THE GARDEN OF EDEN
In this garden they were very good and happy. God himself used to come down and talk to them in the cool of the evening.
He told Adam and Eve that He had made everything for them, and that the trees with their sweet fruit were for their food.
But God gave them one command. He said they were not to eat the fruit of one particular tree in the garden. God knew the fruit of this tree would make Adam and Eve very unhappy, if they ate it.
Now I must explain to you that there were some of God's angels who had been very disobedient, and they had been shut out of heaven because they would not obey God.
Adam and Eve were very happy, as I said, and they did not think of disobeying God till Satan (that wicked angel who tries to make us do naughty things) hid himself in a serpent, and came to Eve and began to talk to her.
Eve was not surprised that a serpent could talk to her, for so many wonderful things were around her, that she listened to him, and answered him, without thinking it was any harm.
This is how temptation often comes to us, children!
Satan began by asking Eve a very clever question. He said, "Are you sure God has said that you may not eat of every tree in the garden?"
Then Eve said eagerly, "We may eat of every tree except one; but if we eat of that one we shall have to die!"
Then the serpent said to Eve, "You will not have to die! You will only be a great deal more wise than you are now!"
And so Eve looked longingly at the tree, and when she saw that the fruit looked so nice, and heard that it would make her clever, she forgot all about obeying God, and picked the fruit and ate it, and gave some to Adam her husband, and he ate it too.
PICKED THE FRUIT AND ATE IT.
Oh, how sad was their disobedience, and what sorrow it brought on them and their children!
So the Lord God sent them out of the beautiful garden, because there was in the midst of the garden the Tree of Life, and God did not wish them to eat of that tree now.
So He put angels at the gate of Eden with a flaming sword, to keep the way of the Tree of Life.
Then Adam and Eve went out sorrowfully from their lovely garden, and Adam had to work very hard in digging the ground to plant things to grow for that food.
Eve was very sad too, and in the end they both had to die, as God had said.
But God is very pitiful, and when He was telling Eve how wrong she had been, and what a cruel enemy the Serpent was, He promised her that some day a Deliverer should come, who should destroy the serpent, Satan.
This Deliverer is Jesus Christ our Saviour, Who came to earth to live and to die for us, that He might undo all that Satan had done to hurt us, and make all who will trust Jesus, happy in heaven for ever.
And in the Revelation, we read a beautiful promise, which tells us something about Heaven that we never could have guessed when we saw poor Adam and Eve driven out of Eden—
"To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the Tree of Life,
which is in the midst of the Paradise of God!"
XXIX. Cain and Abel
By and by God gave Adam and Eve two sons. The eldest was named Cain, who helped Adam till the ground; and the younger was named Abel, who was a keeper of sheep.
After a time, both these young men brought an offering to the Lord; and the Lord accepted the offering of Abel, which was a lamb from the flock, but He could not accept the offering of fruit which Cain brought.
Perhaps you wonder at that, dear children? But I will try to explain it to you. God looks on the heart, and Abel's heart was obedient. He brought that which God had appointed as the way to come to Him. But Cain was not obedient; he thought that the fruit of the ground which he had taken such trouble to grow, would do just as well!
So when he found that God did not accept his offering, he was very angry, and his countenance fell.
And the Lord said to him, "Why are you angry, Cain? If you do well, shall it not be accepted? And if you do not do well, a Sin-offering lies at the door."
I think that GOD meant Cain to understand that it was only by a Sacrifice that we can come near to Him. And when, all through the Old Testament, we read of the sacrifice of a lamb as an offering for sin, God accepted the lamb, because He looked on to the time when the Lord Jesus would be "The Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world."
But Cain did not heed God's gentle persuasion, that he too could bring a sin-offering; and presently, when he was alone with his brother, he got more and more angry, and at last rushed at him and struck him and killed him!
Oh, the misery of poor Cain! No one can tell how he longed to undo that cruel deed. No one knows the sorrow and punishment of his whole life.
Children, let it be a warning to us not to let anger and jealousy live in our hearts, but let us pray every day, "Deliver me from Satan, the Evil one, who would tempt me to sin against Thee, and accept me, for Jesus' sake!"
