and wept there in secret.  He then sat down to the banquet with his attendants at a separate table,—­for the Egyptian would not eat with foreigners,—­still unrevealed to his brethren, but showed his partiality to Benjamin by sending him a mess five times greater than to the rest.  They marvelled greatly that they were seated at the table according to their seniority, and questioned among themselves how the austere governor could know the ages of strangers.

Not yet did Joseph declare himself.  His brothers were not yet sufficiently humbled; a severe trial was still in store for them.  As before, he ordered his steward to fill the sacks as full as they could carry, with every man’s money in them, for he would not take his father’s money; and further ordered that his silver drinking-cup should be put in Benjamin’s sack.  The brothers had scarcely left the city when they were overtaken by the steward on a charge of theft, and upbraided for stealing the silver cup.  Of course they felt their innocence and protested it; but it was of no avail, although they declared that if the cup should be found in any one of their sacks, he in whose sack it might be should die for the offence.  The steward took them at their word, proceeded to search the sacks, and lo! what was their surprise and grief to see that the cup was found in Benjamin’s sack!  They rent their clothes in utter despair, and returned to the city.  Joseph received them austerely, and declared that Benjamin should be retained in Egypt as his servant, or slave.  Then Judah, forgetting in whose presence he was, cast aside all fear, and made the most eloquent and plaintive speech recorded in the Bible, offering to remain in Benjamin’s place as a slave, for how could he face his father, who would surely die of grief at the loss of his favorite child.

Joseph could refrain his feelings no longer.  He made every attendant leave his presence, and then declared himself to his brothers, whom God had sent to Egypt to be the means of saving their lives.  The brothers, conscience stricken and ashamed, completely humbled and afraid, could not answer his questions.  Then Joseph tenderly, in their own language, begged them to come near, and explained to them that it was not they who sent him to Egypt, but God, to work out a great deliverance to their posterity, and to be a father to Pharaoh himself, inasmuch as the famine was to continue five years longer.  “Haste ye, and go up to my father, and say unto him that God hath made me lord of all Egypt:  come down unto me, and thou shalt dwell in the land of Goshen near unto me, thou and thy children, and thy children’s children, and thy flocks and thy herds, and all that thou hast, and there will I nourish thee.  And ye shall tell my father of all my glory in Egypt, and of all that ye have seen; and ye shall haste, and bring down my father hither.”  And he fell on Benjamin’s neck and wept, and kissed all his brothers.  They then talked with him without further reserve.