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JOSEPH AND HIS BRETHREN.

JOSEPH CAST INTO THE PIT.

When Jesus would inculcate some of the deepest lessons which he ever taught, he took a little child and set him in the midst of his disciples , and made that child his text. Truth thus found an inlet into the mind which even the Great Teacher might have attempted in vain to impress, without some material illustration of his spiritual lessons.--Let us endeavour to imitate the Saviour's wisdom, and seek some lessons to guide us in the touching history of Joseph.

It is well known, then, that on a certain occasion that youth obtained permission to visit his brothers at a part of Canaan somewhat distant from their father's home. But, previous to that time, he had given them great offence; and their anger only waited for a fit occasion to break forth in violence against him. And we should not fail to notice what caused that anger. First, Joseph was a great favourite with his father, who testified his partiality to the boy by the gift of a coat of many colours, and thus unwisely laid a foundation for feuds and divisions in his family . Moreover, Joseph had dreamed certain dreams which gave great offence to his brothers; for they indicated that the time would come when the other children of Jacob would do homage to Joseph, who was one of the youngest . The feelings which rankled in the bosoms of his brothers before, now rankled more and more, and were ripened by irritation for a violent outbreak at last. It appears, further, that Joseph had, at least on one occasion , complained to his father regarding the misdeeds of his brothers; and all these things made him "hated by them, so that they could not speak peaceably to him."--All this suggests to us the strange lesson, that there are some men who "hate him that rebuketh them, and abhor him that speaketh uprightly" . Men are so wedded to their own ways, even when they lead down to death, that we become their enemy if we tell them the truth. How often did scribe, Pharisee, priest, and people break out in violence against Jesus for his truthful warnings!

No sooner, then, did they see Joseph approaching Dothan, where they fed their flocks, than his brothers thought the time had come at length for humbling their father's favourite. The first proposal was to put him instantly to death; but Reuben interposed, and their sentence was, to throw Joseph into a pit, and leave him to perish unpitied there! Blinded by envy, or goaded by rage, they trampled on every tender feeling, and evil became their chief good.

In the good providence of God, however, the youth was taken from that pit, in which he was to have been buried alive, and sent to a distant country, there to be the saviour of not a few, in a temporal sense. To cover their wickedness, his brothers next resolved to show to their father Joseph's coat of tartan, dipped in the blood of a kid, as if he had been devoured by ravenous beasts.--Their brother might become a slave; their father's heart might be torn with anguish; their own souls might be deeply stained with sin piled above sin;--but what of all these, when men are bent on indulging their evil and malignant passions? Let misery be heaped upon misery, yet men will not be diverted from their iniquity.

But wicked as their deeds were, and an outrage at once against a father and a brother, and, above all, against their God, he who makes the wrath of man to praise him employed that wrath remarkably to work out his purposes in this case. And he is doing the same at this hour. Think of the miseries, spread over many years of agony, inflicted by fierce persecutors on the Christians of Madagascar in our day, and then mark how they increase in number notwithstanding. Think of the bloody massacres in India, the martyrdoms of native Christians there, with the butchery of all who wear the Christian name; and yet mark how that is overruled to rouse the churches to spread the truth in that dark-souled land. Think, above all, of the Cross of Jesus,--of the woes which were there endured, with all the malignant passions which nailed the Redeemer to the tree; and then see how God can make our wickedness promote his own glory,--can bring joy out of anguish, and life out of death, and blessings unutterable out of the very curse .

JOSEPH SOLD TO THE ISHMAELITES.

We have just seen that Joseph's brethren, moved by envy, sold him to some Ishmaelite merchants, by whom he was carried into Egypt, and there sold as a slave. Regardless of their brother's cries, and deaf to all that affection might whisper, the future patriarchs would make him the victim of their hatred; and it is deeply instructive to notice how many sins are contained in this one transaction.

Such are some of the views suggested by this sad transaction--the selling of Joseph. But little did his brothers know that these sins would find them out. Little did they expect that even upon earth they would see in Joseph all that his dreams had predicted,--themselves at his feet, and doing him obeisance with all their heart. And little did they know that God was to be with their brother of a truth, to bless him and make him a blessing. But so it was; and Joseph became a type of Jesus, persecuted by his brothers, but exalted by his God; buried out of sight, yet raised to a throne; the victim of malignity at man's hand, but beloved of God, and therefore set on high.