XXX. The Escape from Sodom
Then the two angels rose up and went towards Sodom, and the Lord remained talking with Abraham.
He told Abraham that He intended to destroy Sodom, because the city was so very wicked!
Now Abraham knew that his nephew Lot was living there, and he begged God to spare Sodom if there were fifty good people there. And the Lord promised to spare it if there were!
But Abraham began to fear there were not so many; and he kept on asking the Lord, till at last he got down to ten! and the Lord said He would spare it for ten's sake.
And then the Lord went on His way, and Abraham went back to his home.
But when the angels got to Sodom, they could not even find ten who loved God!
They found Lot and his family, and urged them to escape for their lives across the plain, and not once to look behind them, for Sodom was going to be burned all up!
So Lot escaped with his wife and two daughters and fled for his life. But his wife was disobedient to God's message, and turned to look back, and she was turned into a pillar of salt.
And so the great and wicked city was destroyed by a terrible judgment from the Lord, but Lot was saved!
Dear children! God has sent Jesus to be our Saviour, let us fly to Him from our sins, and so be safe for ever in His happy, happy land.
XXXI. The Tower of Babel
"What a great tower!" says someone. "And how high it is! Look; the houses are so small down there on that great sort of field, and the tower is going to be built higher still, because, you see, it is not finished!"
You are quite right! That beautiful tower never was finished, though it was begun four thousand years ago!
I told you about the Flood; and this is the next story after the Flood.
You remember that when the rain stopped, and God allowed the waters to go down, the tops of the mountains began to be seen, and then the green fields were uncovered, and Noah and his children and all the animals were able to come out of the Ark, and to begin to live on the earth again.
But, alas, as men began to increase on the earth, they began to forget God, and the way He had saved them in the Ark. But they remembered the flood, and they thought in their pride, that they would build a very high tower whose top should reach to Heaven, so that no flood could overwhelm them any more.
But there was another thing they forgot; and that was God's promise to them, that He never would send a flood to destroy the world again.
Then God came down from Heaven to see all that the men on the earth were doing. And when He saw their pride and their forgetfulness of Him, the Lord said, Let us go down and prevent the men from understanding each other's speech.
THEY WOULD BUILD A VERY HIGH TOWER.
And when God had done this, the men could not speak to each other about their work as they used. It was just as if someone were to speak German or Italian or Spanish to you and expect you to understand.
So the men could not build any more, for no one could understand what the others said. So they left off building and were scattered to all parts of the earth; and the city they had tried to build was called Babel—which means Confusion.
But God did not forget His servant Noah, nor Noah's good son Shem. He took care of Shem and of his children after him, and by and by of Shem's grandchildren and great-grandchildren, till at length Abraham was born.
And Abraham had the great honour of being called The Friend of God!
Perhaps you think how much you would like to be called such a name as that?
Then let all of us who would like to be called God's friends set out to be obedient.
God has put in the Bible rules which are to guide us every day. If we follow them, that is being obedient.
Do you remember what the Lord Jesus said about that, when He was on earth?
Here are the words,—
"Ye are My friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you."
"For whosoever shall do the Will of My Father which is in Heaven,
the same is My brother and sister and mother."
XXXII. The Friend of God
"Now the Lord had said to Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy father's house, unto a land which I will shew thee; and I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee . . . and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed."
So Abram obeyed, and went out from Ur of the Chaldees, and came into the land of Canaan.
God had given Abram most wonderful promises, as well as frequent assurances of His love. He was also very rich, for God had given him a great deal of money, and many sheep and oxen and camels.
But there was one thing which God had not given Abram, which he longed for very much; and this was a little child of his very own.
God loved Abram, and He would not have denied him his desire without some wise and loving reason.
God promised Abram that he should have a son, but He wished to prove to all the world, and to the angels who are looking on at what happens on this earth, that Abram could trust Him, and trust His promise even though he should have to wait twenty years for it.
Abram had brought his wife Sarah, and his nephew Lot with him, when he left his own country; but after a time he and Lot had so many sheep and oxen that there was not grass enough for them all; so Lot chose the land towards Sodom, and Abram dwelt in the land of Canaan.
