The Young Lady's Counsellor by Daniel Wise

!
THE FOUNTAIN OF LIFE UNSEALED. ']\)
than a widely-spread famine ? How terrible the.
idea, even to the fancy, of a whole nation cut off
f-om its resources by universal sterility I But how
much more so must be the fact itself! With what
fearful
eagerness the people watch for signs of rain
Yet weeks, months and years pass, and the sky is
clear and cloudless ; the sun glows fiercely m the
neavens; the air is hot and sultry; the earth is
parched and cracked ; every blade of grass, every
herb and every tree, dries up, until all is arid ana
barren as the desert.
Nature languishes, and in her
feebleness oppresses her children, until disease and
groaning fill the land, and hecatombs of dead cover
its
surface with graves.
Yet, in the certain prospect of such an event, behold
the sublime serenity of the Egyptian nation in the age
of Joseph. The face of the people is gay and cheerful.
The voice of song resounds all over the land,
from the hundred gates
of Thebes to the mouths of
the Nile. Though the nation was assured that for
seven years the sway of this terrible evil would be
maintained, yet a most absolute fearlessness of death