Bible CharactersTalmage, T. De Witt (Thomas De Witt)
Religion
Bible Characters
Talmage, T. De Witt (Thomas De Witt)
Bible -- Biography
Yonder they go--Jacob and his sons, his sons’ wives and their children,
eighty-two in all--followed by herds and flocks, which the herdsmen drive
along. They are going out from famine to luxuriance; they are going from
a plain country home to the finest palace under the sun. Joseph, the
prime minister, gets into his chariot and is driven down to meet the
old man. Joseph’s charioteer holds up the horses on the one side; the
dust-covered wagons of the emigrants stop on the other.
Joseph, instead of waiting for his father to come, leaps out of the
chariot and jumps into the emigrants’ wagon, throws his arms around the
old man, and weeps aloud for past memories and present joy.
The father, Jacob, can hardly think it is his boy. Why, the smooth brow
of childhood has now become a wrinkled brow--wrinkled with the cares
of state--and the garb of the shepherd boy has become a robe royally
bedizened!
But as the old man finally realizes that it is actually Joseph, I see the
thin lip quiver against the toothless gum, as he cries out: “Now let me
die, since I have seen thy face; behold, Joseph is yet alive!”
LAZARUS.
We stand in one of the finest private houses of the olden time. Every
room is luxurious. The floor--made of stones, gypsum, coal and chalk,
pounded together--is hard and beautiful. From the roof, surrounded by a
balustrade, you take in all the beauty of the landscape.
The porch is cool and refreshing, where sit the people who have come in
to look at the building, and are waiting for the usher. In this place you
hear the crystal plash of the fountains.
The windows, reaching to the floor and adorned, are quiet places to
lounge in; and we sit here, listening to the stamp of the horses in the
princely stables.
Venison and partridge, delicate morsels of fatted calf, and honey, figs,
dates, pomegranates and fish that only two hours ago glided in the
lake, and bowls of fine sherbet from Egypt--these make up the feast,
accompanied with riddles and jests that evoke roaring laughter, with
occasional outbursts of music, in which harps thrum and cymbals clap and
shepherd’s pipe whistles.
What a place to sit in!
The lord of the place, in dress that changes with every whim, lies on a
lounge, stupid from stuffed digestion. His linen is so fine, I wonder who
washed it and who ironed it. His jewels are the brightest, his purple the
rarest.
Let him lie perfectly quiet a moment, until we take his photograph. Here
we have it:
“A certain rich man, which was clothed in purple and fine linen, and
fared sumptuously every day.”
How accurate the picture! You can see every pleat in the linen and every
wrinkle in the shirt. What more could that man have? My lord, be happy!
After a while he leans over the balustrade, and says to a friend in
shining apparel:
“Look at that fellow--lying at my gate! I wonder why the porter allows
him to lie there. How disgusting! But our dogs will be let out of the
kennel very soon, and will clear him out.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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