Joseph—Slave and in Prison

He sent a man before them;

Joseph was sold for a servant:

His feet they hurt with fetters;

He was laid in chains of iron. — Psalms 105 :17, 8.

Every soul has a climate of its own, or rather zs a climate. — Henrz Amiel.

A MODERN writer has a story entitled ‘‘Hands Off’ which illustrates providence in the life of Joseph. It represents a man in another stage of existence, looking down upon the Hebrew lad in the hands of the Midianites. Being an active, ingenious lad, Joseph escaped from the caravan on the first night after his brothers had sold him. He had just reached the outer edge of the camp when a yellow dog began to bark and awakened the men who were in charge of him, and he was returned to captivity.

However the onlooker wanted to kill the dog before he had awakened the camp. Then Joseph would have got away and would have reached home in safety. Great

sorrow and suffering would have been 29 avoided. But the onlooker’s guardian said, ‘‘ Hands off.” And to let him see the evil of interfering, he took him to a world where he could try the experiment and see its results. There he killed the dog. Joseph reached home in safety, his father rejoiced, his brothers were comforted. It certainly seemed a better way than the other. But when the famine came on, there had been no Joseph in Egypt to foretell it and to prepare for it, and there was no food laid up in the storehouses. Palestine and Egypt were devastated by starvation. Great numbers died and the savage Hittites destroyed those whom the famine had spared. Civilization was set back centuries. Egypt was blotted out. Greece and Rome remained in a barbarous state. The history of the whole world was changed and countless evils came — all because a man in his ignorant wisdom killed a dog, saving a boy from present trouble, to his own and the world’s future great loss.

We would better keep our hands off

God’s providences. Many a beautiful plan of his is spoiled by human meddling. Peter wanted to keep Jesus back from his cross. Suppose he had done so, what would have been the result? No doubt, many a time, I love has kept a life back from hardship, sacrifice, and suffering, thereby blighting or marring a destiny, a plan of God. We are likely to pity the boy Joseph as we see him enter his period of humiliation, and as we read of his being sold as a slave, then cast into irons. But we see well that if human pity could have rescued him from this sad part of his life, the glorious part that followed, with all its blessed service to the world, would have been lost.

Few truths are more sustaining to Christian faith than this, that our times are in God’s hands. We forget it too often and sometimes we fret when life brings hard things to endure, when our own plans are broken. But some day we shall see that God knows best. The following lines by James Buckham are very suggestive:

How oft, O God, when we have wept in vain O’er thy decrees, and blurred with fretful tears The heavenward window of the soul, appears Thy purpose sweet and wise, in after years,

Like sunshine streaming through the veils of rain!

If we had had our way — if thou had’st given The lesser good in our impleading hands, Withholding larger; if the small demands Of human choice, that sees nor understands

Life’s broader issues, had prevailed with heaven;

If we had never wept, nor known the keen, Pure, cleansing pain of sorrow’s sacred fire — The broken tie, the unfulfilled desire — Our sluggish lives had never risen higher,

But, fixed in self, had ever selfish been.

But thou hast led us out of self, hast shown How love’s great circle rounds from soul to soul, How sorrow makes us quick to others’ dole And binds each unit in the larger whole

Of life and love, complete in thee alone.

O God, thy thought infolds us all! The days Ev’n of this brief, imperfect life attest, Ere they are spent, thy will is ever best. Oh, may we in thy love and wisdom rest, For thou dost know the end of all our days!

Joseph was seventeen when the caravan bore him off, as a slave, to Egypt. He was thirty when called from prison to become prime minister of Pharaoh. The whole’

period of his humiliation was therefore, —

thirteen years. The three points on which we are to fix our thoughts are — his slave life; his great temptation; his prison life. The special thing to mark is that Joseph went through all these experiences unhurt. This is a secret worth learning — how to meet ° injustice, wrong, cruelty, inhuman treatment, temptation, misfortune, so as to / receive no harm from the experience. Let us look at each of the three phases of Joseph’s humiliation, to see how he bore himself so as to rob them of their bitterness and their power of harming and to extract from each of them blessing and good. Joseph’s slave life was humiliating. It is always hard to be a slave; not to be one’s own, to belong to another, to be driven to grinding toil, to bow beneath heavy burdens bound upon one’s shoulders, to feel the lash of the taskmaster, not to be able to claim the fruit of one’s own toil, to serve as a mere animal, bought and sold in the market.

