seemed to him there
was nothing else worth living for. Afterwards Joseph presented his
father to Pharaoh; and Jacob blessed Pharaoh; who allowed him and his
family to dwell in the land of Goshen.

[Illustration: JACOB PRESENTED TO PHARAOH.]

THE FINDING OF MOSES.

Pharoah, becoming alarmed at the increasing power and numbers of the
Israelites in Egypt, ordered that every male child who might be born
to them should be cast into the river, and drowned. But the wife of a
man named Levi felt that she could not give up her babe, and for three
months she hid him. When she could hide him no longer, she prepared a
basket of rushes, and coated it with pitch, so that it would float
upon the river and keep out the water. In this ark she placed her
infant son, and hid the ark among the flags and bulrushes on the
river-bank, and set the child's sister to watch it.

Now it happened that the daughter of Pharaoh came with her maidens to
bathe in the river; and when she saw the basket she sent one of her
maids to fetch it. And when she looked at the child he wept, and she
had compassion for him, and said, "This is one of the Hebrews'
children." Then the child's sister came forward and said to Pharaoh's
daughter, "Shall I call to thee a Hebrew woman that she may nurse the
child for thee?" And when the princess said, "Go!" she, the maid, went
and called her own mother, to whom Pharaoh's daughter said, "Take this
child and nurse him for me, and I will give thee thy wages." And the
woman took the child and nursed him. And when he had grown, his mother
took him to the princess, who adopted him as her son, and called his
name Moses, which means _drawn out_, because she took him from the
water. Afterwards he grew to be a great man: he was learned in all the
wisdom of the Egyptians; and we are told, "he was mighty in words and
deeds."

[Illustration: THE FINDING OF MOSES.]

THE FLIGHT FROM EGYPT.

When Moses was forty years old he had to flee from Egypt. He went to
Midian, where he dwelt for forty years; at the end of which time God
appeared to him, and instructed him to return to Egypt; where he was
appointed by God to lead the Israelites from bondage to the land of
Canaan. Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and delivered
to him God's command to let the people of Israel go; telling him that
if he disobeyed terrible plagues would come upon his land. Pharaoh
hardened his heart against God, and refused to le