One day the word of God came to Abram in a vision or dream, saying, "Fear not, Abram, I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward!"
Then Abram told the Lord how he wanted a son of his own, for he had no one to take all his riches by and by, except the servant who managed his property.
And God promised Abram that he should have a son of his very own.
And God led him out in the night when all the beautiful stars were shining in the deep blue sky, and God said, "Look now towards heaven, and tell the stars if thou be able to count them"; and God said, "So shall the number of your children be!"
And Abram believed in the Lord, and He counted it to him for righteousness.
Do you not think, children, that as Abram walked on those lonely mountains in Palestine, that he must often have thought "God has promised all this land to me and my children!" And then, when he looked up at the stars at night in the clear atmosphere, that he must have been lost in wonder at the thousands and thousands of stars which he saw, and have said to himself, "God promised so shall my seed be!"
The Lord Jesus, in the New Testament, tells us something about Abraham which we do not read in Genesis.
He said "Abraham rejoiced to see my day, he saw it and was glad!"
How wonderful it is that God notices and remembers when we try to please Him, and sees our hearts when nobody else can!
At length Abram was ninety years old, and the Lord appeared to him again, and told him that his name should not be called Abram any more, but Abraham, because he was to be a father of many nations. And then God told Abraham that very soon he and Sarah were to have a little son, and that his name was to be called Isaac.
So one day Abraham was sitting at the door of his tent in the heat of the day, when he looked up and saw three men standing by him; and when he saw them, he ran to meet them and bowed himself to the ground.
Perhaps Abraham guessed that one of the three men was the Lord; for afterwards he did not seem at all surprised when the Lord spoke to him, and promised to give Sarah a little son very soon.
At any rate he begged the three men to rest beneath the tree while he hastened away to prepare food to refresh them.
Then he took butter and milk and a young calf which he had cooked, and set it before them and he stood by under the tree, and they did eat.
Then they asked him where Sarah was, and Abraham answered that she was in the tent.
And the Lord said, "I will certainly return and Sarah, thy wife, shall have a son."
Now Sarah was just inside the tent, and when she heard the words, she laughed within herself.
And the Lord said to Abraham, "Why did Sarah laugh, saying, 'Shall I of a surety have a child?' Is anything too hard for the Lord? At the time appointed I will return unto thee, and Sarah shall have a son."
And Sarah was ashamed that she had doubted God's promise, and she denied, saying, "I did not laugh," for she was afraid.
But the Lord said, "Nay, but thou didst laugh."
XXXIII. In a Thirsty Land
This is a nice story for children, because it tells us that God listens when children pray, and sympathizes with all that happens to children.
The boy you see in the picture is almost dying for want of water. Perhaps none of you children know how dreadful it is to be really very thirsty, and have nothing to drink, however thirsty you may be.
Hagar, the mother of the boy, is very sad. She knows that the bottle is empty, and she cannot see any sign of a well, or of a spring of water, in the great sandy desert which stretches in every direction as far as the eye can see.
Ishmael is her one child, and God has allowed them to be sent out into the wilderness, with only a bottle of water and as much bread as they can carry; for Hagar had been turned out of her home, and had been obliged to take that long and dangerous journey, because of the unkindness of her mistress Sarah.
But God was watching over her and Ishmael. He would not allow anything to really hurt them, and in His great pity, He sent to save them when all other help had failed.
By and by there was not one drop of water left in the bottle, and Ishmael had no strength to walk any further.
Hagar knew that all hope was over, now that Ishmael could not walk another step! So she laid him down under a little shrub that grew there, and went some little distance off, for she said in her grief, "I cannot bear to see him die."
So she sat down in her misery and cried bitterly.
But God heard the voice of the lad, and He sent His angel to call to Hagar from heaven. "What is the matter, Hagar? Do not be afraid, for God has heard the voice of the lad, where he is. Arise, lift up the lad and hold him in thine hand; for I will make of him a great nation."
Then God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water; and she went and filled the bottle with water, and gave the lad drink, and he revived, and presently got quite well.
