stores of food laid up by the providence and foresight of Joseph, the neighboring nations, having exhausted their stock of provisions, were obliged to go to Egypt to buy. The dearth oppressing the inhabitants of Canaan, Joseph’s brothers came down to purchase also. While on a second visit to buy food, they were made aware that their despised and hated brother, whom they had sold into slavery, was the governor of Egypt. Having made himself known to them, they were overwhelmed with surprise and fear; but he most magnanimously pardoned and comforted them by saying, “Be not grieved or angry with yourselves that ye sold me hither, for God did send me before you to preserve life.” (Genesis xlv: 5, 7.) “God sent me before you to preserve you a posterity in the earth, and to save yourselves for a great deliverance.” Joseph’s father and all his family were at once brought into Egypt, and established with their flocks and herds on the eastern bank of the lower Nile, where Joseph nourished them, and where they prospered for many generations, until a new king arose, who knew not Joseph. _The Exodus._—The part of Egypt in which Joseph had settled his family was one of the most fertile parts of the valley of the Nile. Skirted on the south by hills, it sloped off to the northwest toward the Mediterranean Sea, thus affording the most favorable exposure for the purpose of the pastoral life which the Israelites led. For more than a century they pursued their quiet employment, and were treated by the Egyptians with respect and consideration, in memory of Prince Joseph. The prosperity and increase of the Israelites, with their distinctness as a people, alarmed the Egyptian powers, who turned their attention to some means to cripple them and arrest their increase. Oppression was resorted to. Privileges were withheld, and severer tasks imposed, until one tremendous groan went up from the land of Goshen to the God of their fathers. In spite of all the oppression and injustice practiced upon this people, they throve and increased in numbers. The Lord heard the cry of the outraged Hebrew slave, and permitted his enemies to afflict him, that he might find the country hateful, and feel that he was only a sojourner, who was to seek a promised land, the land promised to his father, Abraham. Their burdens became intolerable. Moses, their leader, applied to Pharaoh to allow them to depart from the country; but the king refused, and God afflicted the Egyptians with dreadful plagues, until they prayed the Israelites to depart. They set out with all their effects, moving toward Arabia, and on reaching the shores of the Red Sea they became aware of the fact that Pharaoh, with his army, was pursuing.