Wrestling of Jacob
Jacob was alone, wrestling with error, - struggling
with a mortal sense of life, substance, and intelligence
as existent in matter with its false pleasures
and pains, - when an angel, a message from
Truth and Love, appeared to him and smote the sinew,
or strength, of his error, till he saw its unreality; and
Truth, being thereby understood, gave him spiritual
strength in this Peniel of divine Science. Then said
the spiritual evangel: "Let me go, for the day breaketh;"
that is, the light of Truth and Love dawns upon thee.
But the patriarch, perceiving his error and his need
of help, did not loosen his hold upon this glorious light
until his nature was transformed. When Jacob was
asked, "What is thy name?" he straightway answered;
and then his name was changed to Israel, for "as a prince"
had he prevailed and had "power with God and with
men." Then Jacob questioned his deliverer, "Tell me,
I pray thee,
thy name;" but this appellation was withheld,
for the messenger was not a corporeal being, but a name-
less, incorporeal impartation of divine Love to man, which,
to use the word of the Psalmist,
restored his Soul, - gave
him the spiritual sense of being and rebuked his material
sense.
