Custer chronicle. [volume] (Custer City, Black Hills, D.T. [S.D.]) 1880-1890, 1888-12-22
JOSepl in the Epyptian pa1aca

NC mas HVcu SO long. lie DDS good bye
to the old place, and leaves his blessing
with the %neighbors, and then his sons
steady him, v nile he, determined TO help
himself, gets into the wagon, stiff, old,
and decrepit. Yonder they go, Jacob
and his sons, and their wives, and their
children, eighty two in all, followed by
herds and tocks, which the herdsmen
drive along. They are going out from
famine to luxuriance; they are going
from a plain country home to the finest
palace under the sun Joseph, the
prime minister, gets in his chariot,
and drives down to meet the
old man. Joseph's chariot holds
up he horses on the one side-the dust
covered wagons of the emigrants on the
other. Joseph, instead of waiting for his
father to come, leaps out of the chariot
and jumps into the emigrants' wagon,
throws his arms around the old man, and
weeps aloud for past memories and pres
ent joy. The father, Jacob, can hardly
think it is his boy. Why, the smooth
brow Of childhood has become a wriukled
brow, wrink!ed with the cares of state,
and the garb of the shepherd boy has be-
come a robe royalty bediZened! But as
the old man finds Quit is actually Joseph,
| see the thin lip culver against the tooth
less gum as he cries out: Now let me
die, since | have seen thy face; behold
Joseph is yet ~aliver' The wagons rolled
up in front of the palace. Help out the
grandchildren, and take them in out of
the hot Egyptian sun. Help old Jacob
out Of the wagon. Send word to Pharaoh
that the old shepherd has come. In the
royal apartment Pharaoh and Jacob meet
dignity and rusticity-the gracefulness
OF the court and the plain manners of the
field. The king, wanting to make the
old countryman at ease, and seeing how
white his beard is, and how feeble his
step, looks familiarly into his face, and
says TO the aged man: How old art
thou?' Give the old man a seat. IN
loaG the wagons; drive out the cattle
toward the pastures of Goshen. Let the
slaves in scarlet kneel and wash the feet
of the newly arrived, wiping them on the
finest linen In the palace. From vases OF
perfume let the newly arrived be sprinled
and refreshed, let minstrels ONE in with
sandals Of crimson, and thrum the harps,
and clap the cymbals, and ngle the tam
bourines, while we sit down, ut this great
distance OF time and space, and learn the
lesson Of the kings wagons.
VI Wv hIShE ID sIN
My friends, we are in a world by sin
famine struck; but the King is in constant
communication with us, his wagon com
ing and going perpetually and in the
rest of my discourse ! will show you
what the wagons bring and what they
take back.
In the first place, like those that come
from the Egyptian palace, the Kings
wagons now bring us corn and meat, and
many changes Of raiment. We are apt
to think of the fields and the orchards as
feeding us; but who makes the flax grow
for the linen, and the wheat for the
bread, and the wool on the sleeps back?
Oh. ! wish we could see through every
grain field, by every sheep-fold, under
the trees of every orchard, the Kings
wagon. They drive up three times a day
morning, noon and night. They bring
furs from the a%rtics, they bring fruits
from the tropics hey bring bread from
the temperate zone. The King looks out,
and he says; There are twelve hundred
millions of people to be fed and clothed.
SO many pounds of meat, so many barrels
of flour, so many yards OF cloth and linen
and flannel, SO many hats, SO many socks,
SO many shoes enough for all, save that
we who are greedy get more shoes than
belong to us, and others go barcfooted.
None but a God could feed and clolhe the
world. None but a kings corn crib
could appease the worlds famine. None
bat a king could tell how many wagons
to send, and how heavily to load them,
and when they are to start. They are
coming over the frozen ground today.
Do you not hear their rumblingY They
will stop at moor at your table. Oh, if
for a little while they should cease, hun
ger would come into the nations, as to
Utica when Hamilcar besieged it, and as
in Jerusalem when Vespasian surrounded
it; and the nations would be hollow-eyed,
and fall upon each other in universal
cannibalism; and skeleton would drop
upon skeleton; and there would be no
one to bury the dead; and the earth
would be a field Of bleached skeletons;
and the birds Of prey would fall dead,
flock after flock, without any carcasscs
to devour; and the earth ia silence would
wheel around, one great black hearse,
All life stopped because the Kings
wagons are stopped. Oh, thank o
for bread-for bread!
TIDINGs OF GoOD NEWS.
| remark again that like those that
came from the Egyptian palace, the
king wagons bring us good news. Jacob
had not heard from his boy in a great
many years. He never thought of him
but with a heartache. There was in ia
ccb's heart a room where lay the corpse
of his unburied Joseph, and when the
wagons came, the kings wagons, and
told him that Joseph was yet alive, he
faints dead away. Good news for jacob
Good news for us! The kings wagons
come down and tell us that our Joseph
Jesus is yet alive; that he has forgiven us
because we threw him into the pit of
suffering and the dungeon of shame. He
has risen from thence to stand in q pal
ace. The Bethlehem shepherds were
awakened at midnight by the rafting of
the wagon that brought the tidings. Our
Joseph-Jesus sends as a message Of par
don, of life, of heaven, corn for hunger,
raiment for our nakedness. Joseph.Jesus
is yet alive!
| go to hunt up Jesus. ] go to the vii
lage Of Bethany and say: Where does
Mary liver" They say: "Yonder Mary
lives" l go in. | see where she sat in
the sitting room. | go where Martha
worked in the kitchen, but | find no
Jesus. | go into Pilates court room and
7 fud tho ;udrau and the notice and the