"I will go and see him before I die."--GEN. 45:28.
Jacob had long since passed the hundred year mile-stone. In those
times people were distinguished for longevity. In the centuries after
persons lived to great age. Galen, the most celebrated physician of
his time, took so little of his own medicine, that he lived to one
hundred and forty years. A man of undoubted veracity on the
witness-stand in England swore that he remembered an event one hundred
and fifty years before. Lord Bacon speaks of a countess who had cut
three sets of teeth, and died at one hundred and forty years. Joseph
Crele, of Pennsylvania, lived one hundred and forty years. In 1857 a
book was printed containing the names of thirty-seven person who lived
one hundred and forty years, and the names of eleven persons who lived
one hundred and fifty years.
Among the grand old people of whom we have record was Jacob, the
shepherd of the text. But he had