remains corn for feed, which he dif tributes among the people on condition of their referving the fifth part of the increase for Pharaoh. As they had no money left, this was the only way they could purchase the feed, or pay the rent of their land.

SATISFIED With thefe terms, the Egyptians gratefully acknowledge their obligations to the Hebrew governor they faid, Thou haft faved our lives, let us find grace in the fight of my Lord, and we will be Pharaoh's fer

vants.

To Jacob, the fight of a great nation profperous under the government of his favourite son, must have been peculiarly delightful. Not only himfelf, and his family, but all Egypt were fed and nourished under the foftering

care of Jofeph, during the continuance of a long and grievous famine. The old man had weathered out this calamity, and faw the return of profperous days; he beheld his fons happy and flourishing in this land of strangers they had poffeffions therein, and grew and multiplied exceedingly. Thus calm and ferene was the evening of his lifeHe lived in the land of Egypt feventeen years: So the whole age of Jacob was an hundred forty and feven years The venerable parent of a numerous race, who were afterwards called Ifraelites, from Ifrael their father.

But all worldly happiness must have an end. Age and infirmities haften to bring on fickness and death-the time drew near that Ifrael muft die! He felt his ftrength decay, the languid

pulfe foreboded a speedy ceffation to the current of the vital fluid; that heart which had fo often beat with the folicitude of parental affection, fhall foon throb no longer; the heavenly guest is about to be diflodged from its earthly tabernacle; the body to return unto the earth from whence it was taken, and the foul unto God who gave it.

PERCEIVING the approach of death, he fends for his fon Jofeph. And who more fit to receive his dying request, than Joseph, the ftrength and staff of his old age, to whom his family owed their prefervation in the time of famine, and by whose means they had obtained a peaceable fettlement in the land of Egypt. It was a facred injunction, a folemnobftriction and obligation, by all the force of parental au

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thority, by all the tenderness of filial duty, by the revered covenant of God with his fathers; for all this is expreffed by the form in which the Patriarch delivered his dying charge, and exacted an oath of his fon for the performance of it. It was the fame form that Abraham used, when he made his fervant fwear that he would not take a wife for his fon of the idolatrous daughters of the land. With this confecrated form, of patriarchal ufage and venerable fignificancy, did Jacob bind his fon Jofeph And he faid unto him If now I have found grace in thy fight, put I pray thee, thy hand under my thigh, and deal kindly and truly with me; bury me not I pray thee in Egypt; but I will lie with my fathers, and thou fhalt carry me out of Egppt, and bury me in their burying place.

AND wherefore all this folicitude about the place of his interment: Why not be buried in Egypt as well as Canaan?

By the place of his burial the Patriarch Jacob intended to exprefs his faith in God, his affection for his kindred, and his confidence in the Divine promifes. When going down into Egypt, God had faid to him, I will furely bring thee back again. This promife, he well knew, could not now be fulfilled to him in his life time, it could only be accomplished by his removal thither after he was dead. In death, he hopes to be gathered unto his fathers ry me not in Egypt. as much as to say, "Let not Egypt be my last and final "home; here, it is true, I have been " content to fojourn for a while, as in "a ftrange country; but the land of

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