The commonwealth. (Greenwood, Miss.) 1896-1923, 1905-12-15

HUIH = $500 SHNN ~
GllU honor the mar In
his death as he had during his
life. He had proclaimed a period of
mourning in keeping with one of the
royal blood, and preparations were be-
ing made in accordance with the de-
sire Of the king for a splendid state
funeral.
But at this point a very strange and
startling discovery was made. Joseph
during his life had not provided him
self with a tomb( an unheard of thing
among the Egyptians, for the least
person in the kingdom took thought
for this above everything else, and had
some cavern or nook prepared before
death for the body whose final care
and last resting place we're so precious
in the thought of the Egyptians. But
as far as the most diligent search re-
vealed, Joseph had not provided him
self a tomb.
His wife, Asenath, the daughter of
P%ottpherah, the priest of On, was
stunned by the blow, and sat for days
like n in a trance, Her sons, Manas-
sch and Ephraim, tried to comfort her,
but she seemed deaf to their entreaties.
The one horror before her mind was
that Joseph had no tomb where he
could be laid, and she would not be
comforted. And when at last her sons
yentured to suggest that it was the
wish of their father that he should
rest in the midst of his own people,
the Hebrews, in the land of Goshen,
she turned upon them and drove them
from her presence, declaring that they
were c%onspiring with the Hebrews to
bring dishonor upon her and the fam
lily name.
The king summoned the priests and
his counselors together to consider the
matter, and urged upon them that in
asmuch as royal honors had been
shown Joseph in life, so in death he
might have a place in the royal sepul-
cheers, Potipherah, the venerable priest
Of On, who was among those pres
ent. and who for the sake of his
daughter would have welcomed a
settlement of the difficulty in this way,
Urged the acceptance of the kings pro
posal on the one condition that Jo-
seph's sons, Manasseh and Ephraim,
should renounCe forever all connection
with the Hebrew people, and turn alb
s~olutely from the faith of the Hebrews
10 the worship of the Egyptian gods.
For" continued Potipherah, their
tisloyalty to the Egyptian gods is a
reproach upon our nation and upon our
gods"
1t had long been a matter of in
creasing concern to him, this growing
Intimacy and association of the
sons of Joseph with the Hebrews.
lie had never been reconciled to
their refusal to enter the priest
hood, and much less was he will
ing now to see the sons of his own
laughter turning from the cherished
aith of the Egyptians to that of a for
eign and desplsed race of shepards.
lie had often spoken to Asenath upon
The subject and knew that 1t was as
sore a disappointment to her as it
was to him. And now the opportunity
had come, it seemed to him, when he
could force them to yield, for they
we're devoted to their father and would
be anxious, he felt sure, that he have
honorable burial. He summoned Eph-
rain and Manasseh, and pompously de-
3lared the conditions upon which their
father would be given honorable burial.
Now that thy father is dead, his
people need be nothing more to thee"
he declared. ITO Egypt and her gods
thou must look for place and blessing.
Renounce the God of the Hebrews and
thy father shall be placed in the tombs
Of the Pharaoh's, but IL thou, in thy
folly and Ignorance, dost refuse, then
shall his bones find no resting place
In Egypt"
But II father s~traightly charged
u.s." answered Ephraim, that we
should carry up his bones hence to
the land which the God of the Hebrews
has promised to give them"
"What?" exclaimed the old priest.
e%xcitedly, THY father desired not
burial in the tombs of Egypt? I'm.
possible! The gods will never give
his spirit rest while his body remains
without the sacred sepulchers prepared
for the deadl"
"pa tbot no II p,ot, - r,,ta2I. ..