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How admirably is natural affection interwoven with our frame! It is the ground work of all virtue and goodness. It is the very bond of human fociety, without which it could not long fubfift. It is the facrament of nature in our hearts, which endears man to man, and enables the afflicted to find an intereft in the bofom of the profperous. It is this which attaches the parent to the child, the child to the parent, and moves with kindred fympathy the hearts of brethren. So deeply is it rooted in our natures, that even the worft of men cannot altogether extinguifh it, or wholly withftand its influence. It glows in the bofom of the favage, and the most implacable and cruel have fometimes felt its force. And if thus univerfal its fway, how powerfully muft it have operated in the heart of Jofeph, when

he heard the fupplications of his brethren, and faw, and witneffed their diftrefs!

WHEN he was alone with his brethren, he gave his paffion vent he wept aloud fo that, the Egyptians and the houfe of Pharaoh heard-wondering no doubt at the deportment of their governor in the prefence of thefe ftrangers.

BUT how muft his brethren have received the declaration fo unexpected, yet ufhered in with fuch vehement emotion, I am Jofeph, doth my father yet live!

WE are told, they could not anfwer him, for they were troubled at his prefence. The guilt of their fin was ftill fresh in their minds: It is Jofeph, whom they

envied and hated, that has received them with fuch alternate kindnefs and feverity: And what have they not to fear from him, who found no compaffion at their hands!

THERE IS fomething very tender and expreffive in the fudden queftion, Doth my father yet live. He had already been informed that the old man of whom they fpake was yet alive and he again repeats the inquiry, to be affured once more of the welcome tidings As much as to fay, "Is it indeed true, "after so long an interval of time has

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elapfed, that I have ftill living a

"father who loves me, and to whom "I may yet render fome tribute of "filial duty and affection."

But his brethren could not anfwer him this Jofeph perceived, and he pi

tied their distress,and he faid,Come near to me I pray you; and they came near that they might recollect his features,and be affured that it was Jofeph himself. and he faid I am Jofeph your brother — ftill owning the relation between them, though they had ufed him fo unkindly -the felf-fame Jofeph whom they had fold into Egypt. This allufion to their crime was not intended to upbraid them with it, but only to introduce what he had to fay further to their comfort. Now therefore be not grieved, nor angry with yourfelves, that ye fold me hither, for God did fend me before you to preferve life. For these two years hath the famine been in the land, and yet there are five years in which there fhall be neither earing or harvest. And God fent me before you to preferve a pofterity in the earth, and to fave your lives by a great deliverance. So now it was not you that fent

me hither, but God; and he hath made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his houfe, and a ruler throughout all the land of Egypt.

How wonderfully is the Providence of God difplayed in bringing good out of evil. Jofeph's brethren fold him with an evil defign; God overrules this wickednefs of theirs for a good purpose: They fold their brother to gratify their own envy and malicebut God fent him before them, to preferve alive much people. He permitted the evil that was in the hearts of Jofeph's brethren to fhew itself in outward act, that its direful nature might appear that they might fee and feel the bitter effects of envy and hatred indulged; and by afflictive difpenfations be brought to a better mind. He treated their fin, like a wound which the fkilful fur

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