Joseph was a slave. His brothers sold him tothetraders. Intheshambles of Egypt Potiphar saw him, looked him over as one would a horse, and bought him, paying, no doubt, a handsome profit to the merchants who had brought him down from Canaan. Think how galling was all this to a boy of Joseph’s free spirit! Think, too, of the sense of wrong which filled his heart as he remembered the treatment he had received from his brothers. They had torn him away from his home. They had been about to kill him. They had treated him with heartless cruelty. They had sold him as a slave. Surely it was hard to keep one’s heart sweet and free from bitterness, with such a sense of injustice in the soul.

But add to this the hardness of the new condition in which Joseph found himself. He was among strangers. Not a face he had ever seen passed before him. He was utterly alone. He had not a friend in all the land. He was not free to go as he pleased, to do what he liked, to follow his own tastes. Many a young man lands in this country poor, friendless, alone, but with a brave heart filled with noble impulses, free to make what he will of his life, and soon is on the highway to success. But Joseph was a slave. Potiphar had bought him. He was in bonds. It is hard to conceive of a condition more discouraging. It was a Sore test of character to which Joseph was exposed. The treatment he had received from his brothers tended to make him bitter. His present circumstances seemed enough to crush his spirit. Some men in such experience of. injustice, wrong, treachery, and falseness, would have lost all faith in humanity, becoming soured. There are people who have had not the tenth part of Joseph’s trouble but who are embittered against the world and denounce it as cold and heartless and ungrateful. Other men there are who, having been wronged, grow hard and vindictive, and live only to repay the injustice they have received with like injustice — blow for blow. Still others sullenly surrender to the injuries they have received and with broken spirit creep through life, like wrecks drifting on the sea, pitiable spectacles to men and angels.

Few men there are who pass through such experiences of injustice and cruelty as those Joseph met and keep their heart sweet and gentle, their faith in God bright and clear and their spirit brave and strong. It showed the healthiness and wholesomeness of Joseph’s nature that he passed through the galling and trying experiences of his humiliation unhurt. He was not soured toward men. He did not grow morbid, sullen, or disheartened. Though a slave, he accepted his position with cheerfulness, and entered heartily into his new life, doing his duties so well that he soon became overseer in his master’s house. He wasted no time or strength in weeping over his misfortunes. He did not grieve over his wrongs nor exhaust himself in self-pity — one of the most miserable and unmanly of emotions. He did not burn out the love of his heart in vindictive and resentful feelings. He did not brood over his wrongs. He looked forward and not back, out and not in.

A poet writes of one who had had bitter experiences, that the darkness crept into her heart and darkened her eyes. The darkness about Joseph’s life was not allowed to enter his heart. This was one. of the great secrets of his victorious living. The light within him continued to burn pure and clear. With hatred all about him, he kept love in his heart. Enduring injuries, wrongs, and injustices, his spirit was forgiving. With a thousand things that tended to discourage and dishearten him, to break his spirit, he refused to be discouraged. Because other men lived unworthily was but a stronger reason why he should live worthily. Because he was treated cruelly and wickedly was fresh reason why he should give to others about him the best service of love and unselfishness. That his condition was hard was to him a new motive for living heroically and nobly.

So we find the spirit of Joseph unbroken under all that was galling and crushing in his circumstances. The lesson cannot be too urgently pressed. Many people find life hard. Sometimes wrong and injustice make the days bitter. Sometimes the atmosphere of daily life is one of strife, petty persecution, miserable fault-finding, incessant opposition, nagging, criticism. ‘Home life ought to be ideally loving, in-Spiring, encouraging, helpful, full of all kindness and grace. Yet there are homes little better than Joseph’s, where instead of love are envy, selfishness, bitterness. There are those, too, who must live continually amid unjust opposition and antagonism. There are those whose life is little better than that of a slave, with grinding toil halfrequited, driven as by cruel taskmasters to severe and rigorous service. There are those who are pressed on all sides by human selfishness, who suffer from the dishonesty, the meanness, the cupidity, the selfishness of others.

Let us not fail to get the lesson. The problem of life is to keep the heart warm and kindly amid all injustice and wrong; to keep the spirit brave and cheerful in the midst of all that is hard in life’s circumstances and conditions; to be true and right and strong in all moral purpose and deed, however others may act toward us. Our inner life should not be affected by our external experiences. Right is right, no matter what others about us may do. We must be true, no matter if all the world is false, even false to us. We must be unselfish and loving though even our nearest friends prove selfish and cruel to us. We must keep our spirit strong, cheerful and hopeful, though adversities and misfortunes seem to leave us nothing of the fruit of all our labors. A young man must do his work well, making the most and best of his life, though compelled to serve for most inadequate wages. Ina word we are to live victoriously, truly, nobly, sweetly, cheerfully, songfully, in spite of whatever may be uncongenial in our condition.

