Page:The Story of Joseph and His Brethren.djvu/65

62 makes people desire death, and that the happier they are, the more unwilling or the more afraid they are to die. Perhaps merely worldly happiness always makes death terrible; but the more truly, that is, the more spiritually happy people are in this world, the more willing are they to depart into that world where happiness has its true abode. It is recorded by Benjamin Franklin, that when, during a thunderstorm, he conducted some of the lightning into a phial, and made the grand discovery that lightning was the same as electricity, and thus that a flash of lightning consists of the same subtle fluid as the electric spark, such a thrill of happiness passed through his mind that he felt as if he could have died. If such happiness as he felt on discovering a natural truth, in which he was deeply interested, could make Franklin feel as if life had accomplished its task, how much more that happiness which Jacob felt from the recovery of a long-lost son, and still more the happiness which springs from having found the pearl of great price, the one thing needful—the knowledge and love of Jesus, whom to know is life everlasting!