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Soseph’s Dream.

WHAT a dreadful thing envy is! Like the viper which the man found frozen in the
snow and carried it home and which when warmed into life at the fire immediately turned
upon the man and bit him with its

deadly poisonous fang, so envy, once
it finds its way into a man’s heart or
home, brings with it misery and
suffering.

It was: envy spoiled the peace of
the home where Joseph and _ his
brethren lived together with their
father Israel.‘

It was envy filled the hearts of -
Joseph’s elder brothers with bitter
hatred so that they could not speak
peaceably unto him. 4%

It was envy that at last made
them sell Joseph to be a slave in a
strange land.

There was everything which
should have made them a happy
family and filled their home with
peace where they lived in tents with
their father, having everything they
could want. But instead of this
there were angry quarrels in the
home and jealous thoughts in the
hearts of these ten brothers.

What was it made these big
brothers envy their younger brother
Joseph so that instead of loving him
and taking care of. him lest
any harm should happen to
him, they treated him un-
kindly and at last tried to “>
kill him in order to get him “Se
out of their way ? . a” ,

The Bible tells us that it
was because their father Israel,
which was the new name ‘/ “©
given to Jacob, loved Joseph “85
more than all his other yt y
children.

_ We cannot wonder that he loved him very dearly. .
_It was partly because he was the son of his old age, born after all his other sons except
Benjamin the youngest. But it was partly, too, because he was the child of Rachel, the
wife he loved so dearly and for whom he waited fourteen years, and through all these long

   
 
   
  
   
  
 
  
 
 
  
 
  
  
  
 
 
  
   
 
 

years he had worked for her father Laban without any wages, in the hope that he might.

make her his wife. ;

How sad it was that after waiting for her so long she died very soon, when she was
still quite young, leaving two sons, Joseph and Benjamin. It was natural, was it not, that