Joseph returned to Egypt, where he lived a long and happy life; and when he died, he too, we trust, was carried back and laid in the burial-place of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob.
[Illustration: THE FINDING OF MOSES. (_Paul Delaroche._)]
Gently slumber'd on the wave The new-born seer of old, Ordained the chosen tribes to save; Nor deem'd how darkly roll'd The waters by his rushy bark, Perchance e'en now defiled With infant's blood for Israel's sake, Blood of some priestly child.
What recks he of his mother's tears, His sister's boding sigh? The whispering reeds are all he hears, And Nile, soft weltering nigh, Sings him to sleep, but he will wake, And o'er the haughty flood Wave his stern rod; and lo! a lake, A restless sea of blood!
Joseph had been dead now many, many years. Pharaoh too had died, and a new Pharaoh was on the throne.
And all these years the children of the twelve brothers had grown up and passed away. Many children had been born to them; and these too had grown up and passed away, leaving their children now in the land of Egypt.
The children of the twelve brothers had been called Israelites, because to Jacob had been given the name Israel. From out the clouds had God spoken to him and said, "Thou shalt henceforth be called Israel."
Now, the Israelites had always been a people apart from the Egyptians. They had kept the faith of their fathers in the midst of the idolatry of the land in which they lived.
The new Pharaoh hated these Israelites and made slaves of them. He gave them all manner of hard work to do; and at one time ordered them, on penalty of their lives, to make for him bricks without straw.
At another time he sent out his soldiers, and bade them slay every little Israelitish boy in the land, that thus the race might be exterminated.
But this was not to be. For, you remember, it was prophesied away back in the days of Abraham, that, though the Israelites should go out from their land and live for 400 years, yet again the time would come when they should return to Canaan, the land the Lord had blessed to them.
Now, at the time Pharaoh sent out the cruel command, there was among the Israelites one mother, of the family of Levi, who had a beautiful little baby boy.