The protection and elevation of Joseph, seemingly a natural event in view of his genius and character, is in some respects a type of that great sacrifice by which a sinful world has been redeemed.  Little did the Jews suspect when they crucified Jesus that he would arise from his tomb and overturn the idolatries of nations, and found a religion which should go on from conquering to conquer.  Little did the gifted Burke see in the atrocities of the French Revolution the overturning of a system of injustices which for centuries had cried to Heaven for vengeance.  Still less did the proud and conservative citizens of New England recognize in the cruelties of Southern slaveholders a crime which would provoke one of the bloodiest wars of modern times, and lead to the constitutional and political equality of the whites and blacks.  Evil appeared to triumph, but ended in the humiliation of millions and the enfranchisement of humanity, when the cause of the right seemed utterly hopeless.  So let every one write upon all walls and houses and chambers, upon his conscience and his intellect, “The Lord God Omnipotent reigneth, and will bring good out of the severest tribulation!” And this great truth applies not to nations alone, but to the humblest individual, as he bows down in grief or wrath or penitence to unlooked-for chastisement,—­like Job upon his heap of ashes, or the broken-hearted mother when afflicted with disease or poverty, or the misconduct or death of children.  There is no wisdom, no sound philosophy, no religion, and no happiness until this truth is recognized in all the changes and relations of life.

The history of Joseph in Egypt in all his varied fortunes is, as I have said, a most memorable illustration of this cardinal and fundamental truth.  A favorite of fortune, he is sold as a slave for less than twenty dollars of our money, and is brought to a foreign country,—­a land oppressed by kings and priests, yet in which is a high civilization, in spite of social and political degradation.  He is resold to a high official of the Egyptian court, probably on account of his beauty and intelligence.  He rises in the service of this official,—­captain of the royal guard, or, as the critics tell us, superintendent of the police and prisons,—­for he has extraordinary abilities and great integrity, character as well as natural genius, until he is unjustly accused of a meditated crime by a wicked woman.  It is evident that Potiphar, his master, only half believes in Joseph’s guilt, in spite of the protestations of his artful and profligate wife, since instead of summarily executing him, as Ahasuerus did Haman, he simply sends him to a mild and temporary imprisonment in the prison adjacent to his palace.  Here Joseph wins the favor of his jailers and of his brother prisoners, as Paul did nearly two thousand years later, and shows remarkable gifts, even to the interpretation of dreams,—­a wonderful faculty to superstitious people like the