JOSEPH IN PRISON.

God has, in his holy providence, made great use of his people in prison. Jeremiah, Daniel, Paul, Silas, and Peter, were all honoured by him in such a place. Luther, while a captive in Wartburg Castle, translated a large portion of Scripture, and promoted the spiritual emancipation of millions in Christendom. Bunyan in his prison, where blinded persecutors had immured him, wrote a book, second to no human production in its knowledge of the heart and its delineations of truth. And so of many more. Joseph's name is to be added to this list. Having been basely accused of a foul crime which he refused to commit, he was cast into prison, and pined there for years, the victim of malignity,--or apparently forgotten. Now this seemed the completion and the cope-stone of the machinations of Joseph's brethren. When he was immured in that dungeon at On, in Memphis, in Thebes, or some other of the royal cities of ancient Egypt, it might appear as if all hope concerning him were gone: his aspirations, whatever they were, now seemed to be blighted for ever. It was with him, to mortal eye, as it was with Jesus when he was crucified, dead, and buried,--when a stone was rolled to the door of the sepulchre,--when the entrance was sealed with a seal, and a guard of Roman soldiers set, as if they could baffle Omnipotence, and make all escape hopeless.

In truth, however, the imprisonment of Joseph was meant and used by God as a step to his exaltation. If he was for a season like one entombed, he had a resurrection at last by the mighty power of Him who sees the end from the beginning. It was like the planting of an acorn soon to become an oak, or like the bubbling up of a little stream from the depths of the earth soon to become a mighty river, while all around exclaimed,--

"The gloomy mantle of the night, Which on my sinking spirit steals, Will vanish at the morning light Which God, my East, my Sun, reveals."

His God was with Joseph, then, as his sun and shield, even in the prison-house of Pharaoh, and friends were soon raised up to the Hebrew lad; he was even advanced to a degree of honour akin to royalty itself. There was no Bible then to embody the mind of God to man, such as it is now our most blessed privilege to enjoy; and in the absence of such a book, knowledge was sometimes mysteriously imparted by dreams. We are not able to explain how that took place; but He who made the mind can impress it as he wills, and he often impressed it by dreams, by visions, or by voices. For his companions in prison, Joseph had the chief butler and the chief baker of Pharaoh's household; and as they dreamed dreams which he was enabled to interpret, that, in the providence of God, led to his liberation. The chief butler was restored to his former place in the royal household, as Joseph had foretold; and though he forgot for a time his companion in prison, yet when the king in his turn was troubled by certain dreams, the butler remembered Joseph, pointed him out to Pharaoh, and the captive slave was summoned into the monarch's presence.

But what were Joseph's prison thoughts? Perhaps hope deferred made the heart sick. Perhaps he sometimes desponded, and because the chief butler long forgot his promise, the prisoner might fear that God had also forgotten to be gracious. As year passed after year, till about thirteen had rolled away, who will wonder though his heart sometimes failed! But after all the Lord is not slack concerning his promise. A thousand years are with him as one day. Joseph was liberated precisely at the moment best for him and for all Egypt; and it is ever so with those who wait upon the Lord.

Now, in connection with these events, it may be observed that we often hear of representative men--these are men who represent some great interest, or who are the champions of some great cause. One man, for example, is the representative of great learning; and we cannot hear him named without thinking of great scholarship, or all varied lore. Another man represents the cause of the people--not as a demagogue does, for selfish or for turbulent ends, but for man's social improvement or social elevation--for man's happiness, in short, in time and for ever. Knox, for example, or Chalmers--what intelligent Christian, with the open Bible for his standard, can hear these names without feeling that these were representative men? Or a third man represents the martial spirit. We cannot hear his name without thinking of wars, and battles, and victory, and fame--that poor shadow which men pursue, and blindly speak of as glory. Or a fourth man is the representative of science; his name almost means science itself. And yet another may be the representative of ferocity unmatched--of blood-thirstiness which only a Feejee cannibal could surpass.

