tection of the Almighty, his life on earth was a mourning pilgrimage from the hour when he fled from his father's house. Calm, prudent, gentle, and affectionate in nature, and full of trust in the goodness of God, he ever bowed his head before the storm of affliction, and lived in hope of that future world, where alone his trials would end.

Many of his sons had already caused him bitter grief and pain, but now, when they were finally settled in Chanaan, they filled his cup of sorrow to the brim. The two sons of Rachel, Joseph and Benjamin, were objects of jealousy and dislike to the rest of their brothers, and at last Joseph's presence became so odious to them, that they resolved to be rid of him at all costs. The immediate cause of their passionate hatred was two dreams which were sent to Joseph by God. In one he dreamed that he and his brothers, who were eleven in number, were binding sheaves of corn together in the field, when his own sheaf stood upright, and all his brothers' sheaves bowed down before it. In the other, he saw, as it were, the sun and moon and eleven stars worshipping him. Even his father was displeased at what he conceived to be Joseph's insolent pride, in thus fancying that he was to be obeyed by his father, mother, and brethren, which was the interpretation they put upon this second dream. Nevertheless Jacob afterwards pondered the thing in his mind, for we can scarcely doubt that Joseph's general conduct was as far as possible from pride and insolence, while his brethren, Benjamin excepted, grew more envious than ever.

At last an opportunity came for gratifying their vengeance. They were tending their flocks at a distance from home, and one day his father sent him to inquire how they were, and to ask if all was well with the cattle. But no sooner did they see Joseph approaching, than the devilish thought entered the minds of some of them, that they would kill him, and tell his father that a wild beast had devoured him. To this the eldest of them, Ruben, objected; and he proposed that they should cast Joseph into a neighbouring pit, and leave him, he him

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self intending secretly to take him out again, and restore him to his father. To this they agreed, and stripping Joseph of the coat he wore, which was of various colours, and had been made for him by his father, they let him down into the pit. Ruben then went away on some business of his own, and the rest sat down to eat. then a company of travelling Ismaelites passed by, and Juda, who was one of the best of Jacob's sons, immediately suggested that it would be better to sell Joseph as a slave to these Ismaelites, than to leave him to perish in the wilderness. As all they desired was to get rid of Joseph, and they had no wish to murder him for murder's sake, this proposition was agreed to, and Joseph was taken up, sold to the travelling Ismaelites, and by them carried into Egypt, where he was again sold to Putiphar, a high officer in the service of Pharao the king. Ruben, returning and finding the boy gone, was torn with anguish; and the rest, taking Joseph's coat, smeared it with the blood of a kid, to make it appear that Joseph had been rent in pieces by a wild beast. They then took it to their father, and told him the falsehood they had invented. And Jacob, tearing his garments, and putting on sackcloth (as was the custom in those countries at a season of great affliction), wept and mourned for Joseph with all a father's bitterness of grief.

CHAP. XV. Joseph in Egypt.

WHILE anguish thus filled the heart of Jacob, and his guilty sons rejoiced in the absence of their brother, Joseph's lot was strange and wonderful. His abilities and singular uprightness, placed as he was in the midst of the idolatrous and licentious Egyptians, rapidly won for him the affection and esteem of his master Putiphar. Though still young, he was soon advanced to the highest post in his master's family, and became his housesteward and the head of his whole establishment. After a while the wife of Putiphar, a wicked and unscrupulous

woman, formed a sinful passion for the young steward, who was remarkably comely in appearance, and whose fair Mesopotamian countenance was as unlike the swarthy, hard-featured Egyptian face, as his upright and pure mind was unlike their debased and selfish souls. In vain, however, she tempted Joseph to sin. She wearied him with her solicitations; but the fear of God and duty to his master made him close his ears against the tempter; and, on one occasion, he rushed vehemently from her presence, while she seized his upper cloak or coat, and kept it in her possession. Then, boiling with rage and disappointed passion, all her feelings were turned into hatred of Joseph, and she falsely accused him to her husband of having used violence to her, shewing him Joseph's garment, which she had seized, as a proof of the truth of the accusation. The falsehood was believed by Putiphar, and Joseph was dismissed from his offices and cast into prison.

