certainly would have provided for himself and his sons. It would have been a good time for Joseph to have visited his father, and nine years of mourning by the old patriarch for his son whom he supposed was dead, would have been saved. Israel would not have been dragged from the land of promise, nor would Joseph's dying hours been annoyed because he was in a foreign land, and begging those whom he had wronged that when they should return to the land from which he had taken them, they would carry his bones with them.

The weakness of the patriarch Jacob was his cunning, shrewd dealing, and through this inherited disposition in his son came his emigration from Canaan into a foreign land, and the sore servitude of his posterity. The slavery in the land of Goshen is properly called Israelitic, and not Abrahamic. Had the faith of Abraham remained in his children, they never would have been enslaved. After between three and four hundred years in bondage the spirit of the cunning dealer was hushed, and the faith of Abraham bloomed in his children; Moses appeared and the powers of heaven were engaged to lead them out of their house of bondage. The strength of Judah's sons is not in shrewd dealing, this is their weakness, but their strength by which they will yet play a mighty part in the regeneration of the race, is the revival of the faith of Abraham and the reproduction of the character of Judah.

What Joseph did, Moses undid. For the second place on the throne of Egypt Joseph sold his brethren, his own posterity and all Egypt into slavery. Moses refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, thereby becoming heir apparent to the throne, choosing rather to suffer the afflictions with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season; esteeming the reproach of Christ greater

riches than the treasures of Egypt. When men love God and their fellow men as themselves, the people are safe and no servitude is before us.

As Joseph was brought before Pharaoh, so Daniel a Hebrew captive at Babylon was brought before the chief ruler to interpret his dreams, which he did with equal ability to Joseph, and for it was offered the second place in the kingdom, but he at once positively refused to accept. What made Daniel great in the sight of God, was refusing to accept what Joseph did and that which made him great in the sight of men.

The third and last great temptation of Jesus in the wilderness by Satan was, when he showed him all the kingdoms of the world and offered them to him, if he merely would conduct his ministry on the selfish lines of business principles. This represented the temptations of strong men, men who see how to seize large opportunities for their own aggrandizement. Declining to live for himself Jesus replied, Get thee behind me Satan, for thou shalt worship Jehovah as thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.

Commerce was never so well organized as it is now, in fact our interests all over the world are woven into one web. Every thing is organized, ecclesiastic, political, moral and monetary. The conquest of the world to one dominion has appeared to be Satan's hope of victory. The conditions are well nigh with us, should a crisis come and a strong ambitious man like Joseph arise, that one man may dictate how we live. There never was a time, when there was such a crop of Josephs, intelligent men, fair dealers, honest before the law and accounted good men, who are each one striving to gain authority and advantages over his fellows, presaging a servitude with sorer ills than Israelitic bondage, even in

which the children will curse the parents who gave them birth, but more than all, we their forefathers, who forged their galling chains.

Education cannot arrest it. It did not in Egypt. The spirit of God quickened in the people, and especially in Moses broke off their shackles and let them go free. I am Jehovah thy God, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt out of thy house of bondage. Our hope is in the faith, which was in Abraham, in Judah, in Moses, in Daniel and in Jesus the Christ, who gave himself for us.

T

HREE men were on a steamer returning home from Europe to America. One was an earnest advocate for the effectiveness of the force of laws in the prevention of vice, especially intemperance. Another was a judge who had been on the bench of the Criminal Court for nearly a score of years. The other was with no special distinction.

The first man held that good laws properly enforced are our hope for the regeneration of society. The judge contended that it was not within the reach by the enforcement of laws to make men righteous in conduct. They argued at length and earnestly, till the third man interrupted them saying the judge reasoned very learnedly, but his conclusions were at fault, because good laws properly enforced do prevent wrong doings, is a demonstrated fact. He said he had visited a community where the experiment had been tried for years, and with the result that there had not been a case of drunkenness, nor of theft, nor of murder, nor of adultery; that every man and woman in the community worked six days out of seven, and on each Sabbath day they all attended divine services.

The first man said, he did not know that laws in any community had been so faithfully enforced, and that he certainly would visit this Eden of the enforcement of good laws, and if he could make arrangements live there the remainder of his life. The judge said, If there was such a community he had never heard of it, and asked where it was located. The third

man replied, "It is our State Penitentiary."

If the authority by positive laws is the government for men, and by its force they shall be led into the high possibilities of humanity; if men are good when they do not steal, nor get drunk, nor murder because the law restrains them, then our State Penitentiaries are ideal communities, and the graduates from their walls ought to be the highest specimens of true manhood.

That we ought to live righteously is intuitive. All men know that injustice, theft, murder and debauchery are wrong, and ought not to be. But we differ in the methods of correcting evils. The carnal method is to compel men to act righteously by the force of the law. The divine method of correcting wrongs is by quickening the divinity of men into holiness. The strength of the first is in the fear of punishment, or the shame of ill repute. The strength of the second is the life of the Almighty God germinating in men, nourished especially by the knowledge of God revealed in the inspired word. Bigoted partisans promote their cause by railing accusations berating in extravagant terms those who differ from them. The men of God do not shun to declare all the counsel of God, yet in the entire sacred records there is not an exaggerated statement in condemnation of the wicked, but strong as they may appear, they are true delineations of the characters and conditions referred to; by holy men seeking the growth of grace in their fellows, through the knowledge of the inspired truth, and their purity of life is estimated as there is an absence of all selfish motives. The first is by the prudence, the selfishness of the flesh, it is by the works of the law. The second is by faith,-trust in a life of unfeigned obedience to a sincere conscience before God. It is evident that men cannot be made just by the deeds of the law, for the just shall