JOSEPH INTERPRETING PHARAOH's DREAMS.

"Seest thou a man diligent in business? he shall stand before kings: he shall not stand before mean men" . Such is one of the sayings of the wisest man, and we see it fulfilled to the letter in Joseph's case. In the house of Potiphar, in the prison where he was unjustly immured, and everywhere, he did what was just and right, and now we see him literally standing before a king. In many a passage of Scripture God is urgent with us to do with diligence what he appoints us to do; and he makes it plain that in every case--without exception, in every case--the path to true honour, true promotion and prosperity, is the path of duty. For a time, men may get success in iniquity; but their fall and their crash are the greater. Witness the penury and the shame of the fraudulent bankrupt--the lordly oppressor--the unjust dealer of every name. The history before us illustrates all this.

Pharaoh's rest had been troubled by dreams, and when summoned, as we have just seen, into the royal presence, Joseph was able to read them--his God was with him, and he prospered even in that. He foretold seven years of plenty, to be followed by seven years of scarcity, according to a twofold emblem seen in the royal visions; and counselled the king to provide for the evil of famine by treasuring up the produce of the years of abundance. The lean kine and the well-favoured, the good ears of corn and the bad, helped him to avert a dire calamity. He became the benefactor of millions; and, according to some, Joseph introduced a practice into Egypt regarding the tenure of land of which there are vestiges to this day.

But be that as it may, we see here how Joseph's advancement begins, and is promoted. He had honoured God, and is honoured by him. He had held fast his integrity, and now found that to be the path of peace as well as of prosperity; his equity is brought forth as the noon-day. His ways pleased the Lord, and even Joseph's enemies were all at peace with him. He had been in the furnace, and came forth pure. He had been tempted, bribed, allured to sin; but his God made him steadfast and immovable; and we are now to see the result. Let us, then, look at some details.

Now, Joseph's case comes under this general rule. He was to become in God's hand the instrument of preserving millions from a terrible death; but, to achieve that result, he must surmount obstruction after obstruction, and rise from a pit into which his brothers threw him, and a dungeon to which false accusation led. He was to turn famine into plenty, and dearth into comparative cheapness; and how was it done? He must first be hated by his brethren; and then he must be sold as a slave; then he must be cast into a prison, and disciplined there for thirteen years; and only after all these things is he permitted to work the work which God had given him to do. Satan's malice, and man's waywardness, impeded Joseph's way; and only because the Lord was with him did he prosper in the end against such combined opponents. Now, just in proportion to the difficulties encountered and surmounted by him, are we called to recognize the hand of God in what befell. When he has a work to do, none can hinder; instruments will be found, and his purposes on earth will be promoted, in spite of all that can resist or gainsay. As well may we expect to roll back the flowing tide by a word, or make some mighty river like the Amazon or the St. Lawrence run upward to its fountain, as check, divert, or even retard the purposes of the Eternal. He will work, and none can hinder: and the grand moral of Joseph's touching story is just this,--Man and devils may combine to oppose the cause of God, but on that cause advances, resistless because he is the Almighty.

But while we glance at Joseph's promotion thus far, we cannot help adverting to the state of his unnatural brothers. No doubt they thought that their wicked device had succeeded; they tried to be at peace, and rejoice in their form of prosperity. They might see their aged father pining nearer and nearer to the grave from day to day, on account of the loss of Joseph. They might have some compunctions, and we can scarcely suppose that conscience would be altogether silent; it would be a rare case, indeed, had they succeeded in stifling entirely the voice within. But we are told of no repentance, no confession of sin, no humiliation for murder designed, for falsehood told, for a brother hated, and a father, reduced to life-long anguish, passing on unsoothed to the grave! Oh, the power of sin! How it perverts man's nature! how it hardens his heart into stone! how surely is the power of an Almighty Spirit needed to renew it! and how blessed when that Spirit has come to make us one spirit with that Living One of whom Joseph was a type--Jesus, the Son of God!

