it may be, ambition. Oh what a tale of suffering and of enjoyment would
the history of one human heart present, if faithfully recorded!

Years had passed: childhood was gone--youth was fleeing. The brother had
attained a high distinction in the court of Egypt. He had tasted the
pleasures of wisdom and the enjoyments of science and knowledge, while,
as the adopted child of Pharaoh's daughter, he stood before the people,
the prospective heir to the crown.

Thus, in the prime of life, endowed with the richest gifts of mind and
the attractions of manly beauty, adding the polish of the courtier to
the wisdom of the philosopher--and all the adventitious advantages of
royal birth received by his adoption--there lay before the young Hebrew
a bright vista of prospective glory and honour and earthly happiness.

But not to sit on the throne of Egypt had Jehovah raised this child of
the chosen people from the death designed by their oppressor. Not to fit
him for the throne of Egypt had he surrounded him with all that was
propitious to intellectual and moral attainments and guided and watched
each step of his course from his infancy.

Deep and inscrutable must have seemed the designs of Jehovah, as, when
all was brightest, the dark clouds gathered around this favoured son of
the Hebrews, and all the promise and purpose of his saved life seemed
defeated. The hour of trial came--probably, as it generally comes,
suddenly and unexpectedly. It was the hour which was to test his
principles and prove his faith. The hour in which all the allurements of
sense, the gratification of ambition, and (it may have seemed) the
claims of grateful affection, were brought into conflict with the stern
claims of duty and principle, and in this hour he did not fail. He chose