"In what words shall I speak to my lord; with what confidence can I say anything? Our guilt is but too apparent; we submit to our fate. We are my lord's servants, both we and he also with whom the cup is found." When that is not accepted, how pathetically does he recapitulate the whole story! And approaching nearer to Joseph, delivers himself as follows; which, if we fix our thoughts upon the relation between the pleader and the judge, it is impossible to read without tears:
"Sir, let me intrude so far upon you, even in the high condition in which you are, and the miserable one in which you see me and my brethren, to inform you of the circumstances of us unhappy men that prostrate ourselves before you. When we were first examined by you, you inquired (for what reason my lord inquired we know not), but you inquired whether we had not a father or a brother? We then acquainted you, that we had a father, an old man, who had a child of his old age, and had buried another son whom he had by the same woman. You were pleased to command us to bring the child he had remaining down to us: we did so, and he has forfeited his liberty. But my father said to us, 'You know that my wife bore me two sons: one of them was torn in pieces: if mischief befall this also, it will bring my grey hairs with sorrow to the grave. Accept, therefore, oh my lord! me for your bondman, and let the lad return with his brethren, that I may not see the evil that shall come on my father.' Here Joseph's passion grew too great for further disguise, and he reveals himself with exclamations of transport and tenderness.
"After their recovery from their first astonishment, his brethren were seized with fear for the injuries they had done him; but how generously does he keep them in countenance, and make an apology for them: 'Be not angry with yourselves for selling me hither; call it not so, but think Providence sent me before you to preserve life.'"
It would be endless to go through all the beauties of this sacred narrative; but any who shall read it, at an hour when he is disengaged from all other regard or interests than what arise from it, will feel the alternate passion of a father, a brother, and a son, so warm in him, that they will incline him to exert himself (in such of those characters as happen to be his) much above the ordinary course of his life.