We say Joseph was a type of Jesus; at least the life of the one strangely resembled that of the other. Such resemblances are sometimes fanciful, and pushed further than sober judgment can sanction, yet in many respects they are striking. Was Joseph, for example, hated by his brethren? Jesus also came to his own, and his own received him not. Was Joseph the favourite of his father? In like manner Jehovah proclaimed concerning Jesus, "This is my beloved Son." Was Joseph sold by his brethren? So was Jesus. Was the former falsely accused? So was the latter. Was Joseph the saviour of many from death by starvation? Jesus was the saviour of a multitude, whom no man can number, from sin. Was Joseph first degraded or dishonoured, and then highly exalted? The history of the Redeemer's earthly sojourn tells how wicked men dishonoured or derided him; but the Scriptures also tell that God highly exalted him, and gave him a name which is above every name. Was it a proclamation made before Joseph, "Bow the knee"? . In like manner, "at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow." Did Joseph feed multitudes? In like manner Jesus gives us the bread which comes down from heaven. Did Joseph forgive his unnatural brethren at last? The dying Saviour prayed for his crucifiers: "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do."

We would not carry out this parallel, we repeat, to any fanciful extent; but the coincidences now mentioned, and many more, are often pointed out. In the estimation of some, they furnish a proof that the sufferings of the Saviour were prefigured, or predicted, by those of Joseph; which at least show this--that he that will live righteously must suffer persecution, whether he be one of the sons of men, or the only Son of God.

JOSEPH'S ADVANCEMENT.

It is instructive to notice how many things were combined, by the providential care of God, to promote the advancement of Joseph: 1. He dreamed; 2. He told his dreams to his brethren; 3. He went and visited them at a distance from their father's home--and, prior to that, he had been envied by them on account of his father's partiality; 4. Reuben and Judah interposed to prevent his being murdered; 5. The Ishmaelites passed opportunely through Dothan; 6. They bought him; 7. They carried him into Egypt, and sold him to Potiphar--not a person of minor influence; 8. Joseph was tempted to sin, but resisted the temptation, and was thrown into prison on a false accusation; 9. He had for his fellow-prisoners two of Pharaoh's household; 10. They dreamed dreams; 11. Pharaoh did the same; 12. A former fellow-prisoner of the Hebrew lad was at hand, to remind the troubled king of that lad's power. And only at the end of this long chain--to which still other links might have been added--was Joseph raised from his degradation; only then did it appear that he who chooses weak things to confound the mighty had a great work to accomplish in Egypt by the instrumentality of that man. It seemed darkness without one ray of light when Joseph was torn from his father and his father's country, and made not merely a slave, but a close prisoner for several years. But he who makes the wrath of man to praise him, needed Joseph in Egypt; and by terrible things in righteousness the purposes of the Eternal were wrought out.

Now this finely illustrates the exquisite adaptations of the providence of God to accomplish his designs. The links, how delicate and manifold, yet how firm! The agents, how free, yet how perfectly controlled! The devices, how deep in some cases, how simple in others; yet how beautifully all conspire to promote the desired end! Is not this the finger of God? Does he not vivify all, or restrain all, ever one in purpose as he is one in essence; and making all advance his glory?

Contemplate Joseph now, then. He is at the right hand of Pharaoh; for that monarch has said to him, "See, I have set thee over all the land of Egypt. Thou shalt be over my house, and according unto thy word shall all my people be ruled; only in the throne will I be greater than thou." Joseph had power now to "bind even princes at his pleasure;" and we cannot help contrasting the recent slave and prisoner with the friend and counsellor of royalty, united in the same person. He is adorned with Pharaoh's ring, and with a chain of gold. If he has lost his coat of many colours, he wears the royal raiment of Egypt in its stead. He rides, moreover, in a chariot of state; and men, as we have seen, now cry before him, "Bow the knee." Joseph is, in truth, all but royal; and though such things would not much affect him, if he was what we believe him to have been--that is, righteous before God--yet they do furnish a vivid contrast to Joseph's recent condition. They show us that when God over all has work to do, he will both find agents and gift them with the means of accomplishing his purposes. Man seeks to withdraw himself and his affairs entirely from the control of the Supreme; but he bridles, fetters, or gives liberty, according to his pleasure; and blessed are they who are his willing people.

