Page:Woman and the Bible.pdf/18

14 old" were beauteous and "fair to look upon," just as in our day according to newspaper notices, all brides are beautiful and all grooms wealthy.

Well, Jacob met Rachel at the well, and after a short acquaintance the book says "Jacob kissed Rachel and lifted up his voice and wept."

What on earth did he weep about? Whoever heard of a young man setting up a weep because he had kissed a pretty girl? The young men of this day do not follow Jacob's weeping example. It often happens in our day when a young man wants to bestow his attentions and kisses on a pretty girl and she rejects them, the young man whips out his knife or pistol and plays the murderous role to perfection.

Jacob asked Rachel's papa, Laban, for his daughter, and said he would serve seven years for her. Laban was a financier and he knew Jacob's service was the cheapest hired help he could get, so he promised him Rachel. At the end of the seven years the wily Laban palmed off his daughter Leah on Jacob as a bride. After a family jar that shook the region round about Jacob said he would serve seven years more for Rachel. Jacob got himself into a pretty pickle. We are told that the sisters Leah and Rachel fired by jealousy, hated each other, that "Jacob hated Leah, and Jacob's anger was kindled against Rachel," Rachel and Leah in deadly spite, "each gave her maid to Jacob to wife." Jacob submissively accepted them and he tacitly became a creature of barter and sale. Laban and Jacob had a hot encounter in which they employed some choice language, and Laban told Jacob to take the girls and everything else, but he was "bound to have his gods."

Now it turned out that Rachel had stolen her papa's gods and was sitting on them, and when he came into her tent hunting for them, she denied knowing anything about them. Rachel was an all