Page:The Story of Joseph and His Brethren.djvu/64

Rh have need to practice while journeying in the path of life with our brethren in this world.

The scene described between the brethren and their aged father is most touching. When his sons told him, saying, Joseph is yet alive, and he is governor over all the land of Egypt, "Jacob's heart fainted, for he believed them not." And well might he regard it as an idle tale. But when he became convinced, and "saw the waggons that Joseph had sent to carry him, the spirit of Jacob their father revived; and Israel said, It is enough; I will go and see him before I die." And when they arrived in Goshen, "Joseph made ready his chariot and went up to meet his father, and presented himself unto him and fell on his neck, and wept on his neck a good while. And Israel said unto Joseph, Now let me die, since I have seen thy face, because thou art yet alive."

How happy must the aged Jacob have been to see his son alive whom he had for so many years mourned as dead! His willingness and even his desire to die was one of the results and signs of that happiness. It is sometimes supposed that it is only a sense of misery that