And who could not quote a hundred such examples as that of Joseph from the history of the past? Nay, may not every man who has had wisdom to watch the ways of God in dealing with his own soul, single out examples of similar wisdom in the providence of the Holy One? It may be for retribution on the guilty, or for encouragement to the men who fear God; but whatever be the design, many signal examples are recorded, to show that God watches over all human plans, guiding and controlling them, so as to promote the good pleasure of his will. Man proposes, but God disposes; and he that is wise to mark the wisdom of the Supreme in such things, will not want for proof of the loving-kindness of the Lord. During a recent memorable siege in the East, for example, it was the design of hordes of dark-souled men to explode a mine, and blow their beleaguered victims into the air; but that mine was prematurely fired, and destroyed only those emissaries of evil who dug it. Now, this is only a specimen of what takes place in the providence of God; at least that mine at Lucknow was morally anticipated in the selling of Joseph by his brethren, and his exaltation to the right hand of Pharaoh by God, compared with their humiliation before him at last.

Further: we need only to look forward to the closing scene of all, the last and great Assize, to see examples countless of this general law! What multitudes then will be seen to have been caught in their own pitfall! How manifest will it then become that God was over all, even when men were asking, like Pharaoh of old, "Who is the Lord, that I should fear him?" Now, this may well supply strength to every tried one. God may permit sorrow to assail; but do we, in godly sincerity, commit our way to him? Then glory will emerge from that threatened shame; and grief, as in Joseph's case, will be found the precursor of joy everlasting.

"YE ARE SPIES."

The history of Joseph now becomes more and more a history of the triumph of faith over sight, or holiness over sin. Hitherto transgressors have seemed to prosper in their way, and only the godly were depressed. But now we are to see the Holy One vindicating the rights of injured innocence, and more and more plainly proclaiming that the Judge of all the earth will do right. May we not exclaim, then,--

"Stern daughter of the voice of God! O Duty! if that name thou love, Who art a light to guide, a rod To check the erring, and reprove; Thou who art victory and law, When empty terrors overawe; From vain temptations dost set free, And calm'st the weary strife of frail humanity."

"Be sure your sins will find you out," is the fixed decree of God; and in the case of Joseph's brethren the day of retribution now begins to dawn. If hitherto conscience had been at ease, or oblivious of their brother, it is now to be roused, and to speak out for the Holy One who is the Lord of conscience--the just Judge of the skies. The great white throne and its work are now to be anticipated.

From the narrative in Genesis we know that a famine had arisen in Egypt, as Joseph had predicted. Its influence spread from that land into the adjacent countries, and the sons of Jacob went thither to profit by the stores which the wisdom of that brother whom they had hated and sold had amassed. "All countries came into Egypt to Joseph, for to buy corn; because that the famine was so sore in all lands:" and among the rest, the future patriarchs came, and "bowed down themselves before him with their faces to the earth."

In other words, Joseph's dream is now fulfilled,--his brethren do obeisance to him--they are prostrate in the Oriental manner at his footstool! All their machinations could not turn aside the purposes of Jehovah; and neither their projected murder of Joseph, nor his being sold into Egypt, nor his being a prisoner for years, could interfere with the onward march or the ceaseless flow of purposes formed in heaven. It cannot be too strenuously enforced, for it is the burden of the whole Bible, that every wish of man, every word and deed of the creature, must bend before the will of God. Joseph's whole history is a proof; and the history of the whole world, when read in the light of eternity, will further demonstrate the same truth. "Be still, and know that I am God," is the profound but simple lesson which all must learn,--on earth, or in agony hereafter for ever.

All obstructions, then, are made to promote the designs of the Eternal; and the sons of Jacob are therefore now at the feet of their hated younger brother. For their trial, he spoke roughly unto them, and said, "Ye are spies." They were thus compelled to defend themselves in the presence of him whom they had thrown into a pit, and plead for their lives before one for whom they had no better portion than slavery and exile. Again and again was the charge, "Ye are spies," produced against them; and again and again had they to declare that they were true men, though Joseph knew that they were not. In short, they begin to discover that the way of transgressors is hard; and to be assured that though hand join in hand, sin shall not escape under the government of the Holy One.

