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ruler of the land of Egypt; and in every station acquiring by his virtue and wisdom, favour with God and man. When overseer of Potiphar's house,his fidelity was proved by strong temptations, which he honourably resisted. When thrown into prison by the artifices of a false woman, his integrity and prudence soon rendered him conspicuous, even in that dark mansion. When called into the presence of Pharaoh, the wise and extensive plan which he formed for saving the kingdom from the miseries of impending famine, justly raised him to a high station, wherein his abilities were eminently displayed in the public service. But in his whole history, there is no circumstance so striking and interesting, as his behaviour to his brethren who had sold him into slavery. The moment in which he made himself known to them, was the most critical one of his life, and the most decisive of his character. It is such as rarely occurs in the course of human events; and is calculated to draw the highest attention of all who are endowed with any degree of sensibility of heart.

From the whole tenour of the narration it appears, that though Joseph, upon the arrival of his brethren in Egypt, made himself strange to them, yet from the beginning he intended to discover himself; and studied so to conduct the discovery, as might render the surprise of joy complete. For this end, by affected severity, he took measures for bringing down into Egypt all his father's children. They were now arrived there; and Benjamin among the rest, who was his younger brother by the same mother, and was particularly beloved by Joseph. Him he threatened to detain; and seemed willing to allow the rest to depart. This incident renewed their distress. They all knew their father's extreme anxiety about the safety of Benjamin, and with what difficulty he had yielded to his undertaking this journey. Should he be prevented from returning, they dreaded that grief would overpower the old man's spirits, and prove fatal to his life. Judah, therefore, who had particularly urged the necessity of Benjamin's accompanying his brothers, and had solemnly pledged himself to their father for his safe return, craved, upon this occasion, an audience of the governor; and gave him a full account of the circumstances of Jacob's family.

Nothing can be more interesting and pathetic than this discourse of Judah. Little knowing to whom he spoke, he paints in all the colours of simple and natural eloquence, the distressed situation of the aged patriarch, hastening to the close of life; long afflicted for the lose of a favourite son, whom he

supposed to have been torn in pieces by a beast of prey; labouring now under anxious concern about his youngest son, the child of his old age, who alone was left alive of his mother, and whom nothing but the calamities of severe famine could have moved a tender father to send from home, and expose to the dangers of a foreign land. "If we bring him not back with us, we shall bring down the gray hairs of thy servant, our father, with sorrow, to the grave. I pray thee therefore let thy servant abide, instead of the young man, a bondman to our lord. For how shall I go up to my father, and Benjamin not with me? lest I see the evil that shall come on my father." Upon this relation Joseph could no longer restrain himself. The tender ideas of his father, and his father's house, of his ancient home, his country, and his kindred, of the distress of his family, and his own exaltation, all rushed too strongly upon his mind to bear any farther concealment. "He cried, Cause every man to go out from me; and he wept aloud." The tears which he shed were not the tears of grief. They were the burst of affection. They were the effusions of a heart overflowing with all the tender sensibilities of nature. 1ormerly he had been moved in the same manner, when he first saw his brethren before him. "His bowels yearned upon them; he sought for a place where to weep. He went into his chamber; and then washed his face and returned to them." At that period his generous plans were not completed. But now, when there was no farther occasion for constraining himself, he gave free vent to the strong emotions of his heart、 The first minister to the king of Egypt was not ashamed to show, that he felt as a man, and a brother." He wept aloud; and the Egyptians, and the house of Pharaoh, heard him."

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The first words which his swelling heart allowed him to pronounce, are the most suitable to such an affecting situation that were ever uttered ;-" I am Joseph; doth my father yet live?" What could he, what ought he, in that impassioned moment, to have said more? This is the voice of nature herself, speaking her own language; and it penetrates the heart: no pomp of expression; no parade of kindness; but strong affection hastening to utter what it strongly felt. "His brethren could not answer him; for they were troubled at his presence." Their silence is as expressive of those emotions of repentance and shame, which, on this amazing discovery, filled their breasts, and stopped their utterance, as the few words which Joseph speaks, are expressive of the generous agitations which struggled for vent within him. No painter

could seize a more striking moment for displaying the characteristical features of the human heart, than what is here presented. Never was there a situation of more tender and vir· tuous joy, on the one hand ; nor, on the other, of more over whelming confusion and conscious guilt. In the simple nar ration of the sacred historian, it is set before us with greater energy and higher effect, than if it had been wrought up with all the colouring of the most admired modern eloquence.

SECTION VII.

ALTAMONT.

BLAIR.

