The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-01-13
T0DAY'S BIBLE TALK


 new course. beginning last Sunday. is di- vided into three periods. The first runs through six months and will cover the Old months and will deal with the life of Christ: the third Is to be . nins-month study of the Acts and the Epistiss.
 The Age-Herald has arranged with Mir, Bailes of the Birmingham bar. and teacher of the Cosmopolitan Maa's class of the First Baptist church. to prepare a course. Last Sundays subject was 'The Covenant With Abraham"
 r. GENESIS 47n-l2
 l. Then Joseph came and told Pharaoh. and said.. My father, and my brethren, and their flocks, and their herds, and all that they have are come out of the land af Canaan: and, behold. they are in the land of Goshen.
 2. And he took some of his breth- ren, even five men, and presented them unto Pharaoh.
 8. And Pharaoh said unto his brethren, What is your occupation And they said unto Pharaoh. Thy servants are shepherds, both we, and also our fathers.
 {. They said moreover unto Pha- raoh. For to sojourn in the land are we come; for thy servants have no pasture for their flocks; for tho fam- inc Is sore in the land of Canaan now therefore, we pray thee, let thy servants dwell In the land of Goshen.
 b. And Pharaoh sspake unto Jo- seph. saying. Thy father and thy brethren are come unto thee:
 6. The land of Egypt Is before thee: in the best of the land make thy father and brethren to dwell; In the land of Goshen let them dwell. and if thou knowest any men of &C., tivity among them. then make them
 
 '. And Joseph brought in Jacob. his father, and set him before Pha- raoh, and Jacob blessed Pharaoh.
 8. And Pharaoh said unto Jacob. How old art thou?
 g. And Jacob said unto Pharaoh. The days-of the years of my pilgrim. age .are an hundred and thirty years few and evil have the days of the years of my life been and have not attained unto the days of the years of the life of my fathers in the days of their pilgrimage.
 10. And Jacob blessed Pharaoh, and went out from before Pharaoh.
 Il. And Joseph placed his father and his brethren. and gave them a possession in the land of Egypt. in the best of the land. in the land of Rameses. as Pharaoh had oom- manded.
 12. And Joseph nourished his 1a- ther, and his brethren. and all his fathers household, with bread. ac- cording to their families.
 Two Hundred Yesr. a Q p...
 In the dramatic story that tells how the Hebrew people ultimately achieved its appointed nationality. 1t Is long time between the events here pictured, and the commissioning of Abraham, as spoken of last Sum day. Two hundred years have pass ed.' It Is a longer time still. before the great promise to Abraham should be fulfilled.
 In the meantime, Isaac was born when Abraham was . hundred years old and Sarah was ninety; Rebecca had romantically come to Isaac; Esau and Jacob had been born of that union; the elder twin had despised his right to the greater part of his fathers estate, and sold 1t for lit- change for q bowl of oatmeal: Jacob for his fraudulent part in the deal had been banished. had hired out to an uncle, Laban. had labored long for the hand of Rachel, his beautiful brunette cousin, only to be forced. after seven years of toll. to take the homely and unsought Leah. With Isaac the fourth covenant had been made; with Joseph, the fifth: Jeho- yah had renewed with him the prom ise originally given his grandfather and re-mede to his father.
 What 2 wealth of dramatic ma, And what lesson. Perhaps one day a great dramatist, looking for a plot. or a scenario writer, searching for thrilling action for the screen, shall rediscover a page from real life. and adapt 1t to reel picturiza- tion. The story of Joseph. a lad of IF years. cruelty sold by his jeal, ous brothers. as slave. to band of travelling merchantmen. on the caravan route to Egypt; their deceiv- Ing his distraut and disconsolate father into believing that 8 wild beast had devoured him; their dip ping his coat of rainbow oolors in goats blood and bringing 1t to the sorrowing Jacob; this boy of the title role being made a steward In the house of Potiphar, and subjected to [ the tremendous temptation when Potiphar's wife made her evil ad- vances to him, and her lies sending him to prison. Then the sub-plot baker and the chief butler. his fell low prisoners; their, dreams inter- preted for them; the execution of the one and the acquittal of th5 other; the report to Pharaoh, who dreamed about the famine-the famine which made Joseph. at the age of 30 prime minister of the then greatest ma famine which first brought Jacobs sons in search of bread. and now himself and his sons and his descend ants, and flocks. and herds. down to Egypt
 The way Egypt and its mysterious influence muddies the stream of He- brew history. sets ono thinking.
 
 Along Course of Exodns. The road over which tho aged pa trtarch. Jacob has led this host of immigrants. is the same road over which Joseph. slave boy, had been fore. Along its course 4oO years later, Moses will command the Exodus, and then after 1000 years. Mary, the mother of Jesus, will sud denly leave the stable In Bethlehem. and hasten with aching feet down the same trail while Herods assassins is born king of the Jews; pressing her man-child to her breast, she comes to seek safety in Egypt.
 1 How destiny has shuttled Abra- hams seed from Canaan, the sight of the spiritual kingdom. to Egypt. the land of material and earthly contrast. Egypt, that Papini calls famies and of all the magnificien- cies. of the first epoch, where the waves of history broke and died" | This prodiglous country, born of water. burned by the sun. covered by the blood of many people, inhabited by many animal gods. this country paradoxical and supernatural, was by contrast the predestined asylum for the fugitive.
 "The wealth of Egypt was in mud. 1 in the rich snake breeding mud which the Nile rolled out each year upon the desert. Death was the ob- 1 sessinn of EzYnt. Tha soft nrnHnar-