At length Jacob submits: he trusts his beloved son into their hands: he sends a present of the best fruits of Canaan to the great man in Egypt; he gives his sons double the price of the corn to carry with them; one-half to buy fresh corn, and the other to refund that which, "peradventure by mistake," was returned with them in their sacks before.

And so they go down once more into Egypt, carrying Benjamin with them. And when their coming was known, Joseph ordered a feast in his house, and bid them to it. And at noon they went to eat with him. Then he brought forth Simeon to them, and asked again, "Is your father well, the old man of whom ye spake-is he alive?" And he lifted up his eyes, and saw his brother Benjamin, his mother's son, and said, "Is this your younger brother, of whom ye spake unto me?" And he said, "God be gracious unto thee, my son." "And Joseph made haste; for his bowels did yearn upon him: and he sought where to weep; and he entered into his chamber, and wept there."

Joseph has now got Benjamin, and he cannot bear to part with him. He tries by an ingenious artifice to detain him in Egypt, letting the other brothers depart without yet discovering himself. But the brothers dare not go home without Benjamin; they stand up before Joseph, and by the mouth of Judah (who made himself surety to Jacob for Benjamin's safe return) they plead their cause-that their father had but two sons of one mother: one son who is not; and if now the other be lost, their father's grey hairs will go down in sorrow to the grave. Thus at last Joseph can withhold himself no longer. He

cried, "Cause every man to go out from me." And there stood no, man with him, while Joseph made himself known unto his brethren. And he wept aloud, and the Egyptians and the house of Pharaoh heard. He bids them not to

:

be afraid that it was God, and not they, who had sold him into Egypt, "to preserve life." He bids them return to Jacob, and say, "Thus saith thy son Joseph, God hath made me lord of all Egypt: come down unto me, tarry not: And thou shalt dwell in the land of Goshen ; and thou shalt be near unto me, thou, and thy children, and thy children's children, and thy flocks, and thy herds, and all that thou hast: and there will I nourish thee, (for yet there are five years of famine,) lest thou and thy household, and all that thou hast, come to poverty." And he fell upon his brother Benjamin's neck, and wept; and Benjamin wept upon his neck. Moreover he kissed all his brethren, and wept upon them

with him.

and after that his brethren talked

TEFHILLIN, OR PHYLACTERIES.

Continued from page 34.)

EASY it is, when men have once departed from the simple truths of the Word of God to multiply observances, and to lead those whom they ought to teach aright, into the paths of error, which end in destruction. That which seems of little importance in itself, and trifling in its beginning, and for which even the plea of usefulness for a particular purpose may be urged, soon grows and is magnified and turned aside from its first intention

until its object and character are entirely changed, and what was intended as a benefit becomes an evil and a curse. Thus the first adoption of the phylacteries, though doubtless of human and not Divine origin, might be intended to make present to the wearer the remembrance of the goodness and faithfulness of God, and to keep up a constant recollection of his holy law, and might in some instances have been useful for these excellent purposes, albeit they were not needed by the loving heart, and were without benefit to the devout worshipper. This observance sunk into superstition, and by the ingenuity of man's imagination, and through the blindness imposed by man's greatest adversary-Satanhas assumed the authority of a Divine precept, and surrounded itself with all those empty absurdities which tradition puts between truth and the soul, robbing her of her strength, her beauty, and her saving health.

We shall see this truth illustrated in the further history of the phylacteries. We have already remarked that no mention is made of these in the Old Testament or in the apocryphal books, that in the time of Josephus and earlier, they appear to have been simply strips of parchment worn on the head; in the time of Jerome they retained that form, and were worn only by those who were considered most religious, and not generally by the Jews. We now proceed to show their present form, and the manner in which the modern Jews wear them in their morning daily services.

The precept on which the wearing of phylacteries is founded is, " And thou shalt bind them" (the precepts which Moses commanded) "for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as