become of his dreams." how! shall we who have the adoption and covenant we who are the seed of the promise be guilty of fratricide? What! shall we who are called to lift up holy hands, and to offer pure oblations to the God of heaven, stain our souls with the blood of an innocent brother? Remember brethren, the blood of Abel cried from the earth to the Lord, to whom vengeance belongs; and will not the blood of Joseph rouse the wrath of the omnipotent? And who shall escape when an avenging God pursueth? Is our father partial in favour of the youth, the fault is not with him. Even envy itself must confess his merit. Are his dreams ominous of his future greatness; cannot Joseph be great without our being slaves to him? Shall we slay our brother for the licentious rovings of unbridled imagination? Who can answer for dreams? Could we even convict him of ambition, might not his youth and inexperience in some measure plead his excuse? Further experience, growing acquaintance with men and things, would teach him that man is not originally designed for slavery, Let the old man our father plead for his Joseph. His life is wrapt up in that of his child. And will you dare to murder the father in the son, and pierce his heart through the blood of his Joseph? Think of our father my brethren; see him weeping a detested life away over his murdered son; murdered by the begotten of his father; murdered by the very men. in whom he confided without reserve, Let the fear of God, and the love due to so venerable a father, be advocates for his helpless youth; and let me never see the evil that shall, by this villainous barbarity, be brought upon Israel, the favourite of heaven.'

"Not so(replied Reuben);

"Is this Reuben," with malicious irony cried Levi, "Reuben the first-born of Jacob? The pious Reuben, who in a phrenzy of brutal lust crept into his father's bed and defiled it? Where was thy fear of God, thy love and veneration for thy father then? Art thou our dictator? Thou who couldst not spare even thy father's wife, all of a sudden become so pi

ous? Art thou so careful for thy father's life, thou who alone hadst audacity to cuckold him? Let shame for ever shut Reuben's mouth and leave it to good men to be advocates for virtue."

"Your invective, my brother," said Reuben, "stings me with the keenest remorse. I own the charge to be just, and cannot forget the evil of my sin. I have dishonoured my God, my father, and myself; and have left thereby an indelible stain on my offspring to the latest generation. But the heavy days, and the many sleepless nights, that this foul miscarriage hast cost me, though they can never extenuate my highly aggravated guilt from before the God of Jacob; might in some measure exempt me from the upbraidings of my brethren. Believe me, Levi, my own conscience serves as a thousand reprovers, and needs not your cruel assistance. Yet it is just, my brother, and I cannot resent it. But my former impiety, is indeed the reason wherefore I cannot fall into your bloody measures. My conscience too, loudly tells me that I have guilt enough upon my soul already, without contracting more in such an horrid manner as this, which Simeon has prescribed; that I have already been the cause of more than enough of sorrow, to my dear and honoured father, without joining in the murder of his son, to bring down his venerable hoary head, with insupportable sorrow to the grave. He whose conscience groans under the weight of incestuous adultery, has little need to add to the burden, the tremendous weight of innocent blood. I cannot therefore consent to the deed.""

"The indelible stain which Reuben, by his own confession, hath fix'd on himself and offspring, may reconcile the baseness of his mind to slayery," said Simeon; but our seed is free, and not born to servitude. Therefore Joseph by my advice shall die; if pious and reformed Reuben will not consent to his death, he dies along with him. Why should he live to be able to accuse us to our father? One condition and only one, if you are all agreed, I would have

offered to Reuben; if he agrees to that he lives, and if not, he and Joseph die together, for he shall never be the publisher of our guilt. Let Reuben become our accomplice, otherwise bind himself by an oath to the most inviolable secresy. By this alone can he hope to prolong his life. Speak, Reuben, do ye accept the conditions?"

"Give me till to-morrow about this time to consider of it, and then you shall have my answer," replied Jacob's elder-born,

"One hour, and no more, we grant, at which time we expect your answer," rejoined the brethren in wickedness.

