Page:The art of story-telling, with nearly half a hundred stories, y Julia Darrow Cowles .. (IA artofstorytellin00cowl).pdf/110

 hear "what happened next?" And what story is more beautiful, more filled with wonders and marvels, with love, and forgiveness, and moral steadfastness, than the story of Joseph? It is quite as fascinating as any tale from the Arabian Nights, and it excels the latter a thousand-fold in its fundamental value, for these Old Testament stories eclipse the myth and the hero-tale not only in their genuine interest for the child, but because they bring him into conscious relationship with God—the God of Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob; the God whose throne is for ever and ever, and the sceptre of whose kingdom is the sceptre of righteousness.

It is possible here to give only the briefest outline of the various kinds of stories which one may choose from this wealth of material. There are the wonder stories of the creation, the Garden of Eden, the flood, in the first part of the book of Genesis; the patriarch stories of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph, in the latter part of the same book; the story of Moses, and all the wonders of the Exodus; the stories of the prophets, of Joshua, Samuel, Daniel; the hero-stories of Samson, of David's encounter with Goliath;