And this is the lesson which we may learn from Ishmael's cry, children.
God knows our difficulties; God hears us when we speak to Him; God is nearer than we think; God is more loving than the most loving of earthly friends. He tells us to call upon Him in trouble.
Let us think of Ishmael dying for want of water, and crying to God in his distress, and let us do the same in our troubles!
No matter how small they may seem, God says He cares.
Let us take courage, then; and if God whispers to us when we are sorrowful (like He did to Hagar), "What aileth thee—what is the matter?" Let us listen for another whisper, for He will surely finish the sentence to us, as He did to Hagar, with the cheering words, "Fear not!"
XXXIV. The Offering of Isaac
So Abraham was given his dear little son Isaac, and he was the delight of Abraham's life, and of Sarah's too.
But by and by, God wished to try Abraham's faith more than even in that long waiting time for Isaac. God was going to ask him to do about the hardest thing that a man could be asked to do.
God told Abraham that he was to take his dear son whom he so fondly loved, and to go to a mountain a long way off, in the land of Moriah, and to offer him up to God as a sacrifice.
This was to try Abraham's obedience and faith.
Was he to take Isaac! On whom all his hopes rested, who was the joy of his life, and through whom all the world was to be blessed; was he to lay him upon the altar, and offer him up to God, as he did the lambs from his flock?
But Abraham did not hesitate. If God told him to do a thing, he obeyed. He knew that God could even raise Isaac from the dead, if He thought good. At any rate he had nothing to do, but to obey!
So he got up very early in the morning and saddled his ass, and took two young men with him, and his son, and the wood for the burnt offering, and set out on his journey to the place God had told him of.
The most precious thing Abraham had was that son who was walking beside him. And besides his love for his boy, God had promised that Isaac should live to have a son, and that by and by the Saviour should come into the world as one of Isaac's great-great-great-great-grandchildren!
Isaac was now grown into a strong young man, but he went with his father; and though he asked him on the way, Where was the lamb for the burnt offering? He was satisfied with his father's answer, "My son, God will provide Himself a lamb for a burnt offering."
When they reached the place which God had told him of, Abraham bound Isaac his son, and laid him upon the altar; and then he stretched out his hand with the knife in it, to offer up his son as God had told him.
But as quickly as the knife was raised, so quickly an angel of God called out of heaven, "Abraham, Abraham!"
Oh, how glad Abraham was to draw back that dreadful knife and answer, "Here am I!"
And God said, "Lay not thy hand upon the lad, neither do thou anything to him; for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son, from ME."
And when Abraham looked up, he saw a ram caught by his horns in a bush; and he took him and offered him up instead of his son.
So Isaac was given back to his loving father, and God was very pleased with Abraham's obedience, and He told him that in Isaac's children, by and by, all the nations of the world should be blessed.
For in about eighteen hundred years after this, the Lord Jesus Christ was coming to this earth to be "The Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world"; and I think that when Abraham said, "God Himself will provide a lamb," he was thinking, not only of the saving of Isaac's life, but of that far-off day when Jesus should bear our sins, instead of us, on the Cross of Calvary, that we may go free!
XXXV. A Bargain Between Two Brothers
By and by Isaac grew up to be a man.
Abraham and Sarah heard that in Abraham's old home in Mesopotamia, his brother Nahor had a family of sons and daughters, and they thought it would be very nice if Isaac could have one of these daughters for his wife. So Abraham called Eliezer, his chief servant, and told him to prepare for a long journey, as he wished him to bring back a wife for his son Isaac.
Eliezer was afraid that the maiden would not come so far, but Abraham told him that God would send His angel with him to prosper him on his way.
So Eliezer took some valuable presents, and set out with camels and servants to seek for a wife for his master's son.
He at length reached the city of Nahor, where Abraham used to live. It seems that Eliezer used to pray about everything! If he could not kneel down to pray, he prayed in his heart; and to those who tell God everything, God sends very quick answers.
In those hot countries, the caravans stop outside the city at the well, so that the thirsty men as well as the camels may drink.
