CHAPTER VIII.
THE spiritual lessons which I have endeavoured to draw from the history of Joseph, may be made more clear and complete by considering the blessing which his father Jacob pronounced upon him before his death. In the forty-ninth chapter, we read that when the aged patriarch was near to die, he called his twelve sons around him, to tell them what should befall them in the last days. This was a very singular thing for Jacob to do. It is not uncommon for a father to give his dying advice to his children, exhorting them to love and unity, to virtue and piety; knowing their past character, he may even warn them of dangers to which they will be exposed, and exhort them to conduct which they will need to observe, if they would hope to prosper in this world or be happy in the next. But what human father could tell
