And he prayed in the place where he rested, and took four stones of that place, and set them for a pillow, and went asleep. Of these stones this is the history. They were twelve in number, and Adam had set them up as an altar. On them Abel had offered his sacrifice. The Deluge had thrown them down, but Noah reared them once more. They had been again overthrown, but Abraham set them in their places, and of them built the altar on which to sacrifice Isaac. These twelve stones Jacob now found, and he placed them under his head as a pillow. But a great wonder was wrought, and in the morning the twelve stones had melted together into one stone.[381]
Finally, this stone, so ancient and with such a history, was carried to Scotland, by whom I do not know, where it was placed at Scone, and was used for the consecration of the Scottish kings. Edward I. of England brought it to London, and it was set beneath the chair of the Confessor, as the following lines, inscribed on a tablet, announced:--
“Si quid habent veri, vel chronica cana, fidesve, Clauditur hac cathedra nobilis, ecce, lapis. Ad caput eximius Jacob quondam patriarcha Quem posuit cernens numina mira poli. Quem tulit ex Scottis, spolians quasi victor honoris, Edwardus primus, Mars velut omnipotens. Scottorum domitor, noster validissimus Hector, Anglorum decus, et gloria militiæ.”[382]
The stone may now be seen in Westminster Abbey.
When Jacob--to return to our narrative--slept with his head on the pillow of stones, he dreamed, and beheld a ladder fixed in the earth, and the summit of it reached to the height of heaven. And, behold! the angels who had accompanied him from the house of his father, ascended to make known to the angels on high, saying, “Come, see Jacob the pious, whose likeness is in the throne of glory, and whom you have been desirous to see!” These were the two angels who had been sent to Sodom to destroy it, and who had been forbidden to rise up to the throne of God again, because, say some, they had revealed the secrets of the Lord of the whole earth, or because, say others, they had threatened in their own name to destroy the cities of the plain.
Then the rest of the angels of God came down, at the call of these twain to look upon Jacob.