er cometh!"

We might naturally expect that they would conspire against him. They
proposed to see whether or not this conceited young tattler would
become the tallest sheaf in the field and the centre of the whole solar
system there in little Canaan. He had himself to thank for getting in
wrong with his associates. He was not showing the qualities which make
for peace and joy and advancement.

But in the second place he was sent early in life to the school of
adversity. The place where he "prepared" was not much like "The Hill"
or Hotchkiss; it bore no resemblance whatever to Andover or Exeter. He
took all the grades in the commonest of all common schools. He was
under the tuition of struggle and difficulty. He was a Freshman, then
a Sophomore, a Junior and a Senior in the University of Experience,
where the college colours are always "black and blue" because the
lessons are learned by hard knocks. He learned obedience by the things
that he suffered. He had the conceit taken out of him by being knocked
down. He knew the meaning of the word "discipline," so that he could
have spelled it and parsed it forward and backwards and crosswise.

He was tried in these three ways: first, by being sold as a slave boy
into Egypt. His father sent him out to Dothan to see how his brothers
were faring with their flocks. When they saw him coming across the
plain they said, "Behold the dreamer! Let us cast him into a pit and
see what will become of his dreams."

His brothers seized him and threw him into a deep well, where there was
no water, intending to let him die in that horrible way. But when a
company of Ishmaelites came along on their way to Egypt, a happier
thought struck those men. Judah, who was always a thrifty soul, said,
"What profit is it if we slay our brother and conceal his blood?"
There is no money in murder. "Let us sell him to the Ishmaelites."

Here was the proverbial instinct, an eye for the main chance, already
on its feet and doing business in the very childhood of that race,
which has enjoyed such marked success in commercial pursuits. "Let us
sell him and let not our hand be upon him, for"--here emerges Mr.
Pecksniff, who is much older than the time of Dickens--"for he is our
brother and our flesh." His argument was plausible and the men drew
Joseph out of the pit and sold him to the Ishmaelites who carried him
down into Egypt. Now the hands of the ten men were not stained with
innocent b