your finger is healed. When the bread is distributed remember, each of
you, the children of our poor deceased brother Philammon. You, poor
Gibbus, will find your labors bitter to-day. This man's master, my dear
brethren, sold both his daughters yesterday to a dealer from Smyrna; but
if you never see them again in Egypt, or in any other country, my friend,
you will meet them in the home of your Heavenly Father--of that you may
rest assured. Our life on earth is but a pilgrimage, and Heaven is the
goal, and the Guide who teaches us never to miss the way, is our Saviour.
Weariness and toil, sorrow and suffering are easy to bear, to him who
knows that when the solemn hour is near, the King of Kings shall throw
open his dwelling-place, and invite him to enter as a favored guest to
inhabit there, where all we have loved have found joy and rest."

"Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will refresh
you," said a man's loud voice again from the circle that sat round the
old man. The old man stood up, signed to a boy who distributed the bread
in equal shares to the workmen, and took up a jar with handles, out of
which he filled a large wooden cup with wine.

Not a word of this discourse had escaped Mastor, and the often repeated
verse, "Come unto me all ye that labor," dwelt in his mind like the
invitation of a hospitable friend bidding him to happy days of freedom
and enjoyment. A distant gleam shone through the weight of his troubles,
seeming to promise the dawn of a new day, and he reverently went up to
the old man, in the first place to ask him if he was the overseer of the
workmen who stood round him.

"I am," replied the old man, and as soon as he learnt what Mastor
required as a commission from the controlling architect, he pointed out
some young slaves who quickly brought the water that he needed.