nch waved
a friendly greeting and he quickly grasped it. But scarcely was it in
his hand ere the figure of the prophetess melted into the air like mist,
which the morning breeze blows away. In painful astonishment he now
gazed at the spot where she had stood, and surprised and troubled by his
strange choice, though he felt that he had made the right one, he asked
the child what her gift imported to him and to the people.

She waved her hand to him, pointed into the distance, and uttered three
words whose gentle musical sound sank deep into his heart. Yet hard as
he strove to catch their purport, he did not succeed, and when he asked
the child to explain them the sound of his own voice roused him and he
returned to the camp, disappointed and thoughtful.

Afterwards he often tried to remember these words, but always in vain.
All his great powers, both mental and physical, he continued to devote
to the people; but his nephew Ephraim, as a powerful prince of his
tribe, who well deserved the high honors he enjoyed in after years,
founded a home of his own, where old Nun watched the growth of
great-grand-children, who promised a long perpetuation of his noble
race.

Everyone is familiar with Joshua's later life, so rich in action, and
how he won in battle a new home for his people.

There in the Promised Land many centuries later was born, in Bethlehem,
another Jehoshua who bestowed on all mankind what the son of Nun had
vainly sought for the Hebrew nation.

The three words uttered by the child's lips which the chief had been
unable to comprehend were:

"Love, Mercy, Redemption!"

ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:

A school where people learned modesty
Asenath, the wife of Joseph, had been an Egyptian
Brief "eternity" of national covenants
But what do you men care for the suffering you inflict on others
Childhood already lies behind me, and youth will soon follow
Choose between too great or too small a recompense
Good advice is more frequently unheeded than followed
Hate, though never sated, can yet be gratified
I do not like to enquire about our fate beyond the grave
Most ready to be angry with those to whom we have been unjust
Omnipotent God, who had preferred his race above all others
Pleasant sensation of being a woman, like any other woman
Precepts and lessons which only a mother can give
Regard the utterances and mandates of age as wisdom