father would die. And thou saidst unto thy servants, Except your youngest brother come down with you, ye shall see my face no more. And it came to pass when we came up unto thy servant my father, we told him the words of my lord. And our father said, Go again, buy us a little food. And we said, We cannot go down: if our youngest brother be with us, then will we go down: for we may not see the man's face, except our youngest brother be with us. And thy servant my father said unto us, Ye know that my wife bare me two sons: and the one went out from me, and I said, Surely he is torn in pieces; and I have not seen him since: and if ye take this one also from me, and mischief befall him, ye shall bring down my gray hairs with sorrow to the grave. Now, therefore, when I come to thy servant my father, and the lad be not with us; seeing that his life is bound up in the lad's life; it shall come to pass, when he seeth that the lad is not with us, that he will die: and thy servants shall bring down the gray hairs of thy servant our father with sorrow to the grave. For thy servant became surety for the lad unto my father, saying, If I bring him not unto thee, then shall I bear the blame to my father for ever. Now therefore, let thy servant, I pray thee, abide instead of the lad a bondman to my lord; and let the lad go up with his brethren. For how shall I go up to my father, and the lad be not with me? lest I see the evil that shall come on my father.

      Then Joseph could not refrain himself before all them that stood by him; and he cried, Cause every man to go out from me. And there stood no man with him, while Joseph made himself known unto his brethren. And he wept aloud: and the Egyptians heard, and the house of Pharaoh heard. And Joseph said unto his brethren, I am Joseph; doth my father yet live? And his brethren could not answer him; for they were troubled at his presence. And Joseph said unto his brethren, Come near to me, I pray you. And they came near. And he said, I am Joseph your brother whom ye sold into Egypt. And now be not grieved, nor angry with yourselves, that ye sold me hither: for God did send me before you to preserve life. For these two years hath the famine been in the land; and there are yet five years in the which there shall be neither ploughing nor harvest. And God sent me before you to preserve you a remnant in the earth, and to save you alive by a great deliverance. So now it was not you that sent me hither, but God: and he hath made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house, and ruler over all the land of Egypt. Haste ye, and go up to my father, and say unto him, Thus saith thy son Joseph, God hath made me lord of all Egypt: come down unto me, tarry not: and thou shalt dwell in the land of Goshen, and thou shalt be near unto me, thou, and thy children, and thy children's children, and thy flocks, and thy herds, and all that thou hast: and there will I nourish thee; for there are yet five years of famine; lest thou come to poverty, thou, and thy household, and all that thou hast. And, behold, your eyes see, and the eyes of my brother Benjamin, that it is my mouth that speaketh unto you. And ye shall tell my father of all my glory in Egypt, and of all that ye have seen; and ye shall haste and bring down my father hither. And he fell upon his brother Benjamin's neck, and wept; and Benjamin wept upon his neck. And he kissed all his brethren, and wept upon them; and after that his brethren talked with him.

      Genesis, XLIV-V.

MIRIAM'S SONG

       Table of Contents

      (Read Exodus, XV.)

      Sound the loud timbrel o'er Egypt's dark sea!

       Jehovah hath triumphed—His people are free.

       Sing—for the pride of the tyrant is broken,

       His chariots and horsemen all splendid and brave,

       How vain was their boasting! the Lord hath but spoken,

       And chariots and horsemen are sunk in the wave.

       Sound the loud timbrel o'er Egypt's dark sea!

       Jehovah hath triumphed—His people are free.

      Praise to the Conqueror, praise to the Lord!

       His word was the arrow, His breath was our sword!

       Who shall return to tell Egypt the story

       Of those she sent forth in the power of her pride?

       For the Lord hath looked out from His pillar of glory,

       And all her brave thousands are dashed in the tide.

       Sound the loud timbrel o'er Egypt's dark sea!

       Jehovah hath triumphed—His people are free.

      Thomas Moore

THE DESTRUCTION OF SENNACHERIB

       Table of Contents

      (Read II. Kings, XIX. 35)

      The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold,

       And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold;

       And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea,

       When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee.

      Like the leaves of the forest when Summer is green,

       That host with their banners at sunset were seen:

       Like the leaves of the forest when Autumn hath blown,

       That host on the morrow lay withered and strown.

      For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast,

       And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed;

       And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill,

       And their hearts but once heaved, and for ever grew still!

      And there lay the steed with his nostril all wide,

       But through it there rolled not the breath of his pride:

       And the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf,

       And cold as the spray of the rock-beating surf.

      And there lay the rider, distorted and pale,

       With the dew on his brow, and the rust on his mail;

       And the tents were all silent, the banners alone,

       The lances unlifted, the trumpet unblown.

      And the widows of Ashur are loud in their wail,

       And the idols are broke in the temple of Baal;

       And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword,

       Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord!

      Byron

      The house of the wicked shall be overthrown:

       But the tent of the upright shall flourish.

       In the fear of the Lord is strong confidence:

       And his children shall have a place of refuge.

      Proverbs

THE LARK AT THE DIGGINGS

       Table of Contents

      The friends strode briskly on, and a little after eleven o'clock they came upon a small squatter's house and premises. "Here we are," cried George, and his eyes glittered with innocent delight.

      The house was thatched and whitewashed, and English was written on it and on every foot of ground round it. A furze-bush had been planted by the door. Vertical oak palings were the fence, with a five-barred gate in the middle of them. From the little plantation, all the magnificent trees and shrubs of Australia had been excluded with amazing resolution and consistency, and oak and ash reigned safe from overtowering rivals. They passed to the back of the house, and there George's countenance fell a little, for on the oval grass-plot and gravel-walk he found from thirty to