BOYS OF THE BIBLE. 105

“O brethren, let the anguish of my soul excite
Some natural pity. Iam but a youth,
A feeble stripling. Spare, O spare me, brethren.
Let not my sun go down before ’tis noon;
Pluck not this flower while yet ‘tis in the bud.
O, am I not your brother? See me now
In my distress, and think how once you lov'd me.
And can you leave me in that pit to die?
Surely you will not! for you know ’twould break
My father’s heart! Indeed ’twould break his heart,
And bring him down with sorrow to the grave.”

But the plea is all in vain. He is left, as they intend
and as he fears, to die. Reuben has wandered away with
the intention of returning at some opportune moment to release
his younger brother. During his absence Judah, seeing a cara-
van of Midianite merchants passing near, proposes to sell
the young dreamer as a slave, and let him go far away and
dream his dreams in Egyptian slavery.

No anxiety concerning Joseph seems to have disturbed
these cruel men, nor had they any pity for Jacob’s feelings,
or they would never have devised so cruel a plan to cover
up their guilt and to account for the absence of Joseph. The
coat of many colors was dipped in the blood of a kid, and
shown to the bewildered father.

What a shameless, cruel piece of lying and deceit!
Nothing could have been more wicked and unworthy!

It is true, Jacob himself had been a gross deceiver, as
we saw in the previous chapter. He had deceived his blind
old father and wronged his brother; and now the measure
with which he had meted was being measured out to him
again, full measure, pressed down and overflowing. The
sins of his youth were following him like a shadow, even to
his old age.

Think of the broken-hearted father, gazing on the coat,
all dabbled in blood—the blood, as he thought, of his slaugh-