Then Eliezer prayed, and asked God to send out the maiden to draw water, who was to be the wife of Isaac, and to point her out to him by her offering to draw water for the camels; and it all happened just as he had prayed.
Rebecca came out of the city with a pitcher upon her shoulder, which she carried to the well and filled with water.
When Eliezer ran to meet her, and asked her for a drink, she hastened to give him some, and offered at once to fill the trough and water all the thirsty camels. Then Eliezer asked her whose daughter she was, and when she told him, he knew at once that God had guided him to the very maiden whom Abraham wanted his son to marry!
Was not this a quick answer? And Eliezer not only asked, but he thanked God for the answer. "And the man bowed down his head and worshipped the Lord."
Then he gave Rebecca some beautiful presents; as well as many precious things for her mother and her brother.
And so Rebecca consented to go back with Eliezer and became Isaac's wife; and Isaac was very glad his father had sent for her all that long way, for he loved her very much.
By and by God sent Isaac and Rebecca two little twin sons, who grew up to be men.
Esau was the elder, and Jacob was the younger.
Esau was a very clever hunter, and lived an adventurous life among the mountains, and was often away for days in his hunting excursions.
Jacob, however, preferred staying quietly at home, living in the tents, and looking after the flocks and herds.
Isaac was now getting old, and he loved Esau the best of his two sons, because Esau often brought him a wild animal from his hunting, and would cook it for his father and make it into a savoury dish.
But Rebecca loved Jacob the best; and in after years, through her making him such a favourite, she had the greatest sorrow of her life.
One day Esau came in from a long journey, and though he had succeeded in catching and bringing home an animal, he had had nothing to eat for a long time and as he got near to the tents where they all lived, he saw his brother Jacob sitting eating a bowlful of red pottage, which he had just made for himself.
Esau was very faint and hungry, with such hunger as you and I, dear children, have probably never felt. Very likely he had tasted no food that day, and perhaps not the day before. The sight of the steaming bowl of pottage made him feel as if he would give anything he possessed for some of it to stop the pangs of hunger.
Now I am sorry to tell you that Jacob had a very mean character. Though he truly loved God and wished to please Him, his natural character was very shifty.
So when his brother Esau asked him eagerly to give him his bowl of pottage, Jacob did not jump up and press it upon his hungry brother, but he thought it was a good opportunity to make a bargain!
"If I do give it to you, sell me your birthright!" he exclaimed.
Now among the Jews, the birthright of being the eldest son, God had made a great honour. It was most jealously guarded and taken care of; and God gave great blessings with it.
But Esau did not love God truly in his heart, as Jacob did; he was busy with other things, and had never given it a thought that to love and serve God was more important than anything else.
So he said to Jacob, "I am so faint for food that I am ready to die! What good will this birthright do me?"
So Jacob answered, "You must give me your most sacred promise that you sell it to me for this pottage of lentils!"
And Esau promised most solemnly; and so he sold his birthright!
Then Jacob gave Esau some bread, and his pottage of lentils, and Esau ate and drank, and rose up and went away.
And thus, he despised the birthright which God had given him. He was very very sorry afterwards, but he could not undo what he had done.
I think this is a very sorrowful story, because there are so many people like Esau, who turn away from God's best gifts, and seek only the earthly things which will quickly pass away.
Let the lesson to us, dear children, be to love God first and best of all—before food or clothes, or toys, or happiness—to put God first; and when we have Him for our own, He will take care that we shall have all we need to make us happy; and at the end "a Right to the Tree of Life; and we shall enter in through the gates, into the Heavenly City."
XXXVI. The Ladder up to Heaven
Though Jacob loved God truly, he was not very truthful, and had many faults.
This is very sad, but I think knowing about it is a help to you and me, dear children, because we see that in spite of all, God loved him and forgave him, and taught him as He led him through his long life, to try more and more to please Him in everything.
Jacob had bargained with his hungry brother Esau for his Birthright, and had got it from him.
After a time when Isaac, his father, was very old and was soon going to die, Rebecca heard Isaac asking Esau to go out hunting and bring him home some savoury meat, for he wished to bless him before he died.
