Daily public ledger. [volume] (Maysville, Ky.) 1892-191?, 1896-04-18
STRIKING EXAMPLES
u Many Great Men Who Had Low
Beginnings.
<oo Gan Not Keep Good Man Down
tkoweycr Oppressed He Is Bound to
ftiso--scrrnon by Rev. T. Dewitt
Talmage, DID.

DIR. Talmage chose for his text last
Sunday Genesis xxxvii., %: "They drew
and lifted Joseph out of the pit and
sold Joseph to the Ishmaelites for &c
pieces of silver" Genesis xiv. 20: He
Is governor over all the land of Egypt
You can not keep good man down.
God has decreed for him certain point
of elevation. He will bring him to that
though it cost him thousand worlds.
You sometimes find men fearful they
will not be properly appreciated. Every
nah comes to be valued at just what he
is worth. You can not write him up,
and you can not write him down.
The facts are powerfully illustrated
In my subject 1t would be an in.
suit to suppose that you were not all
familiar with the life of Joseph. How
his Jealous brothers threw him into a
Pit, but seeing a caravan of Arabian
merchants trudging along on their
cnnels, with spices and gums that load
ed the air with aroma, sold their broth
or to these merchants, who carried him
down into Egypt; Joseph there sold to
Rotiphar, man of influence aud Office.
How by Josephs integrity he raised
himself to high position in the realm,
until under the false charge of a
vile wretch he was hurled into the
penitentiary. How in prison he com
ananded respect and confidence. How
by the Interpretation of Phara-
obs dream he was freed and be-
came the chief man in the realm, the
Bismarck of his century. How in the
time of famine Joseph had the control
of n magnificent storehouse which he
had filed during seven years of plenty.
How when his brothers, who had
thrown him into the pit ard sold him
into captivity, applied for corn, he sent
them home with the beasts of burden
borne down under the heft of the corn
sacks. How the sin against their
brother which had so long been hidden
came out at last and was returned by
that brothers forgiveness and kindness
the only revenge he took.
+, Yen see, in the first place, that the
world is compelled to honor Christian
-character. Potiphar was only man
of the world, yet Joseph rose in his es-
'timation until all the affairs of that
great house were committed to his
charge. From his servant no honor or
confidence was withheld. When Joseph
was in prison he soon won the heart of
the keeper, and though placed there
for being scoundrel, he soon con-
WINGED the jailer that he was an inno-
cent and trustworthy man, and re-
leased from close confinement he be-
came general superintendent of prison
affairs Wherever Joseph was placed,
whether servant in the house of Poti-
sphar, or a prisoner in the peni-
1entiary, he became the first man
everywhere, and is an illustra-
ton of the truth l lay down,
that the world is compelled TO honor
Christian character There are those
who affect to despise a religious life
They speak of it as a system of phlebot-
~onay by which the man is bled of all his
courage and nobility. They say he has
.bemeaned himself. They pretend to
have no more confidence in him since
his conversion than before his CONVEX
sion. But all this is hypocrisy. There
is a great deal of hypocrisy in the
chnrch and there is a great deal of hy-
pocrisy outside the church. 1t is im-
possible for any man not to admire and
confide in a man who shows that he
has really become a child of God, and
is what he processes to be. You can
not despise son of the Lord God AL
mighty. OF course we have no admi-a-
tion for the sham of religion
was at place few hours after the
rufiians had gone into the rail train
and demanded that the passengers
1hrow up their arms, and then these
rufiians took the pocketboolis, and
Satan comes and suggests to a man
that he throw up his arms in hypocriti-
cal prayer and pretension, and then
steals his soul For the mere prenten-
sion of religion we have adherence.
Redwald, the king, after baptism, had
an altar for Christian sacrifice and an
altar for sacrifice to the deN lis, and
there are many men now attempting
the same thing-nalf a heart for God
and half heart for the world-and it
is a dead failure, and it is a caricature
of religion, and the only successful as.
.sauIt ever made on Christianity is the
Inconsistency of its professors. You
may have q contempt for pretension to
religion, but when you behold
the exccliency of Jesus Christ come
out in the life of one of his disciples,
all that there is good and no.
Ale in your soul rises up into admira-
aion. and you can not help it. Though
that man be as far beneath you in
estate as tie Egyptian slave of whom
we are diseoursing was beneath his
rulers, by nm irrevocable law of your
nature. Potiphar and Pharaoh will al
ways esteem Joseph. When Eudoxia,
the empress, threatened Chrysostom
with death, he made the reply, Tell
the empress fear nothing but sim"
Z such scene as that compels the adj
miration of the world. There was
something in Agrippa and Felix which
demanded their respect for Paul, the
rebel against government. doubt not
they would willingly have yielded their
Office and dignity for a thousandth
part Of that true heroism which beam
ID In the eye and beat in the heart of
that unconQuerable apostle. Paul did
ssot cover before Felix; Felix covered