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come to a shameful end.———These words pierced the mother’s heart, who wringing her hands, wished she had never been born, rather than to have been the mother of such an unhappy child; and asked the magician what she could do to prevent the bringing of shame or disgrace on her family? He told her he knew no way of prevention, but by laying violent hands on it, which might be now easily done in its infancy and in a manner so as not to be discovered. To this she replied, that she would not for ten thousand worlds commit such an act of violence on her son; for if her husband had the least suspicion of it, he was so fond of Judas, that he would never be reconciled to her any more; yet for the sake of her family, she would by some means or other prevent it without destroying it; and then told the magician, that if she had a small boat made like a shell, with a cover to go down close that no water might get in, and a little vent to let in air at the top, and room in it to lie soft and easy, she might without danger send him down the river Jordan, and so commit him wholly to the protection of providence, which might conduct him to some distant shore, into the hands of some tender persons, and thereby preserve his life; and if he afterwards commits those base actions the shame will fall on his own head, as no one will know from whom he is descended. The magician highly commended her for her invention, and said he would procure such a boat for her; and she promising him a good reward for his assistance, returned home. After she was gone, the magician sent for one Rot, a very cunning Artist, a Joiner by trade, who undertook to make the boat, drawing out with his pencil, the form of it, carried it home with him, wrought upon it in private, and having soon finished it, brought it to the magician’s house.