This is the lesson from the first period of Joseph’s humiliation. This is the lesson of all Christian life. We should not let the outside darkness into our soul. We should seek to be delivered from all morbidness and all unwholesomeness. We should not allow anything to crush us. Though a slave as to our condition, our spirit should be free.

We read that Joseph bore himself so genially, and did his work so well, and was so capable, so true, so trustworthy, that Potiphar left all he had in his hand; ‘‘he knew not aught that was with him, save the bread which he did eat.” Joseph would never have won such a success if he had given up to discouragement, if he had brooded over his wrongs, if he had sulked and complained, if he had spent his time in vain regrets or in vindictive feelings. We should learn the lesson, and it is worth learning — it is life’s highest and best lesson. It is the victory of the faith in Christ which overcometh the world.

Another part of Joseph’s humiliation was his temptation. He had been in Potiphar’s house for several years. He had lived so worthily and wrought so faithfully that he had his master’s fullest confidence and had risen to the first place among all the servants. We can think of the boy’s dreams of greatness as again coming into the young man’s heart as he found himself so honored. His temptation was, by an intrigue with Potiphar’s wife, to rise to yet higher prominence. He would throw off his slave’s chains and become a man of rank in the land. This, and not the appeal to low and base passion, was the chief element in the temptation to Joseph.

We may think, too, of the circumstances which made the trial the harder. Joseph was away from home and friends. No eye of mother, father or sister was upon him, inspiring him to all that was pure, true, and noble. We do not realize what a restraint against wrong-doing and all that is base and ignoble we have in the expectation of our friends for us, their belief in us. Joseph was in a heathen land, too, where the standard of morals was low and where such intrigues were common. We do not realize how much we are helped in our virtue by the high ideals we find about us and by the knowledge that certain lapses and sins would expose us to disgrace and to the condemnation of society. Joseph had none of these social restraints to help him to be strong and pure.

But he met the temptation on far higher grounds, on grounds of pure principle. Note his answer to the solicitation of his temptress: ‘‘ Behold, my master knoweth not what is with me in the house, and he hath put all that he hath into my hand; there is none greater in this house than I; neither hath he kept back anything from me but thee, because thou art his wife: how then can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God P”

Two motives appear in these words of Joseph’s. One is loyalty to his master. Potiphar had trusted him, trusted him implicitly with all that he had. Could he now be guilty of such a base wrong to the man who had placed such confidence in hime To Joseph’s mind such an act would be treachery to his friend. In the face of the flattering solicitation of this woman high in rank, unmoved by her passionate temptation, regardless of the consequences which offending her might bring upon him, he kept his eye fixed on his duty and wavered not, but flung the temptress from him and tore himself away — his soul unstained.

The other motive which saved him was his loyalty to God. ‘‘Howcan I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?” All sin is sin against God. ‘‘ Against thee, thee only, have I sinned,” said David in his penitence. Cruelty to an animal is sin against God. Treachery to Potiphar was sin against God. All our acts have reference to God. Sins against innocence and purity are sins against God. We can never get away from our relation to God in any act of our life. In all such temptations as this of Joseph’s, men should remember that while to yield would be treason to another it would also be sin against God.

