Page:The Story of Joseph and His Brethren.djvu/40

Rh have done for himself,—he was about to open for him a passage from the prison to the throne. Pharaoh himself now had his dreams. In those days, when dreams were regarded as warnings and instructions given from God in enigmatical shape, men attached great importance to them. Still greater importance must have been attached to the dreams of a king, not only because of his greatness, but because these visions might be supposed to have some reference to public affairs, to be portents of national calamities or blessings. Such was the character of Pharaoh's dreams. When the king awoke in the morning, after having had two very singular dreams, "he sent and called for all the magicians of Egypt, and all the wise men thereof, and Pharaoh told them his dreams, but there was none that could interpret them unto Pharaoh." It was now that the butler remembered Joseph. Beginning with the very proper acknowledgment, "I do remember my faults this day," he relates to Pharaoh how the Hebrew prisoner had interpreted his and the chief baker's dreams, and how exactly they had been fulfilled. Then "Pharaoh sent and