiful and more beloved of the Lord, because more worthy of love than the Jewish church. A very remarkable prophecy and its fulfilment will shew you the truth of this representative character of Rachel. Where Matthew records the cruel slaughter of the infants of Bethlehem by Herod, that he might make sure of murdering among them the infant Saviour, the Evangelist concludes the dreadful narrative by saying—"Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy the prophet, saying, In Rama was there a voice heard, lamentation, and weeping, and great mourning, weeping for her children, and refused to be comforted, because they are not." This slaughter of the children represented the destruction of innocence in the infant church, with the view of destroying innocence itself in the person of the Lord, who had been born into the world in Bethlehem. The Virgin Mary may be considered as the Rachel of the New Testament—as the mother of Him whom Joseph represented—for Mary, like Rachel, represented the church. The very circumstances of Joseph's birth,