JACOB'S DREAM AND THE CARDINAL POINTS.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 163, 7 April 1916, Page 3 (Supplement)

JACOB'S DREAM AND THE CARDINAL POINTS.

By J. 0. Madison Gray It is customary to mention the cardinal points (the tfour points of tiie compass) as north, south, east, and west. It was in this order that Cod told Abraham to look, when He promVed that the land should be a possession unto his seed for ever. (Gen. xiii.. 14.) When the promise was made to Jacob at Bethel that he should ">pread abroad'' the order of the points was changed. It was to be "to the west, and to the east, and to the north, and to the south.'' (Gen. \.<viii., 14.) Probably students of the Bible, critics, including adherents of the Higher Criticism, would take the words of the great promise in a general sense, not attaching importance to the order in which the cardinal points were specified to .Jacob. Jt seems, however, that the promise was intentionally made to Jacob in that special manner, and we may reverently infer, with the design that nun should, in vears long after, observe at

'lie appropriate time the precision and exactness of detail which in every way marks God's dealing with his people Israel. Have the descendants of Jacob

spread abroad in the specified manner? There is a nation, a peculiar people, a people of undaunted courage, pn>enormous wealth, :n every respect '"the head and not the tail," "above and not beneath" (Dent. vv V iii.. 13). which has done this, and 11 iat nation is the British. Let us consider the order of British colonisation winch besran in the direction of tiie 'west, followed by settlements in the east, then to the north, and lastly to tlie 'south. I state them in sequence : West. —Newfoundland, settlement, 15s;) ; Yirjrn : a, taken possession of by Balekrh. loS4: West Indian islands trained between 160<3 and 1632; Massachusetts, 1620; Maryland. 1634; New York conquered from the Dutch and Swedes, 1604. East. —Madf as founded in 1639; from 1746-49 the French occupied it; after that date it remained English. Bombay. ced'd by Portugal to Charles 11., 1162; Calcutta purchased. 1691; the battle of Plassev, in 1757. led to the great development of the Emp:ro, as the authority of the East India Company was eventually taken over ly the British Crown in IviS: the Most Exalted Order of the Star of India, its motfo being, "Heaven s Light our Guide," was created in and Queen Yictoria was_ proclaimed Empiess of India in l s 7(j. The Burmese Empire was entirely annexed in 1. a ?6. All tlr's was the outcome of England's eastward colonisation in 1639. Shortly after the victory of Plassey in 1757 Great Britain turned her attention to the North, fought the French in Canada in 1759, and laid hold upon it; Canada includes the great North-west Territory, extends fatnorth. and Alaska', a far north-west corner, belongs t> America (AngloSaxon).

South. — Now South Wales settled, ITS?; fiwt church erected in Australia, 1793: Tasmania settled. ISO 3. Cape of Good Hope (South Africa), practically on a line with Australia (Terra Australs), taken from the Dutch, 180(5. V.o-iern Australia and South Australia formed into provinces, 1529. Falkland Islands, the most southerly organised colony of the British Empire, acquired New Zealand made a separate colony, Queensland and Victoria formed into provinces. 1.830. Fi.ii. a group of 2(X) to 230 islands, ceded by their chiefs to Great Britain. 1874. Papua (a portion of), the largest island 'n the world after Australia, acquired Transvaal and Orange Bucr Colony (South Africa) anexed. 1902.

So lias Groat Britain spread west, ea-it, north, and south, in the precise order of the promise to .Jacob, if Britain bo not the offspring of Jacob, how s!;all wo account for the promise to his seed having boon fulfilled, apparently, to sui alien nation, which, it not his descendants (as we must be), although to Jacob and to h:s sted was to ly given the land on which he t!ien lay. wh le the only known representatives of that peed now number but a few millions, have been cast out of that iand. and arc treated with a large 1:10:1. me of contempt, blondid with persecution in every kingdom except those ierniing the '"nation and a company of nation:;"' (Gen. xxxvi:.), of the AngloSaxon race? "I s. y. then, hath God cast away His people " (Horn. \i., 1): "God hath not east away His people which lie foreknew - ' (Bom. xi., 2). "At this present time, also, there is a remnant according to the election ol grace" (Bom. xi. ">).