character was traduced by an odious charge, and he was imprisoned as a felon on accusations of the basest nature. But he had within his bosom a principle which no human persecution could destroy; a spirit of piety, and virtue, and confidence in the promises of his heavenly Father. In a word, he was a Freemason, which preserved his integrity unshaken, elevated him to the chief rank in one of the greatest kingdoms upon earth, and conferred on him the deathless honour of preserving his father and his brethren from destruction during a long and cheerless period of famine. Being providentially saved by the wisdom of his long lost son, the patriarch Jacob passed, with all his household, into Egypt. When he arrived at Beersheba he offered a sacrifice, and was comforted by a promise of the divine protection for himself and his posterity.

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38 "He possessed the real secret of Freemasonry, which consists in the exercise of every social and moral virtue, not only in the ostensible actions of our conduct, but also in private life; our latent springs are science and truth; our craft is reason and good sense; our cunning is justice and humanity; our plots and contrivances are sincerity and benevolence; our revenge against our enemies is, by labouring to convert them into friends." (F. Q. R. vol. i. p. 380.)

39 Our continental Brethren sum up the duty of a Mason in one brief sentence." Aimez-vous les uns les autres: instruisez-vous, secourez-vous voilà tout notre livre, toute notre loi, toute notre science."

40" He married Asaneth, the daughter of Potiphera, the high priest of Heliopolis, and this match was effected by the mediation of the king himself. By her he had two children, previous to the famine, the eldest of whom he named Manasses, which signifies oblivion, because the present prosperity of Joseph had caused him to forget his former misfortunes; and the younger was called Ephraim, or restitution, on account of his being restored to the liberty enjoyed by his forefathers." (Jos. Ant. Jud. B. ii. c. 6.)

Joseph met the aged patriarch at his entrance into the land of Egypt, and welcomed him with the kindest tokens of filial love and reverence. With the permission of Pharaoh he placed him in the province of Goshen, and nourished him with the best fruits of the country during the remainder of his life. The piety of Joseph met with its reward; for at the death of Jacob the patriarch invested his two sons with a peculiar blessing, preferring the youngest before the eldest, as God had preferred him to his brother Esau." Joseph embalmed the body of his father with princely magnificence, after the manner of the Egyptians, and

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41" Here we have two instances of a preference of the younger son over the elder, or rather, we have two instances combined; for not only does Jacob give to Joseph, his youngest son but one, the double portion of the elder son, through Ephraim and Manasseh, but also, of these two, prefers the younger to the elder. The fact seems to be, that although there was a general understanding as to the prior claims of the first born, the father retained the absolute power of making whatever distribution of the inheritance seemed proper to himself. This frequent preference which is exhibited for the younger son obviously leads to the remark, that such a preference became a principle of inheritance among some nations. We have some trace of this in the old Saxon tenure, called Borough English, which Sir William Blackstone conjectures may be traced to the Tartars, among whom the elder sons, as they grew up to manhood, migrated from their paternal tents with a certain allowance of cattle; while the younger son continued at home, and became heir to the remaining possessions of his father." (Pict. Bibl. vol. i. p. 126.)

42" At the embalming of a body," says Diodorus Siculus, "proper persons were employed to perform their respective operations. The first seems to have been that of the scribe, whose duty it was to mark out how the dissection was to be made on the left side of the body. This was executed with a sharp Ethiopian stone, by a man called the Dissector, whose office, however, was considered so vile and degrading,

removing it to the land of Canaan, he buried it in the cave at Machpelah, the tomb of Abraham and Isaac.*3

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as to oblige him immediately to betake himself to flight, as if he had committed a crime, to escape the pursuit, and, if caught, a severe punishment from the bystanders. At the disappearance of the wretched dissector, the embalmers came forward; they were people held in high respect, considered as sacred persons, permitted to have a free access to the temples, and to associate with the priests. Their office consisted in removing from the corpse every part which was susceptible of decay, and washing the rest with palm wine and spices; after this immediate operation, they for more than thirty days applied various kinds of resin, to preserve the body; and after having impregnated the whole with myrrh and cinnamon, to give it an agreeable smell, they returned it to the relations so perfectly preserved in every part, that even the hairs of the eyelids and the eyebrows remained undisturbed."

