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Jacob had long since passed the hundred-year milestone. In those times people were distinguished for longevity. In the centuries after persons lived to great age. What a strong and unfailing thing is parental attachment! Was it not almost time for Jacob to forget Joseph? The hot suns of many summers had blazed on the heath; the river Nile had overflowed and receded, overflowed and receded again and again; the seed had been sown and the harvest reaped; stars rose and set; years of plenty and years of famine had passed on, but the love of Jacob for Joseph in my text is overwhelming dramatic. Oh, that is a cord that is not snapped, though pulled at by many decades! Joseph was as fresh in Jacob's memory as ever, though at seventeen years of age the boy had disappeared from the old homestead. I found in our family record the story of an infant that had died fifty years ago, and I said to my parents, "What is this record, and what does it mean?" Their chief answer was a long, deep sigh. It was to them a very tender sorrow. What does all that mean? Why, it means our children departed are ours yet, and that cord of attachment reaching across the years will hold us until it brings us together in the palace as Jacob and Joseph were brought together. That is one thing that makes old people die happy. They realize it is reunion with those from whom they have long been separated. Oh parent, as you think of the darling panting and white in membranous croup, I want you to know it will be gloriously bettered in that land where there has never been a death, and where all the inhabitants will live on in the great future as long as God! Joseph was Joseph notwithstanding the palace, and your child will be your child notwithstanding all the reigning splendour of everlasting noon. What a thrilling visit was that of the old shepherd to the Prime Minister, Joseph! I see the old countryman, seated in the palace, looking around at the mirrors and the fountains and the carved pillars, and oh, how he wishes that Rachel, his wife, was alive; she could have come there with him to see their son in his great house. "Oh," says the old man, within himself, "I do wish Rachel could be here and see all this!" I visited at the farmhouse of the father of Millard Fillmore, when the son was President of the United States, and the octogenarian farmer entertained me until eleven o'clock at night, telling me what great things he had seen in his son's house at Washington, and what Daniel Webster said to him, and how grandly Millard treated his father in the White House. The old man's face was illuminated with the story until almost midnight. He had just been visiting his son at the capital. And! suppose it was something of the same joy that thrilled the heart of the old shepherd as he stood in the palace of the Prime Minister. It is a great day with you when your old parents come to visit you. Blessed is that home where Christian parents came to visit! Whatever may have been the style of the architecture when they came, it is a palace before they leave. By this time you will notice what kindly provision Joseph made for his father, Jacob. Joseph did not say, "I can't have the old man around this place. How clumsy he would look climbing up these marble stairs and walking over these mosaics. Then he would be putting his hands upon some of these frescoes. People would wonder where that old greenhorn came from. He would shock all the Egyptian court with his manners at table. Besides that, he might get sick on my hands, and he might talk to me as though I were only a boy, when I am the second man in all the realm. Of course he must not suffer, and if there is famine in his country — and I hear there is — I will send him some provisions, but I can't take a man from Padan-aram and introduce him into this polite Egyptian court. What a nuisance it is to have poor relations!" Joseph did not say that, but he rushed out to meet his father with perfect abandon of affection, and brought him up to the palace and introduced him to the king, and provided for all the rest of the father's days, and nothing was too good for the old man while living, and when he was dead, Joseph, with military escort, took his father's remains to the family cemetery at Machpelah, and put them down beside Rachel, Joseph's mother. Would God all children were as kind to their parents! "Over the hills to the poor-house" is the exquisite ballad of Will Carleton, who found an old woman who had been turned off by her prospered sons; but I think I may find in my text "Over the hills to the palace." As if to disgust us with unfilial conduct, the Bible presents us with the story of Micah, who stole a thousand shekels from his mother, and the story of Absalom, who tried to dethrone his father. But all history is beautiful with stories of filial fidelity. Epimandes, the warrior, found his chief delight in reciting to his parents his victories. There goes AEneas from burning Troy, on his shoulders Anchises, his father. The Athenians punished with death any unfilial conduct. There goes beautiful Ruth escorting venerable Naomi across the desert amid the howling of the wolves and the barking of the jackals. John Lawrence, burned at the stake in Colchester, was cheered in the flames by his children, who said, "O God, strengthen Thy servant and keep Thy promise." And Christ in the hour of excruciation provided for His mother. Jacob kept his resolution, "I will go and see him before I die," and a little while after we find them walking the tessellated floor of the palace, Jacob and Joseph, the Prime minister proud of the shepherd. I may say in regard to the most of you that your parents have probably visited you for the last time, or will soon pay you such a visit, and I have wondered if they will ever visit you in the King's palace. "Oh," you say, "I am in the pit of sin." Joseph was in the pit. "Oh," you say, "I am in the prison of mine iniquity." Joseph was once in prison. "Oh," you say, "I didn't have a fair chance; I was denied maternal kindness." Joseph was denied maternal attendance. "Oh," you say, "I am far away from the land of my nativity." Joseph was far from home. "Oh," you say, "I have been betrayed and exasperated." Did not Joseph's brethren sell him to a passing Ishmaelitish caravan? Yet God brought him to that emblazoned residence, and if you will trust His grace in Jesus Christ you too will be empalaced. Oh, what a day that will be when the old folks come from an adjoining mansion in heaven, and find you amid the alabaster pillars of the throne-room and living with the King! They are coming up the steps now, and the epauletted guard of the palace rushes in and says, "Your father's coming, your mother's coming." And when, under the arches of precious stones and on the pavement of porphyry, you greet each other, the scene will eclipse the meeting on the Goshen highway, when Joseph and Jacob fell on each other's neck and wept a good while.

(Dr. Talmage.)

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KJV: And Israel said, It is enough; Joseph my son is yet alive: I will go and see him before I die.

WEB: Israel said, "It is enough. Joseph my son is still alive. I will go and see him before I die."