Dakota farmers' leader. (Canton, S.D.) 1890-19??, 1907-06-07
Memorial Day oAddress
BY REV. w. o4. CAVE, CANTON
Lesson: Gen 80: 1926; Exod. 13: T.

parture Of the children OF Israel, and
gave commandment concerning his
boneS."
This writer calls to mind that when
the patriarch was nearing his end he
looked not backward so much as for
ward, and anticipated the develop
ment of the life of the children of Is
rael. in the formation of which he
had so large a share. He contemplate
ed the future progress of the people
to whom he belonged, and gave evid-
ence of the strength of his faith, of
the tenacity with which he gripped
to ISSac and to Jacob, by directing
that his body should be embalmed
and put into coffin, and that the
coffin should be carried into the land
of which God had spoken unto his
fathers and grandfathers.
Why does this writer select this
particular illustration OF the heroic
faith, of the adventurous confidence
of this patriarch? Certainly not be-
cause there was any want of material
in the other part of JoSeph's life to
illustrate his argument. If he had
desired to put Joseph into this cate
CORY of men, marvellous for the
strength of their faith and for the
glorious courage which they exhibited
in connection with the actions to
which it directed them, he could have
found abundant material without 60
ing to the closing moments OF the
patriarch's career. For as you know
Joseph exhibited this faith quite
early. He started with an exagger-
ceit; but he was so severely SchOOled.
was dropped by his brothers, and then,
secondly, by his being sold to the
IShmaelites, after that, by the pain
full experience he had in the house of
Potiphar, and after that again by be-
ing incarcerated in an Egyptian jail,
that he lost all this exaggerated esti-
mate of himself, and thought about
God; that he ceased to regard himself
as being the sun and center Of the
patriarchal home, and thought rather
of the God who was the leader of his
life, who had made him fit to do a
certain work, and who had given him
certain work to do. Or even il the
writer had gone further into his Ca
reer he might have discovered illus
trations of his faith in the readiness
with which he accepted the position
of second in the great empire OF
ESy pC, Illo UOoh upOL llio ollouluOio .
the responsibility of directing that
great people through severe agri-
cultural crisis, and did it with so
much skill, with such faultless states
manship as well as with such heroic
faith in God as not simply to bring
comfort and happiness to the men,
bers Of his family, but to secure plen-
ty in the time of famine for the
whole of the people of Egypt. =.
But this writer sees in Ne last
moment Of the mans life the crown
ing of his whole career, the perfect
flower of his blameless history; it is
the supreme moment for the mani
festation of his faith, and therefore
is it that he chooses it, and sets be-
fore US the patriarch Joseph, when he
is near his last hour, uttering his
great faith in Israel's future, and CIV
ing proof of the intensity and whole
heartedness of his patriotism. Note
it, old men and women; flesh and
heart are failing, the outer man is de-
ing itself in the fulness of his
strength.
SolOn SayS-'Call no man happy un-
til he is dead" He thereby indicat-
ed the peril of the sovereignty of the
inward over the outward. AS the
outward is losing it's strength, as the
physical forces are dying down, many
a man has unfortunately in the clos
ing days and months of his career,
given evidence of the way in which
he has been captured by the senses,
dominated by the lower part of his
nature. Instead Of standing forth on
Nebo's Mount with vision stretching
right into Gods eternal future, with
a great passion for the worlds pro-
gress, he has shown himself weak
and poor and miserable. Joseph tri-
umphS over failing nature. and when
heart and flesh, when the whole man
is failing, still his faith is supreme,
at the time Of his EXTREMIST weak
ness Do not you vindicate the writer,
then, in selecting this particular
moment as that in which the patri-
arch displays to us the clearneSs of
his vision, the frmness of his grasp of
God, and the largeneSS of his love for
his people and his country?
l want you, then, to look for little
while this morning at this supreme
hour in the patriarch's life, first, as
exhibiting to us the Self-SuppreSsing
energy of his faith, second, as bring
ing before us the completeness with
which he Identifies himself, his life
and the life of his people, with God,
and third. as showing us the great i'm
pact which his soul has received thru
his faith, for the service of his genera
tion and the generations to follow
You observe that the patriarch,
being no longer young. has dropped
off all the vices of his youth, and in
stead of the idea that grewsin him
/ expect because Of the folly of his
father to a great extent, for he loved
him unwisely-- Of his own great i'm
portance, he shows not the slightest
trace of that in his old age. He is
here great soul, freed almost entire
| ly from any concern about himself.
Goo and Israel's future fill his life.
can imagine that it seems to some OF
you that he talks about his bones as
though forsooth he were talking about
himself, and l am not here to assert
that Joseph had completely escaped
the influence Of the Egyptian life
which he had been living for so long
and of the Egyptian Interpretation o1
death and the resurrection following
| feel perfectly certain that he must
have been largely shaped in his owr
| thinking by the way in which hi:
subjects thought concerning death
He was breathing an atmosphere