Another element of Joseph’s nobleness of character in this case appears in his silence under false accusation. His temptress, in her disappointment and anger, charged him to her husband with most dishonorable behavior. Under this accusation Joseph was seized and cast into irons. But he said not a word to Potiphar to turn suspicion upon the accusing wife. He seems to have thought still of Potiphar’s honor, and rather than lay a stain upon it he would go to the dungeon under the false charge, leaving to God the vindication of his own honor and the proving of his own innocence. It has been said, ‘‘For his purity you will find his equal, one among a thousand; for his mercy scarcely one.” By a word he could have told Potiphar the whole story, but rather than speak that word he suffered the dishonoring accusation to rest undenied. Nothing is harder than to live under false charges which bring upon one suspicion and condemnation, which hinder one’s advancement, and which by breaking silence one could cast off. There are persons who do live thus — bearing reproach and odium to shield others. Sometimes it seems to be a duty, but it is very hard. Joseph had resisted temptation in order to be loyal to Potiphar; now Potiphar thinks him guilty of the very baseness which for love of him he had scorned to commit. But in all this Joseph kept his heart sweet and loving. Sometimes it costs very dearly to be true to God. Joseph lay now in a dungeon. But his loss through doing right was nothing in comparison with what he would have lost had he done the wickedness to which he was tempted. His prison gloom, deep as it was, Was aS noonday, compared with what would have been the darkness of his soul under the blight of evil and the bitterness of remorse. The chains that hung about him in his dungeon were but like feathers in comparison with the chains which would have bound his soul, had he yielded to the temptation. Though in a prison, his feet hurt by fetters, he was a free man because his conscience was free, and his heart was pure. It is better to suffer any loss, any cost, any sacrifice, than to sin against God. No fear of consequences should ever drive us to do a wrong thing. Better be hurled down from a high place for doing right than win worldly honor by doing wrong. Better lose our right hand than lose our purity of soul. Better rot in prison than be eaten up by remorse. It was the prayer of a girl queen, written with a diamond point on her castle window, ‘‘Keep me pure; make others great.” That is the lesson of Joseph’s victory over temptation; anything — dishonor, loss, dungeon, death — before sin.

Another phase of Joseph’s humiliation was, his prison life.

«“His feet they hurt with fetters; He was laid in chains of iron.”

It was a terrible blight upon his young life to be thus hurled into a dungeon. We can imagine his thoughts when he found himself shut away in the darkness and bound with chains. This, then, was the reward of being true to God and to duty! He had resisted sin, and here he was in irons, while his guilty temptress was posing as an injured woman, receiving compassion and enjoying luxury.

However bitter the prison may have been at first to Joseph, we know that here as before he soon rose to honor. He was not yet crushed. The noble soul within him rose superior to all the effects of the misfortune and the wrong under which he was suffering. He did not lie down and despair.

Soon his old aptitude for meeting life with courage and hope showed itself. ‘The keeper of the prison committed to Joseph’s hand all the prisoners that were in the prison.” ‘‘ The keeper of the prison looked not to any thing that was under his hand.” So we find Joseph always superior to his condition and circumstances.

There is a story of one who during some time of persecution was cast into a deep dungeon, farunderground. Once only each day, and for but half an hour, did the outer light stream down into the darkness of the prison. But this good man found an old iron nail and a piece of stone among the rubbish on his cell floor. Using the nail for a chisel and the piece of stone for a mallet, he carved on his prison wall, during the moments when the light streamed in, a rude figure of the Saviour on his cross.

So should we do in our life prisons. Thus did Joseph. He did not hew any figures on the stone walls that shut him in; but on the walls of his own heart he.cut the figures of hope, joy and love. His manhood was not in chains. The fetters did not hurt his soul. He was victorious over all the wrong, the injustice, the false accusation, the suffering. Indeed he found his period of humiliation a great time of growth, of discipline, of training. At length he was summoned from the prison to sit beside the king; and so well was he fitted for greatness and for wise ruling, that his head did not grow dizzy when he stood on this pinnacle of honor and fame.

So we get from this part of our story the duty of victoriousness in all life’s conditions. What is the secret? Be true to God. Be true to yourself. Be true to your fellow men. The record tells us: ‘‘ The Lord was with Joseph, and he was a prosperous man.” This was when he was a slave. Then of the time of his prison life we read: ‘‘The Lord was with Joseph, and shewed kindness unto him, and that which he did, the Lord made it to prosper.” Verily, if we are true to God, God will bless us, and even our misfortunes he will use to train us for larger, better, nobler, more useful life.

A writer tells the story of the rose of Jericho — how it flourishes in lack of all things wherein plants delight — in the hot desert, in the rocky crevices, by the dusty wayside, in the rubbish heap. Even more, the fierce sirocco tears it from its place and flings it far out upon the ocean, and there, driven by the storms and tossed by the salt waves, it still lives and grows. So should we grow in any and all circumstances, where we may be cast — in sorrow, in hardship, in misfortune, in suffering. A deathless life is in us, and we should be unconquerable. Christ is with us; Christ’s life is in us; nothing should be allowed to crush us. Live near the heart of Christ and the world’s power will not hurt you, nor the world’s darkness dim your soul’s light.

«‘ Noble souls, through dust and heat
Rise from disaster and defeat
The stronger;
And, conscious still of the divine
Within them, lie on earth supine
No longer.”