The following account of an affecting, mournful exit, is related by Dr. Young, who was present at the melancholy scene. THE sad evening before the death of the noble youth, whose last hours suggested the most solemn and awful reflections, I was with him. No que was present, but his physician, and an intimate whom he loved, and whom he had ruined. At my coming in, he said, "You and the physician are come too late. I have neither life nor hope. You both aim at miracles. You would raise the dead!" Heaven, I sail, was mers ciful" Or," exclaimed he,-“ I'could not have been thus guilty. What has it not done to bless and to save me i-i have been too strong for Omnipotence! I have plucked down ruin."I said, the blessed Redeemer,--" Hold! hold! you wound me !That is the rock on which I split: I denied his name!";

Refusing to hear any thing from me, or take any thing from the physician, he lay silent, as far as sudden darts of pain would permit, till the clock struck: Then with vehemence he exclaimed; "Oh, time! time! it is fit thou shouldst thus strike thy murderer to the heart!-How art thou fled for ever! A month!-Oh, for a single week! I ask not for years! though an age were too little for the much I have to do." On my saying, we could not do too much that heaven was a blessed place- "So much the worse.Tis lost! 'tis lost!-Heaven is to me the severest part of hell.!"

Soon after, I proposed prayer," Pray you that can, I never prayed. I cannot pray-nor need 1. Is not Heaven on my side already? It closes with my conscience. Its severest strokes but second my own." Observing that his friend was much touched at this, even to tears (who could forbear? I could not)—with a most affectionate look he said, K

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• Keep those tears for thyself. I have undone thee.-Dos! then weep for me? that is cruel. What can pun me more

Here his friend, too nrich affected, would have left him. "No stay-thou still myst hope; therefore hear me. How midly have I talked! How mudly hast thou listened and be fieved! but look on my present state, as a full answer to thee. and to myself. This body is all weakness and pun; but my soul, as if stung itp by torment to greater strength and spirit. is full powerful to reason; fall mighty to suffer. And that, which thus triumphs within the jaws of immortality. is, doubtless, inmort -Anf, as for a Deity, nothing less than an Almighty could inflict what I feel."

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I was about to congratulate this passive, involuntary confessor, on his asserting the two prine articles of his creel, extorted by the rick of nature, when he thus, very passionately exchimed:- No, no! let me speak on. I have not long to speak.-Mymich injured friend! my soul, as my body, lies in ruins ; in scattered fragments of broken thought-Remors? for the pist, throws my thought on the future. Worse reið of the fiture, strikes it back on the past. I turn, and turn. and fini no ray. Dilst thou feel half the mountain that is on me, thou wouldst struggle with the martyr for his stake; and bless Heven for the funes!--that is not an everlasting flame; that is not unquenchable fire."

How were we struck! yet, soon after, still mores. With what an eye of distraction, what a fice of despir, he cried out!" My principles have poisoned my friend; my extravagince has begrared my boy! my unkindness has mardere 1 my wife!-An is there another hell? Oh! thou blasphem: 1, yet indulgent LORD GOD! Hell itself is a refuge, if it hide me from thy frown!" Soon after, his understanding file. His terrisad imagination uttered horrors not to be repeated, or ever forgotten. And ere the sun (which, I hope, h seen few lite him) arose, the gay, young, noble, ingenious, ac complished, and most wretched Altamont, expired"!

If this is a min of pleasure, what is a man of pain? How pick, how totul, is the transit of such persons! In what a dismil gloom they set for ever! How short, alas! the day of their rej ating!--For a moment they glitter-they dizzle In a moment, where are they? Oblivion covers their mem ortes. Ah! would it did! Infamy snatches them from obliv, ion. In the long living annals of infamy their triumphs are recorded. Thy sufferings, poor Altamont! still bleed in the um of the heart-stricken friend-for Altamont haid a

friend. He might have had many. His transient morning might have been the dawn of an immortal day. His panie might have been gloriously enrolled in the records of eternity. His memory might have left a sweet fragrance be hind it. grateful to the surviving friend, salutary to the suc ceeding generation. With what capacity was he endowed! with what advantages, for being greatly good! But with the talents of an angel, a min may be a fool. If he judges amiss in the supreme point, judging right in all else, but aggra vates his folly; as it shows him wrong, though blessed with the best capacity of being right.

DR. YOUNG,

CHAPTER VII.

DIALOGUES.

SECTION I.

DEMOCRITUS AND HERACLITUS.*

The vices and follies of men should excite compassion rather than ridicule.

Democritus. I find it impossible to reconcile myself to a melancholy philosophy.

Ileraclitus. And I am equally unable to approve of that vain philosophy, which teaches men to despise and ridicute one another. To a wise and feeling mind, the world ap pears in a wretched and painful light.

Dem. Thou art too much affected with the state of things: and this is a source of misery to thee.

Her. And I think thou art too little moved by it. Thy mirth and ridicule bespeak the buffoon, rather than the pnilosopher. Does it not excite thy compassion, to see mankind so frail, so blind, so far departed from the rules of virtue ?

Dem. I am excited to laughter, when I see so much impertinence and folly

Her. And yet, after all, they, who are the objects of thy ridicule, include, not only mankind in general, but the persons with whom thou livest, thy friends, thy family, nay even thyself.

Democritus and Heraclitus were two ancient philosophers, the former of whom laughed, and the latter went. at the errors and foilie mankind.

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