100 BOYS OF THE BIBLE.

very heart of the world’s richest education and culture, we
can hardly blame the people who lived four thousand Sea
ago for thinking much of dreams.
But these dreams of Joseph gave great offense. But
why? Could Joseph help dreaming? Or could he control
the character of his dreams? That is just the point. Joseph
might have dreamed much more wonderful dreams than
these, and neither his brethren nor his father would have
been greatly worried. But it was the kind of dream that
disturbed his father and angered his brethren. Joseph was a
smart boy, if he was only seventeen. But smartness does not
always pay best. Favoritism had made Joseph vain, and
vanity soon grows into an undesirable kind of ambition.
Joseph’s brethren thought, and had good reason for their
thinking, that Joseph’s thoughts and Joseph’s dreams were
-very much alike. Perchance Joseph was not so very fast
asleep after all, when he dreamed these remarkable dreams.
That these dreams after many years came true, forms one of
the most wonderful and romantic pages of Bible history;
still, at the time, even Jacob as well as his sons, seem im-
pressed with the thought that if Joseph’s mind had not been
filled with such boundless ambitions, he would not have dreamed
such dreams. Joseph’s brethren were disgusted, Jacob was
disturbed; they hated the lad more than ever, while Jacob,
though he mildly rebuked his favorite son, wondered in his
heart of hearts to what issues these strange dreams would tend.
Time passes on, and one day Jacob calis Joseph to his
side and bids him take a short journey to Shechem—the
scene and site of Jacob’s famous well—to see how his
brethren fare. The pasture lands of Shechem are rich and
fertile, and there the sons of Jacob abide in the pleasant
fields tending their father’s flocks.