It is sometimes not easy to speak or to act towards sinners under the influence of that pity which their sad case requires. The cutting sarcasm of Elijah to the priests of Baal, and the irony of Isaiah to the idolaters of his day, appear to be the right weapons to be used in such a case. Oh, how has reason been dethroned by sin! how has even conscience been warped and blinded, when men can hope to cope with Omnipotence and triumph--to plot against Omniscience and escape--to rebel against Love and be happy!

And the scriptural narrative is full upon this point, for it is one of the main designs of the Bible to restore conscience to its place of power. When tribulation came upon those men--when their sins began to compass them about with sorrows--it was then that conscience spoke out: "They said one to another, We are verily guilty concerning our brother, in that we saw the anguish of his soul, when he besought us, and we would not hear; therefore is this distress come upon us. And Reuben answered them, saying, Spake I not unto you, saying, Do not sin against the child; and ye would not hear? therefore, behold, also his blood is required" . Their injured brother wept aside while they thus conferred; but, meanwhile, conviction of sin has been wrought; and, in one point of view, these guilty men are twice in the dust;--once before God, as detected in their iniquity; and again before their brother, fulfilling the word of God upon their very knees.

And this may vividly remind us of what awaits the guilty at the last. Self-detected, they will also be self-condemned. They will anticipate the verdict of the Judge, and call on the mountains to fall on them ere ever his sentence be uttered. But were it not well to anticipate all this at an earlier stage? Were it not well to write bitter things against ourselves now, and not wait to be condemned with the wicked--to listen to the voice of a condemning conscience, and so escape the condemnation of God?

"His blood is required of us," then,--such was the confession of those men; and, in confessing that fact, they bowed before the majesty of conscience, as the trees of the forest bow before the storm. Now, it were well could the men of every name, and class, and age, be brought to recognize that majesty, and in time to do obeisance before it. It were well were it written up in every place of business, in every church, in every home, nay, in every heart,--"There is a God that judgeth in the earth;" "He will bring every work into judgment, with every secret thought." Were that remembered, surely it would tend to check man's proneness to sin, unless he were prepared openly to conflict with Omnipotence. True, nothing but God's almighty grace can subdue our wayward hearts, or make his will our law; yet could we remember Joseph's brethren, as we are directed to remember Lot's wife, it would be well with us: the Spirit of God would bless it for our good; and both young and old--both viceroys like Joseph and shepherds like his brethren--would be wiser and happier men.

THE CUP IN BENJAMIN'S SACK.

There can be little doubt that the events recorded in Scripture are designed to illustrate its moral maxims and its religious principles. Distinguishing aright between what the God of the Bible approves and what he condemns, we find much light shed upon his truth by the conduct of those whose lives are recorded there. Truth is never presented in abstract forms, such as only the studious or the learned can comprehend. On the contrary, it is embodied in life, now to awe us, and anon to allure; at one time a beacon to warn, at another a signal to encourage or guide.

But there are many facts mentioned, or customs referred to, in Scripture, with which we are now but little acquainted. The next incident in Joseph's history to which we refer belongs to this class. His brethren were returning the second time from Egypt with sacks of corn; but in order to stay, or to test them further, he ordered the cup "whereby he divined" to be privately deposited in the sack of Benjamin, who had been sent by his father with extreme reluctance to Egypt, at the imperative demand of Joseph. His steward was then ordered to follow them, and seize the party in whose sack the drinking-cup was found. It was discovered, of course, in Benjamin's; and now began consternation to the uttermost among the sons of Jacob. "They rent their clothes, and laded every man his ass, and returned to the city." They had hoped to escape from the effects of a sin committed many years ago, but now they must suffer and be in great trepidation for a sin which they did not commit at all. If conscience has hitherto been dormant or dead, it is about to be roused to a terrible activity. It is soon to be with them as with the thief who "dreads an officer in every bush."

The first thing that the guilty brothers did, when they reached the abode of Joseph, was to "fall before him on the ground," and so fulfil once more that prediction concerning them and their doing obeisance which had at first excited their enmity or their envy. They had to plead their cause with all the force of Eastern pathos before Pharaoh's viceroy--their own brother; and their pleading contains some exquisitely tender appeals, thoroughly Eastern in their style, but as thoroughly human in their nature. Their father's grief now occupied their thoughts: they were not heartless as before; for when the conscience was once roused it began to stir the better feelings of the heart. Days of adversity and trial have at length accomplished some favourable results. As the great I AM had work for Joseph in the world, he had also work for his brethren to do, and they are reclaimed from their self-inflicted degradation.

