“Well, mother, I was ashamed to-day,” said little Manasseh.  “I got angry and struck a boy.”

“Manasseh!  My child!”

“You cannot understand, mother; you are so good that you never get angry or wicked.  But the anger keeps rising up in me till it seems as if my heart would burst; the blood rushes to my face, my eyes flash—­then—­I strike, and think of nothing.”

She stroked his hair gently.  “Manasseh, my boy’s temper is one enemy which he has to conquer.  But he must not try to conquer it in his own strength.  We have an Almighty Helper who has given us to know that he will not suffer us to be tempted beyond that we are able, and has bidden us cast all our care upon him.  He will be only too willing to guide us and uphold us by his power, if we will but let him keep us and lead us far from all temptation.”

“Then what would you do, mother, if you were in my place when the anger comes up?”

She stooped and kissed him.  “I would say, ‘Jesus, help me,’ and leave it all to him.”

Just then a step sounded at the door.  Some one entered, and a cry of “Father!  Oh, father!” burst from the children.  The mother sprang, trembling, to her feet.  It was the long-lost husband and father!

Then the lamp was lighted, and the traveler told his loved ones the story of his long absence; how he had embarked at Jeddah on a foist bound for the head of the Red Sea; how he had been shipwrecked; had become ill of a fever as the result of exposure; and how he had at last made his painful way home by traveling overland.

As they thus sat, talking in ecstasy of joy at their reunion, the door opened and Yusuf entered with the girl in his arms.

Water was sprinkled upon her face and she soon recovered.  She placed her hand on her brow in a dazed way, then sprang up, and, just pausing for an instant in which her wondrous beauty might be noted, dashed off into the night.

“It is Zeinab, the beautiful child of Hassan,” said the Jewess.  “She will be well again now.  The paroxysms have come before.”

“Sit you down, friend,” said her husband to Yusuf.  “We were just about to break bread.  ’Tis a scanty meal,” he added, with a smile.  “But we have been enjoined to ‘be not forgetful to entertain strangers,’ because many have thus entertained angels unawares.  We shall be glad of the company.”

There was a manly uprightness in the look and tone of Nathan the Jew which caught Yusuf’s fancy at once, and he sat down without hesitation at the humble board.

And there, in that little, dingy room, he saw the first gleam of that radiant light which was to transform the whole of his after life.  He heard of the trials and disappointments, of the heroic fortitude born of that trust in and union with God which he had so craved.  He received his first glimpse of a God, human as we are human, who understands every longing, every doubt, every agony that can bleed the heart of a poor child of earth.