MRS. M. A sort of tutelary idol retained by the heathens in their houses, under the vain imagination, that they derived protection and prosperity from their presence.

FANNY. You tell us, mother, no more of the venerable Isaac, or of Rebekah. Did they not live to receive the fugitive?

MRS. M. Isaac saw him return; his death is recorded soon after, (B. C. 1716) at the age of an hundred and fourscore years. Of Rebekah we hear no more, although the death and burial of Deborah, her nurse, one of the females who attended her from her father's house, is mentioned about this time.

Whilst all these things were transacting, the interests of Esau had not been neglected. Promises of temporal blessings had been given to him, and they were liberally verified. Finding his gentile connexions displeasing to his parents, he married a daughter of Ishmael, his kinsman. By these several wives, he had a numerous posterity. They became wealthy and powerful. Mount Seir, on the east and south of the Dead Sea, was at first their habitation. Thence they extended by degrees, through the western parts of Arabia Petrea, quite to the Mediterranean; and there we find them many ages after, under the name of Edomites, or Idumeans.

The Red Sea, or Arabian gulf, is said to take its name from Edom, or Esau, which signifies red-because his decendants inhabited its borders.

We come now to the beautiful story of Joseph, which is familiar to every one. We cannot however omit it, because it is intimately connected with the history of Israel.

CATHERINE. No matter how often it is repeated, mother. I have never read any thing so deeply interesting.

MRS. M. It is impossible to surpass the divine relation of the historian, nor could it be abridged without an injury to his unaffected simplicity. I touch it, therefore, with unaffected diffidence, and must be content to relinquish the embellishment of many inimitable strokes of noble eloquence, and continue briefly our narrative through the principal events of that patriarch's life. He was the favourite child of his father, and most probably, because he was the most amiable. For it would seem more likely that Benjamin, the Benoni, bequeathed with the last breath of his beloved Rachel, should engage the partial fondness of the bereavéd husband. But he loved Joseph more than all his other children, and excited their jealousy by imprudently displaying his affection.

*

Accustomed as they were to consider the elder as entitled to superior honours, they could not behold Joseph distinguished by a garment of curious texture, the mark of his father's peculiar favour, without envy and disgust. But Joseph was destined to be more nobly distinguished by wisdom and virtue, to fill a station of eminence, and distribute relief to a suffering community.

Intimations of his extraordinary fortune were given to him in two dreams, which in the innocency of his heart, he related to his family. "We were binding sheaves together in the field," said he, at one time," and my sheaf arose and stood up, and your sheaves stood round about, and made obeisance to mine." And at another, "" I thought, the sun and the moon, and the eleven stars, made obeisance to me."

CATHERINE. This designation of their number was

*Benoni," the son of my sorrow." The name given by his mother at the moment of her death.

too plain to be misunderstood, particularly by those, who envying him, might be watching for occasions of complaint.

MRS. M. Even his fond father felt the implication, and rebuked his seeming arrogance. "Shall I," said he, "and thy mother, and thy brethren, indeed, come to bow down ourselves to thee?" But the prediction sunk deep in his mind.

Jacob, who had been himself preferred to an elder brother, might very naturally have anticipated something more than the casual play of imagination in the dreams of his younger son; and brothers who might each have been flattering themselves with the promised blessing, now seemed to behold the object of their previous ill-will invested with their rightful honours. Like Esau, then, they determined to remove him from the possibility of supplanting them, and before he had passed his seventeenth year, an opportunity occurred to execute their atrocious plan.

They were shepherds, and tended their flocks, sometimes in one place, sometimes in another, occasionally changing for the benefit of pasturage. They were now supposed to be at Shechem, considerably distant from the vale of Hebron, the dwelling of the family, and had probably been a good while absent, as their father became anxious to hear from them. Unsuspicious of any danger to Joseph, whom he had kept at home, he sent him to visit his brothers, and bring him intelligence of their welfare. When Joseph arrived at Shechem, he was informed by a stranger of whom he inquired, that they had removed to Dothan. Thither, therefore, he followed them; and when they saw him approaching, and remembered

that he had on a former occasion reported some reprehensible conduct to their father; when they thought of his superior endowments and aspiring dreams, they saw the moment they had waited for, and proposed to put him to death, and deceive his father by some plausible tale.

Reuben, the eldest son of Leah, was not of the council, but overheard the shocking plan. Moved by compassion for his aged parent, he contrived to save the life of the helpless youth, by persuading his brothers rather to confine, and leave him to perish in the field, than stain their hands with his blood. To get him out of their way at any rate, was their object; after stripping him, therefore, of his clothes, regardless of his tears and entreaties, they cast him into a pit, and sat down unfeelingly to their accustomed meal.

Reu

Whilst they were yet eating and drinking, a caravan of Ishmaelitish merchants, carrying balm and spices to Egypt, appeared in sight. They dealt also in slaves, and now the avarice of these unnatural men, most happily suggested the sale of Joseph, rather than the unprofitable guilt of putting him to death. Accordingly they disposed of him to the traders, for twenty pieces of silver. ben, his advocate, had been absent during this last transaction. Returning to the pit, to conduct him in safety to his father, and not finding him, he ran in great consternation to his brothers, lamenting the sad accident! Instead of openly defending him against their violence, he had weakly condescended to preserve him by a stratagem, and now that he was lost, how should he return to his father! What could he now do? He could only unite with the more guilty, in devising a plan to conceal the whole. They killed a kid, and staining the coat of Joseph, they

carried it with affected simplicity to their father, and asked if he could certainly identify it!

The fond father knew at once the coat of his darling child, his own distinctive gift, and the conclusion was inevitable: " an evil beast hath destroyed my son, I will go mourning to my grave!" And absorbed in grief, he wrapped himself in the mourning garb of sackcloth, nor could the efforts of his children or his friends, alleviate his sorrow,

CATHERINE. How must envy have hardened their hearts, when they could be insensible to the tears of their aged sire!

MRS. M. Let this affecting example, my children, be a beacon to warn you against the least approach of such a baneful passion. These deluded men were gratified with the present success of their barbarous scheme; but they reflected not on the anguish they were preparing for themselves. (B. C. 1729.)

Meanwhile, their unoffending brother was carried by the traders into Egypt. His engaging countenance would readily procure a purchaser, and he became the property of Potiphar, an officer in the king's guard. Potiphar was a discerning man: under every disadvantage he discovered the extraordinary talents of Joseph, and though but a youth, a stranger, and a slave, to his management he committed all his affairs. Ten years he continued in this subordinate situation, conducting himself with unvarying prudence, and enjoying the utmost confidence of his master. All the house of Potiphar was blest for the sake of his Hebrew servant-the verification of whose auspicious vision seemed already to dawn,-when a cloud intervened, and obscured for a time his ascending glory. While Po