But what is meant by Joseph's divining cup? When his brethren appeared before him to answer for the theft alleged against them, the ruler of Egypt said, "Know ye not that such a man as I am can certainly divine?" And does that mean that Joseph had adopted the practices of heathen priests, pretending to forecast the future, and so far usurp the prerogative of God?

But however we may interpret what our Bible calls Joseph's power to divine, we have no difficulty in understanding the moral lessons of such events, or tracing the hand of heavenly wisdom, "from seeming evil still educing good." When Joseph demanded Benjamin to be brought down, and when that was reported to his father, we know how he was affected. Joseph, he believed, was lost; Simeon was detained in Egypt as an hostage; Benjamin is now demanded; and the patriarch exclaimed, "Me have ye bereaved of my children; Joseph is not, and Simeon is not, and ye will take Benjamin away. All these things are against me" . Now, little did the man who made that sore complaint understand the ways of God, even after all the experience he had had: he judged like a short-sighted mortal, as we are ever prone to do, and not as a believer in "the mighty God of Jacob." He took counsel of flesh and blood, and not of the God of all grace. He listened to the whispers of his own heart; and what can follow such a course but woe? The patriarch would have been nearer the truth--he would have uttered the very truth--had he said the reverse of what he here declares. And the same is true of us all. We are ever prone to misinterpret the ways of God. We put false constructions upon his most wise and loving providences: we judge by sense, and not by faith. When he chastens for our profit, we think that it is for our ruin; we conclude that we are to be destroyed, when we are only corrected: and thus live in misery when we might joy in God, as David did when he said, "In very faithfulness doth he afflict me." Conscience whispers to many a soul what we deserve from God; and when sorrows come, conscience generally concludes that they are the first drops of the vials of wrath.

THE MEETING OF JOSEPH AND BENJAMIN.

"Joseph fell upon his brother Benjamin's neck and wept; and Benjamin wept upon his neck" . Such is the word-picture of which one of our Engravings is a copy. There is much that is lovely and of good report as between man and man in our natures, notwithstanding of the fall, and one of the fountains of the heart is here broken open. We see how brother loves brother, and, by contrast with that scene, are enabled to understand how far the minds of Joseph's brethren must have been warped and deadened by hatred or envy, when they could trample as they did upon the affection which should knit brother to brother. Such beautiful displays of brotherly love were perhaps made in this case just to show more clearly by contrast the hateful nature of envy in every case, but most of all among brothers.

Prior to this stage of these proceedings, indeed, Joseph had given some manifestations of his affection to Benjamin. He showed that his elevation to the right hand of a throne had neither alienated nor chilled his love; and the fivefold mess which he sent to Benjamin , according to the Eastern mode of showing affection, made it plain that the external change in Joseph's position had not altered his heart. When he first set eyes on Benjamin, he could not refrain his tears, but "sought where to weep; and he entered into his chamber, and wept there" . According to the calmer temperament of Western nations, where self-command in such cases is more studied, such affection may appear excessive in a high and mighty ruler; it may seem weak or womanish thus to dissolve into tears, even in the retirement of one's chamber. But in less phlegmatic temperaments, and especially among Orientals, nature takes its own mode of expression--at once the most pathetic and the most powerful; and the gushings of natural affection, its tenderness, its beauty, and its force, rank among the finest portions of the Word of God. Jesus wept because Jerusalem would none of him: it would rather rush upon ruin. The deep yearnings of his loving heart were outraged, and he wept in anguish there, as in Gethsemane his sweat was as it were great drops of blood. Again, Paul could tell, even weeping, of some who were the enemies of the cross of Christ, who gloried in their shame, and drew forth pity for men who had no pity on themselves. In short, wherever man is not hardened into callousness by the power of the world, or chilled by conventional usage, he will be as prompt to weep with them that weep as to rejoice with them that rejoice. It is true, whether poetry record it or not, that--

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