Directly Esau was gone, Rebecca called Jacob to her, and together they planned to deceive Isaac, who was nearly blind with age, by Jacob's dressing up in Esau's clothes and pretending to be his first-born son.
So Jacob got his father's blessing as well as the Birthright; and Esau was so terribly angry that he said he would kill his brother when his father was dead. When Rebecca heard of this, she begged Jacob to fly to Haran, where her brother Laban lived, and stay there until Esau was pacified.
Then she went to Isaac and told him that they would send Jacob to get a wife from her old home, and Isaac agreed, and Rebecca sent her son away and never saw his face again.
Oh, sad deception! What sorrow it brought on both Rebecca and Jacob!
So Jacob set out on his long journey and one night he came to a lonely places far from any village where people lived.
Jacob was tired and the sun had set, and he had no light to guide him, so he thought he would lie down where he was, and go to sleep till daylight.
Then he had a wonderful dream, and this is what he saw: Right in front of him was a ladder set up on the earth, and it went up till the top reached right to heaven. And he could see the angels of God going up and coming down upon it.
But beyond all, in the radiant glory, the Lord stood above the ladder and spoke to Jacob. He told him that He was the Lord God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and that by and by through his children's children should come the One who was to be the Blessing of the whole world.
We know the name of that Holy One Who is the world's blessing; it is Jesus Christ, Who came into the world to save sinners!
Then Jacob awoke from his dream and said, "Surely the Lord is in this place! . . . This is none other than the gate of heaven!"
So he took the stones on which he had been resting, and set them up for an altar to the Lord, and made a vow that he would serve God all his life, and would give to God the tenth part of everything that God gave to him.
Now it seems to me, children, that this Ladder up to heaven comes into our lives every day.
Jesus, our Saviour, is like the ladder which rested on the earth close to Jacob; and He is gone back to heaven now to be there to help us in every way: that is the top of the ladder which reached to heaven, where the Lord stood and spoke to Jacob.
So when you see this picture, say to yourselves, "Jesus is my ladder! He is close to me here, He is close to God there! He will never leave me nor forsake me; I can send messages and prayers every time I am lonely or in trouble, and He will send back answers if I wait for them."
So Jacob went on his journey over the desert and at length reached the country to the East, where he hoped he would find his mother's relations.
XXXVII. Jacob meets Rachel
One day Jacob sat down by a well, and looking about him he saw a number of flocks coming near and waiting by the mouth of the well, which had a large stone upon it. So he asked the shepherds whether they knew a man called Laban; and they told him that they did, and that his daughter Rachel was even now coming with her father's flock!
So Jacob was very glad to see Rachel, and went to the well and rolled the stone away, and watered the flock for her. And then he told Rachel that his mother was Rebecca, Laban's sister; and she ran and told her father.
JACOB WAS VERY GLAD TO SEE RACHEL.
Then there was great rejoicing, and Laban welcomed Jacob to his home, and he began to take care of the flocks.
When Jacob had been there a month, Laban asked him what wages he would have, and whether he would stay with him? And Jacob gladly consented, for he loved Rachel very much, and promised to serve Laban for seven years, if he would give him Rachel for his wife.
So at the end of the time, Rachel became his wife; and by and by, God sent her a little son called Joseph, who was going to be, many years afterwards, a great ruler in the land of Egypt!
XXXVIII. The Story of Joseph
You have often heard of Joseph's coat of many colours, and of his being sold by his brothers into Egypt.
So I am going to tell you a little about him, and then you will understand how he came to have that beautiful coat. I have read that generally the eldest son was given a bright coloured, beautifully-worked coat; but Joseph was the eleventh son, and Jacob, his father, gave him that pretty coat because he loved him so very much.
When his brothers saw it, they felt very jealous, and hated Joseph because his father made him such a favourite.
Now jealousy is a very wretched feeling. It is wrong as well as wretched. If boys and girls—or grown up people-give way to jealousy, they may by and by do very unkind and wicked things. The Bible says "Jealousy is cruel as the grave," and you will see as we go on with the story of Joseph, how very true it was in his case.