43 He refused to be buried in Egypt, because he would not participate in the idolatrous ceremonies practised on such occasions. 66 The common place of burial was beyond the lake Acherjsia, from which the poets have imagined the fabulous lake of Acheron. On the borders of this lake sat a tribunal, composed of forty-two judges, whose office, previous to the dead being permitted to be carried to the cemetery beyond the lake, was to inquire into the whole conduct of his life. If he had lived wickedly, they ordered that he should be deprived of solemn burial, and the body was thrown into a large ditch made for the purpose, which they called Tartar, on account of the lamentations of his surviving friends. This is the origin of the fabulous Tartarus, in which the poets have transferred the lamentations made by the living to the dead who were thrown into it. If no accuser appeared, or if the accusation had proved groundless, the judges decreed that the deceased was entitled to his burial, and his eulogium was pronounced amongst the applauses of the bystanders. To carry the corpse to the cemetery it was necessary to cross the lake, and this was done by means of a boat, in which no one could be admitted without the express order of the judges, and without paying a small sum for the conveyance. Such is the origin of the poetical Charon. (Spineto, Lect. 4.)

And there they mourned seven days with a great and very sore lamentation. And when the inhabitants of the land saw the mourning in the floor of Atad, they said, this is a grievous mourning to the Egyptians; wherefore the name of it was called Abelmizraim, which is beyond Jordan.

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Freemasons are accustomed to esteem Joseph as one of their greatest lights, because of his numerous practical virtues. He forgave his brethren freely when he possessed the power of punishing them for their inhumanity towards him; he succoured his aged father in his distresses; and by his superior wisdom and discernment, he saved a whole people from destruction. These are all Masonic virtues of the first class; and having been beautifully illustrated in the character and conduct of Joseph, his example is recommended to our consideration, as an useful lesson more powerful than precept, and more efficacious than admonition.

"It is related that Joseph, having invited his brethren to an entertainment, ordered them to be placed two and two together, by which means Benjamin, the eleventh, was obliged to sit alone, and bursting into tears said, 'If my brother Joseph were alive, he would have sat with me;' whereupon Joseph ordered him to be seated at the same table with himself; and when the entertainment was over, dismissed the rest, ordering that they should be lodged two and two in a house; but kept Benjamin in his own apartment, where he passed the night. The next day Joseph asked him whether he would accept of himself for his brother, in the room of him whom he had lost; to which Benjamin replied, who can find a brother comparable unto thee? yet thou art not the son of Jacob and Rachel.' And upon this Joseph discovered himself unto him." (Sale, vol. ii. p. 45.)

At the time of his death he predicted the return of Israel into the land of Canaan, and commanded that his bones should be removed to Shechem at their departure from Egypt. And he exacted a solemn oath of his brethren, that they would communicate this command to their descendants, that it might be transmitted to posterity, invested with the sanction of a positive duty. His body was therefore embalmed and deposited in a coffin. Hence there was no difficulty in transmitting the knowledge of this injunction down to the period of the great deliverance, under the direction of Moses and Aaron.

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45"This is certainly mentioned here as a distinction. (Gen. i. 26.) Coffins have never been much used in the East, although great personages have occasionally been deposited in marble sarcophagi. The custom was and is to wrap the body up closely in wrappers, or to swathe it with bandages, and so bury it, or deposit it in the excavated sepulchre. In Egypt coffins were more in use than anywhere else; but still the common people were obliged to dispense with them. On the other hand, persons of wealth or distinction had two, three, or even four coffins, one within the other." (Pict. Bibl. vol. i. p. 131.)