Page:The Story of Joseph and His Brethren.djvu/45

42 in the names he gave to his two sons. One he called Manasseh, which signifies forgetting, "for God," said he, "hath made me forget all my toil and my father's house;" and the other he named Ephraim, which signifies fruitful, "for God hath caused me to be fruitful in the land of my affliction."

But Joseph's life was now not only a prosperous but a useful one. During the seven plenteous years he gathered up corn even as the sand of the sea, very much, until he left off numbering. "But when the seven years of plenteousness were ended, the seven years of dearth began to come, according as Joseph had said."

And this brings us to the most interesting part of Joseph's history, and one in which we see the hand of God, as the principal end which His providence had in view, in bringing Joseph through so many seemingly unfortunate circumstances to his present elevation in Egypt.