One day Joseph had a very wonderful dream, and he told his brothers about it.
He had dreamed that he and his brothers were binding sheaves of corn in a field, and that his sheaf stood upright, and that all the sheaves of his brothers bowed down to his sheaf.
This displeased his brothers very much, and they hated him more than they did before.
After a time, Jacob sent Joseph to some far-off fields to see how his brothers and the flocks were getting on, for Jacob and his sons were shepherds.
When the brothers saw him coming, they remembered about his dream, and they determined to kill him, and cast his body into a pit.
But Reuben, his eldest brother, wished to save him out of their hands, so he advised them to put him into the pit alive, intending to come presently and take him back to their father.
But while Reuben was away, some merchants came by on camels, on their way down to Egypt, and the brothers decided to sell Joseph to them.
Though the lad wept and besought them not to be so cruel, they would not hear. So the merchants gave them twenty pieces of silver for their brother, and put him on a camel, and took him a long way off to sell him for a slave.
Then the brothers took Joseph's coat of many colours, and dipped it in the blood of a little goat, and carried the coat back to Jacob, telling him they supposed Joseph must have been killed by a wild beast, as that was how they had found his coat!
But "God meant it for good" all the time, and afterwards we see how this was.
So the unkind brothers let their poor father grieve for Joseph for many many years.
Meanwhile Joseph was brought by the merchants down to Egypt, which is the country that joins on to the land of Canaan at the bottom—or south.
The master who bought him from the merchants treated him very kindly, and when he saw how God prospered all that Joseph did, he made him overseer of all his property.
But all at once another trouble came to Joseph! He was falsely accused to his master, and was cast into prison. Still God meant it for good, and Joseph behaved so well in the prison (for God was with him), that the keeper of the prison took the fetters off his feet, and gave him the charge of all the other prisoners.
See, children, what a nice thing it is to serve God in difficult circumstances!
By and by, after a very long time, Joseph was taken to Pharaoh, the great King of Egypt, to tell him the meaning of a wonderful dream, which had frightened him very much.
Thus step by step the slave-boy was being brought to the king's palace.
God gave Joseph wisdom and favour. He was not only able to tell Pharaoh the meaning of his dream, that there would be seven years of plentiful harvests and seven years of famine; but he gave the king such good advice that the Egyptians were delighted, and Pharaoh put Joseph at the head of everything to carry it out.
The advice was, to carefully store up the corn in the good years, so that there would be enough for the bad years.
And it was in those bad years of famine that old Jacob—Joseph's dear father—sent ten of his sons down to Egypt to buy corn.
They had no idea that the great ruler, who, they heard, was selling corn to the hungry people, was their own brother, whom they had sold for a slave thirteen years before!
So they came down to Egypt, and were taken into the presence of Joseph, though they did not recognize who that great prince was. Then they bowed themselves to the ground before him, and asked him if he would sell them some corn for their families!
Joseph knew his brothers at once. They were less changed than he was; but he did not make himself known to them at first.
He asked all about their father, and their youngest brother; and spoke roughly to them, telling them that if they wanted corn, they must go back to fetch their brother Benjamin, that he might see him, if they were true men!
Afterwards he told them that he served God himself, and as he knew their families were hungry, he would give them some corn, but they must go, all the same, and fetch their other brother back.
Oh! How sorry all those ten brothers were for their sin. They remembered now how cruel they had been. They said to each other, "We were verily guilty concerning our brother, in that we saw the anguish of his soul when he besought us, and we would not hear."
But they talked in their own language, and did not know that the great prince understood them; and Joseph hastened away from them and cried. For he was quite ready to forgive them, but he longed to see his brother Benjamin. So he sent nine of them back with the corn to fetch him, and kept one brother in ward till they should come again.
So they returned to Canaan, and poor old Jacob was obliged to spare his youngest boy to go down to Egypt, little thinking that Joseph was alive, and that by and by, in God's best time, he was to see his dear Joseph again, and clasp his son In his arms.
God watches over His people, and promises to make all things work together for good, because they love Him!