In prison the Lord was still with Joseph. The same sweetness and integrity which had won his master's regard touched the chief gaoler, and the captive Joseph was made superintendent of all the prisoners; and as in Putiphar's household, every thing that Joseph did in the prison seemed to prosper. At length it was the will of God to set His servant free, and employ him, in the fulfilment of His divine purposes, for the preservation of his own father and the brethren who had so cruelly used him. In the prison with Joseph were two servants of Pharao, the chief butler and the chief baker, both of whom, for some offence, were committed to gaol, and placed by the head gaoler in Joseph's custody. One night each of these men dreamed a dream, which troubled him exceedingly, so that in the morning Joseph inquired the cause of their more than usual sadness. They told him their dreams, and at the same time a revelation from God shewed to him what the visions signified, and he supplied them with the interpretation. The butler had seen a vine growing, from which he gathered the grapes, and squeezed them into a cup, and presented the juice to the king. This, said Joseph, was

a sign that the butler would be restored to his former situation. The baker had dreamed that he carried on his head three baskets, in the uppermost of which were all kinds of baked meats, which birds came and ate. By this Joseph informed the baker that his death was foretold. The events justified the interpretations. In three days the butler was taken into favour, and the baker was put to death. Joseph himself remained in prison, the butler forgetting a promise he had made to intercede for him with Pharao.

Two years more he lingered in his captivity, forgotten by man, but reserved by God for His special service. At the end of two years two dreams struck terror into the heart of the Egyptian monarch himself. He saw seven cows, fat and beautiful, feeding by the bank of the Nile, which was the great river of Egypt; and as they fed, seven others, lean and ill-favoured, came up and devoured them. He saw also seven full and beautiful ears of corn growing upon one stalk; and then appeared seven others, blasted and thin, from the same stalk, which destroyed the beauty of the former seven. In the morning the king summoned the most skilful men of his court, whose occupation it was to impose upon the credulity of their fellow-countrymen by pretending to interpret dreams and visions, and he asked them for an explanation of what he had seen. But they were confounded, and could give no interpretation. Then the chief butler's conscience smote him, and he remembered Joseph; and he told Pharao how a young man in prison had explained his own dream two years ago. Immediately Joseph was summoned to Pharao's presence, and the monarch related to him his dreams. And the hand of God was with Joseph, and he saw the interpretation of the visions. The seven fat cows and the seven full ears, he said, were seven years of plenty about to commence; and the seven lean cows and the seven thin ears were seven years of famine, which would follow after them. And he urged the king to spare no pains, during the years of plenty, to gather together such abundant stores of grain as would keep the people from

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starvation during the dearth that would visit the whole land of Egypt.

Instantly Joseph's destiny was changed; from a captive lingering in a wretched prison, he became ruler of Egypt. Pharao could think of no person so fit to take the necessary precautions against the future famine as he who had foretold its coming. With all that startling quickness with which such changes are made in half-civilised nations, he at once raised Joseph to the post of his chief minister, a post which in the East confers a sovereignty over the whole kingdom, inferior only to that of the actual monarch. Clothed in rich garments, with Pharao's own ring upon his finger, and with a circlet of gold about his neck, the liberated bondslave, the victim of his brothers' cruelty, rode through the streets of the Egyptian capital in solemn procession, and assumed the government of one of the mightiest nations of the world. He married the daughter of the priest of the City of the Sun, and was thus allied with that haughty hierarchy who held the highest rank among the various classes into which the Egyptian population was divided. Without delay he matured his plans for the preservation of the country; and for seven years together built vast warehouses, and laid up enormous stocks of grain from the extraordinary abundance which for that period was yielded by the land.

At last the famine came. Egypt and the surrounding countries, as far as Chanaan, became barren, and the earth refused her fruits. No rain fell, or, at least, it was so scarce, that the Nile, whose yearly overflowings watered a large portion of all Egypt, and gave it the wonderful fertility it generally possessed, ceased to rise above its banks; and not only the Egyptians, but the people from other lands, came flocking to the Egyptian minister for supplies of corn. For some reason or other, however, which the Bible does not record, Joseph adopted a policy in distributing the corn he had collected which entirely changed the whole state of property and taxation throughout the dominions of the Egyptian monarch. Instead of giving the corn for no