By this time Joseph came nigh to his brethren, and smiling with delight at having found them all together, came near to embrace them, and enquire after their health. But what inexpressible surprise seized him, when instead of returning his caresses, they turned away from him, and shook him off, with vengeance louring on their countenances. Instantly he is seized, stript of his rich party-colured coat, and fettered both hands and feet. Alarmed, Reuben cried, "Stop, stay your hand but one hour, the hour promised and ye shall then have my answer." All agreed that one hour and no more, should be granted ere Joseph was put to death: and Reuben casting a look of despair and pity on his fettered brother, "I wish," said he, "your duty to your father, and love to your brethren, could have admitted your staying at home, instead of visiting these men who are bent upon your destruction;" so saying, he precipitately withdrew to consider what answer he should deliver to his brethren.

The elder brother gone, and Joseph enclosed amidst his sanguinary brethren, like an helpless lamb amongst so many voracious wolves, was thus addressed by one of them: "Ambitious youth! think now of your state, one hour elapsed and the tide of your ambition is for ever stemmed, one hour puts a period to your life, which is forfeited to our liberty. Die you must and shall if fate had decreed the con

trary. He replied, "Had I known the malignity of your intentions, I might have avoided the snare; but duty to my father and to my brethren, and therefore duty to my God brings me here; if he hath led me hither for slaughter, I ought, I must submit, but if my God sees it for the honour of his majesty to preserve me, he hath power to change your purposes, as he turns the rivers of waters, or may point out means whereby I may be delivered from your vengeance. Tell me what I have done, wherein I have offended you; if I have erred it is unwittingly, and it is hard to be put to death for inadvertency. Make known my faults and if I reform them not let loose your fury upon me. But I adjure you by the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, that ye slay me not unconvicted. If I have wronged any of you, I am willing to make restitution to the utmost; if I have offended, to submit myself, and to implore forgiveness; but O cut me not off in my youth, before I arrive at the state of manhood!" "Yes, youngster," replied Simeon," you have wronged us so, that you cannot make restitution. You have stolen the affections of a partial father, which you cannot restore; you have set yourself up by your pretended dreams, as our lord and governor; ye have made us and our children, yea, and our father himself to do homage to your pride; but we shall soon see what your greatness will come to. You shall not live to triumph over your enslaved brethren; die you must."

"Álas! must I then die for my dreams! Which of you has the government of his fancy whilst asleep? Oh Simeon! my brother Simeon, could I help my dreams? I little thought that they would have given offence to any of you when I innocently related them. I want no superiority, I account myself unworthy even of equal regard, much more so of superior esteem. If my father shews any partiality towards me, it is for my mother's sake, and not for any thing in And must I die for any little partiality in my father? Make the case your own my dear Simeon, would you like to be put to death for any rovings of

me.

your dreaming imagination? To be murdered in cold blood for what you could not possibly help? If I must die for having dreamed a dream which you think portends felicity and greatness, give me leave to relate to you one that I dreamed last night; if the former excited your anger and resentment, the latter may as justly entitle me to your compassion and sympathy." Leave obtained, he related the dream he had in the tent of the Canaanite, which his brethren heard with rising indignation; and as soon as he had finished, Simeon spoke to his brethren with fury flashing from his eyes; "This dream is an artful contrivance of the insolent wretch to fix a lasting reproach upon us, and upon our seed. We my brethren, are intended by the deadly serpents: perhaps I myself am meant by one of the adders that warped themselves about his legs, and wakened him in such a fright: but why do we suffer him to prate any longer? One stroke of my scimitar will put an end to his insolence. Ambitious wretch! thou shalt prate no more." Here he drew his sword, and rushed up to have cloven the strippling in twain; but Judah caught him in his arms, and cried, "Stop, stop my Simeon. Lemember the promise we have just now made to Reuben; wait the time, and let us see what resolution he comes to."

"O Judah!" cried Joseph, "Judah, my honoured brother; thou art he whom thy brethren shall praise: May I hope to find an intercessor in thee? What if thy sons, either Er or Onan, were in the same con dition in which thou seest me? How would thy bowels yearn over them! See their distress in mine: feel my father's affliction in thine own: act a faithful part in delivering me from mine enraged brethren, who are this day risen up against me without a cause. O Judah! let me owe my life, and all the happiness of it, to a brother so honourable in the house of his father. And you, O Simeon and Levi! think, think of the guilt ye will bring upon yourselves by perpetrating a deed so horrid! Ye may escape punishment from the hand of man, but assure yourselves ye will