the sons of Cham, and therefore not a pious race, but to marry one of his cousins, the daughters of Laban, Rebecca's brother. And Jacob journeyed on till he came to a place called Haran, near where he wished to rest for the night. So when the sun was set and darkness coming on, he took some stones, and laying them under his head for a pillow, he went to sleep. And in his sleep he saw a ladder standing upon the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven, and the angels of God were ascending and descending by it, passing, as it were, from earth to heaven and from heaven to earth. So that Jacob was now permitted by God to look into the invisible world; that world which is so real, though we do not see it. And Jacob saw the Lord leaning upon the ladder, and saying to him, "I am the Lord God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac. The land wherein thou sleepest I will give to thee and to thy seed. And thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth; thou shalt spread abroad to the west and to the east, and to the north and to the south. And IN THEE and in thy seed all the tribes of the earth shall BE BLESSED. And I will be thy keeper whithersoever thou goest, and will bring thee back into this land; neither will I leave thee till I shall have accomplished all that I have said."

And when Jacob awaked out of sleep, he said, "Indeed the Lord is in this place, and I knew it not." And, trembling, he said, "How terrible is this place! This is no other than the house of God, and the gate of heaven." Jacob realised how he had indeed been visited by God, who had Himself with His own words renewed to Jacob that promise that a Saviour should be born to the world from Jacob's descendants, and that thus through Him all mankind would be blessed. And when Jacob arose in the morning, he took the stone which he had had

for a pillow, and pouring oil upon it, he named it, calling it Bethel, or the House of God.

And Jacob married two wives, whose names were Lia and Rachel, and they were the daughters of Laban his mother's brother, into whose protection he had fled from Esau. And Jacob had eleven sons, twelve of whose descendants became the twelve tribes of Israel. Lia's sons were many more than Rachel's, and were older. We will mention some of their names, as they will be heard of in these Stories again. Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Juda, were all sons of Lia; but Rachel, whom Jacob loved the best of his wives, had for some time no children, but at last she had a son called Joseph, whom Jacob loved exceedingly for his mother's sake; she had also a younger son called Benjamin, and when he was born, she died. And God changed Jacob's name to Israel, so that his descendants the Jews were always called Israelites, as we know.

THE HISTORY OF JOSEPH.

Of all the sons of Jacob, or Israel, as we must now call him, Joseph is the one of whom Scripture speaks the most, and his history is so interesting that a whole book might be written of it alone. Joseph has been said to be a figure or type, a sort of picture or foreshadowing, of our Blessed Saviour; that is, there was a kind of resemblance between the extreme purity and innocence of Joseph, his zeal for the honour and glory of God and his perfect love of Him, and the attributes of our Blessed Lord in His sacred humanity. He was sold by his brethren, as our Lord by His own disciples; then too he became the

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prince or ruler of his people, even as that Lord whose servant he was was the King of the Jews; and Joseph became a prince after suffering the most terrible persecutions and almost death at the hands of his own brethren, just as our Blessed Saviour was indeed sold by His own apostle, and persecuted even unto death at the hands of His brethren the Jews, after which He entered as a king into His glory, which, however, was not of this world.

Joseph, we remember, was the elder of the two sons Israel had by Rachel, and Israel loved him more than all his children, perhaps seeing his goodness and his innocent life, as well as that he was the son of his wife Rachel, who was so much beloved by him. And he made for Joseph a coat of divers colours. Joseph was at this time about sixteen years old, and he kept the flocks of sheep and goats belonging to his father with his other brethren.

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And, sad to say, his brethren hated Joseph on account that his father loved him so much; and one day Joseph had a dream, which was not like common dreams which happen to us all, and usually mean nothing, but this dream was a sort of prophecy sent him by God to show him what was to come to pass to him and others. And Joseph related this dream to his brethren in the following words. Hear," said he, "my dream which I dreamed. I thought we were binding sheaves in the field, and my sheaf arose, as it were, and stood, and your sheaves, standing about, bowed down before my sheaf." And this account which Joseph gave of his dream caused his brethren to hate him worse than ever; they were almost frantic with anger, envy, and hatred at what they considered the pride of their brother, who, so much younger than themselves, prophesied that he should rule over them. And Joseph dreamed another dream, in which he

saw, as it were, the sun and moon and eleven stars worshiping him. And when he told his second dream to his father and his brethren, his father even was shocked and angry at first (not seeing that God had sent these inspirations to Joseph), and Israel rebuked him, and said, "What meaneth this dream that thou hast dreamed? Shall I, and thy mother, and thy brethren worship (or bow down to) thee upon the earth?" And his brothers again envied him; but his father afterwards reflected deeply upon these strange histories, which seemed to proceed in some mysterious way from God. And Joseph's brothers were in a country called Sichem, feeding the sheep and Israel said to Joseph, "Thy brethren feed the sheep in Sichem; come, and I will send thee to them, to see if all things are well with your brethren, and with the cattle; and then return to me and tell me." Joseph said he was ready, and set out, in obedience to his father's orders; and leaving the valley of Hebron, where they lived, he went to the country of Sichem, where, however, he did not at first find his brothers; but meeting a man who had seen them in Dothain, a country not far off, he went on there, and found them. When, however, his brothers saw Joseph far off, coming towards them, they said to each other, "Behold, the dreamer cometh; come, let us kill him, and cast him into some old pit, and we will say, Some evil beast hath devoured him; and then it shall appear what his dreams avail him." And Reuben, one of the brothers, who was more merciful than the rest, hearing what they said, tried to deliver Joseph out of their hands, and said, "Do not take away his life, nor shed his blood, but cast him into this pit. that is in the wilderness, and keep your hands harmless." Then Reuben intended, when the rest were gone, to take Joseph out of the pit, and give him back

to his father. Then his brothers seized upon Joseph, and stripped off him his many-coloured coat, which his poor father had given him, and cast him into an old pit, where there was no water; and when they had done this cruel deed, they sat down by the roadside to eat their bread.

And as they were thus occupied, they saw some Ismaelites, some of the descendants of Ismael, coming along on their road from the country of Galaad, with their camels, which were loaded with spices, and balm, and myrrh, which they were carrying into Egypt, to sell there. And knowing that these men were merchants, who bought and sold most things, and would buy and sell people for slaves, Juda, one of Joseph's elder brothers, proposed to the rest that they should sell Joseph to them; "for," said he, "what will it profit us to kill our brother, and conceal his blood? It is better that he be sold to the Ismaelites, and that our hands be not defiled; for he is our brother and our flesh." The rest of the brothers agreed to Juda's words; and they therefore sold Joseph to the Ismaelite merchants for twenty pieces of silver. And the merchants drew Joseph out of the pit, and carried him off with them to Egypt.

And Reuben, who seems to have been absent whilst this cruel bargain was made, returned, and looked into the pit for Joseph, and found, to his dismay, that he was gone. And Reuben, rending his garments (which was a common way in the East of expressing grief), went back to his brothers, and said, "The boy doth not appear; and whither shall I go?" No doubt Reuben thought how he should bear, the distress and misery of his father Jacob when he heard that his dear son Joseph had perished, as would appear, by a sudden and terrible death. For his brothers then took the coat, which