XXXIX. Jacob Comes into Egypt
When at last Benjamin reached Egypt, Joseph could hardly help telling his brothers the great secret, that he was alive! But still, he allowed them to set out with their sacks of corn on their homeward journey again; and told his servants to hide his drinking cup in Benjamin's sack. When the party had gone a little way, Joseph's servants were told to overtake them, and to charge them with having stolen his cup!
You can guess how terrified the brothers were at such a charge from the great prince!
They unloaded their asses, and told the Egyptian servants to look for themselves!
But when the cup was really found in Benjamin's sack, they had not a word to say; and as they returned sorrowfully to the house of the great prince, they confessed to each other that God was punishing them for their cruelty to their young brother long ago.
But God saw their sorrow for their sin, and He forgave them, and was going to bring good out of it all.
When they got back to Joseph, after hearing their sorrowful explanation, he could no longer keep in his loving wish to forgive them; and he told them not to grieve, for he was still alive. And then, he sent them all home again, giving his brothers a handsome set of clothes each, and with quantities of presents for his aged father, as well as sending some wagons to the land of Canaan, to fetch his father and all their families down to Egypt, that he might take care of them while the famine lasted.
Joseph sent his father a great many beautiful presents; and when the brothers got back, and told Jacob that Joseph was alive and was ruler over all the land of Egypt, and that he wished his father and all their families to come down to Egypt, the heart of Jacob fainted within him, for he did not believe them.
But when he saw the wagons which Joseph had sent to carry him down to Egypt, "the heart of Jacob their father revived, and Israel said, It is enough; Joseph my son is yet alive: I will go down and see him before I die!"
And children! These wagons of Joseph's have often been a lesson to me!
Like old Jacob, we see God's mercies surrounding us, and yet because we do not believe and trust Him enough, our hearts faint within us at some fresh difficulty that stands in our way, perhaps.
You ask, "What are the wagons, then?"
I think the wagons are a picture to us of the reality of God's promises, and of the reality of the living Jesus.
Jacob said, "Joseph my son is yet alive!"
We may say with tenderest reverence, "Jesus my Saviour is a living Saviour, I will trust myself to Him and follow Him, and one day I shall see Him face to face!"
XL. Moses and the Children of Israel
You often hear in the Bible about "The Children of Israel," and now I am going to tell you how it was they were called by that name.
Long before Jacob and his sons went down to Egypt to live near Joseph, God had met Jacob one night and had given him a new name. God loved Jacob very much, and He did not wish him to be called Jacob any more, because that name meant a Supplanter—one who had taken something away from another—and God forgave Jacob for his deceit, and called him henceforward, Israel.
So, when in after years, he went down to Egypt, he is often called Israel; and thus his twelve sons came to be called "The Children of Israel."
Well, the children of Israel settled down in Egypt, and Joseph was very kind to them, and they lived in the land of Goshen and were very happy.
But after a time another Pharaoh came to the throne, who did not remember Joseph, and all he had done for the Egyptians in that great famine; and this Pharaoh thought that these Jews or children of Israel should be made into slaves, and should build his great cities and pyramids; and he made their lives a terrible burden to them.
But God had not forgotten His great promise to Abraham that his children should live in the land of Canaan; and when the time that God had mentioned to Abraham drew near, He was preparing a great deliverance for them; to take them right out of Egypt back to their own land!
You will now hear how God brought this to pass. His ways are most wonderful!
The King of Egypt, called Pharaoh, was very surprised to find that in spite of all his unkindness, the children of Israel grew to be so many, that he feared they would fill up all the land of Egypt. So he sent out a cruel order that all the little baby boys should be killed as soon as they were born.
Some of the Jews who loved and feared God would not obey the wicked order, and among these was a mother called Jochebed who had a very beautiful baby called Moses.
The very best way when we want to do anything very difficult is to tell God about it, and ask Him to help us. So this Jewish mother did; and then she made a strong basket of bulrushes, over which she put pitch to keep out the water, and then laid her sweet baby in it, and laid the cradle in the bulrushes on the river bank, sending his little sister Miriam to watch him as well as she could.
Think of the greedy crocodiles who might have come up from the river and have eaten little Moses up!