Joseph became rich, distinguished, powerful—­as the Bible expresses it, “lord over all the land of Egypt.”  Joseph was the real king, the strength, the brain of the monarchy, though Pharaoh held the title.  Joseph is one of the truly great men of the Old Testament.  And he was the noblest and the manliest, save Esau.  Why shall we not say a good word for the princely Bedouin?  The only crime that can be brought against him is that he was unfortunate.  Why must every body praise Joseph’s great-hearted generosity to his cruel brethren, without stint of fervent language, and fling only a reluctant bone of praise to Esau for his still sublimer generosity to the brother who had wronged him?  Jacob took advantage of Esau’s consuming hunger to rob him of his birthright and the great honor and consideration that belonged to the position; by treachery and falsehood he robbed him of his father’s blessing; he made of him a stranger in his home, and a wanderer.  Yet after twenty years had passed away and Jacob met Esau and fell at his feet quaking with fear and begging piteously to be spared the punishment he knew he deserved, what did that magnificent savage do?  He fell upon his neck and embraced him!  When Jacob—­who was incapable of comprehending nobility of character—­still doubting, still fearing, insisted upon “finding grace with my lord” by the bribe of a present of cattle, what did the gorgeous son of the desert say?

“Nay, I have enough, my brother; keep that thou hast unto thyself!”

Esau found Jacob rich, beloved by wives and children, and traveling in state, with servants, herds of cattle and trains of camels—­but he himself was still the uncourted outcast this brother had made him.  After thirteen years of romantic mystery, the brethren who had wronged Joseph, came, strangers in a strange land, hungry and humble, to buy “a little food”; and being summoned to a palace, charged with crime, they beheld in its owner their wronged brother; they were trembling beggars—­he, the lord of a mighty empire!  What Joseph that ever lived would have thrown away such a chance to “show off?” Who stands first—­outcast Esau forgiving Jacob in prosperity, or Joseph on a king’s throne forgiving the ragged tremblers whose happy rascality placed him there?

Just before we came to Joseph’s Pit, we had “raised” a hill, and there, a few miles before us, with not a tree or a shrub to interrupt the view, lay a vision which millions of worshipers in the far lands of the earth would give half their possessions to see—­the sacred Sea of Galilee!

Therefore we tarried only a short time at the pit.  We rested the horses and ourselves, and felt for a few minutes the blessed shade of the ancient buildings.  We were out of water, but the two or three scowling Arabs, with their long guns, who were idling about the place, said they had none and that there was none in the vicinity.  They knew there was a little brackish water in the pit, but they venerated a place made sacred by their ancestor’s imprisonment too much to be willing to see Christian dogs drink from it.  But Ferguson tied rags and handkerchiefs together till he made a rope long enough to lower a vessel to the bottom, and we drank and then rode on; and in a short time we dismounted on those shores which the feet of the Saviour have made holy ground.