ir merriment.

The centenarian is sitting dreaming over the past when he hears a
wagon rumbling to the front door. He gets up and goes to the door to
see who has arrived, and his long absent sons from Egypt come in and
announce to him that Joseph instead of being dead is living in an
Egyptian palace, with all the investiture of prime minister, next to
the king in the mightiest empire of all the world!

THE NEWS WAS TOO SUDDEN

and too glad for the old man, and his cheeks whiten, and he has a
dazed look, and his staff falls out of his hand, and he would have
dropped had not the sons caught him and led him to a lounge and put
cold water on his face, and fanned him a little.

In that half delirium the old man mumbles something about his son
Joseph. He says: "You do not mean Joseph, do you? my dear son who has
been dead so long. You don't mean Joseph, do you?" But after they had
fully resuscitated him, and the news was confirmed, the tears begin
the winding way down the cross roads of the wrinkles, and the sunken
lips of the old man quiver, and he brings his bent fingers together as
he says: "Joseph is yet alive. I will go and see him before I die."

It did not take the old man a great while to get ready, I warrant you.
He put on the best clothes that the shepherd's wardrobe could afford.
He got into the wagon, and though the aged are cautious and like to
ride slow, the wagon did not get along fast enough for this old man;
and when the wagon with the old man met Joseph's chariot coming down
to meet him, and Joseph got out of the chariot and got into the wagon
and threw his arms around his father's neck, it was an antithesis of

ROYALTY AND RUSTICITY,

of simplicity and pomp, of filial affection and paternal love, which
leaves us so much in doubt about whether we had better laugh or cry,
that we do both. So Jacob kept the resolution of the text: "I will go
and see him before I die." And if our friends the reporters would like
to have an appropriate title for this sermon, they might call it "The
Old Folks' Visit."

What a strong and unfailing thing is parental attachment! Was it not
almost time for Jacob to forget Joseph? The hot suns of many summers
had blazed on the heath; the river Nile had overflowed and receded,
overflowed and receded again and again; the seed had been sown and the
harvests reaped; stars rose and set; years of plenty and years of
famine had passed on; but the love of Jacob for Joseph in my t