Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1907-05-11
Christian Endeavor Hour
Conducted by Grace Livingston Hill-Lutz.

| stpn fsdiHh, CIV IVA
| 10. Moreover He called for a famine upon
the land; He brake the whole staff of bread.
| II. He sent a man before them, even Jo-
| seph, who was sold for a servant;
| IS. Whose feet they hurt with letters; he
was laid in iron.
| 10. Until the time that his word came;
| the word of the Lord tried him.
| 10. The king sent and loosed him; even
| the ruler of the people. and let him go free.
81. He made him lord of his house, and
ruler of all his substance;
| p. To bind his princes at his pleasure;
and teach his senator's wisdom.
&'. Israel also came into Egypt: and ia
/ cob sojourned in the land of Ham.
"a. And he increased his people greatly;
and made them stronger than their enemies.
The Lesson.
When God has work In the world for a
| man to do He sends him first to school. The
school of adversely belongs to God, and
many of His children are sent there before
they are ready to take positions of power.
Jacob loved Joseph so much that he could
not give him the rugged discipline that
every child needs. He was constantly pet
ting him and spelling him, and thus setting
his brethren against him, and so at seven
teen We see him going forth from his
fathers house in his princely robe which
with many colored borders, like those worn
by the great of the land. 1t may be that
II Joseph had known to what he was going
forth that morning when he went so will
ingly at his fathers command that he
would have Shrunk back and have thought
God hard and unloving to send him out to
that. He would of course have chosen to
have stayed in his fathers house and been
guarded and petted and loved, rather than
to be thrust forth among strangers. But in
later years 1t Is very likely that he was
able to look back and see just how all
things had worked together for his good
and why it was the wisest, happiest, best
thing for him to suffer as he did.
There is much room for imagina ton when
We try to think how Joseph felt as his
brothers lowered him into the pit and
actually went away to eat their dinner
| and left him. Perhaps he had some hope
tnat Reuben Wou-. save him. His nature
seems to have been trustful. loving one.
Not even the taunts of his hateful brothers
| had made him suspect the depths of wicked
ness that lurked in their barbarous natures
The iron must have enterd his soul first
In the piercing thought that his own broth
ers hated him enough to wish to be rid
OF him. Possibly the first lesson was that
day learned. that he must not be arrogant
nor boastful, and that humility among
others would be a gracious virtue to pos
sess. Maybe he had-and naturally enough,
too-accepted too easily the fact that he
was to rule over his brothers, and had
never tried to rule them by their love for
giving injury and of loving ones enemies
Marcus Dods, in commenting upon this
chapter, says: THE tank into which
Josephs brethren cast him was apparently
one OF those huge reservoirs excaYated by
shepherds in the east that they may have
| supply of water for their fiocks in the end
of the dry season, when the running waters
fail them. Being SO narrow at the mouth
that they can be covered by single stone,
they gradually widen and form a large
subterranean room, and the facility they
thus afford for the confinement of pris-
oners was from the first too obvious not
to be commonly taken advantage of. In
| such place was Joseph left to die. I.
Here then Is what has come of all his fine
dreams. With shame he now remembers
the beaming confidence with which he re-
! la ted them. With bitterness he thinks of
the bright life above him. from which these
few feet cut him SO absolutely off, and of
the quick termination that has been put
| to all his hopes. Into such tanks do young
persons especially get cast; finding them
selves suddenly dropped out of the lively
scenery and bright sunshine in which they
have been living, down into roomy graves
where they seem left to die at leisure. They
had conceived a way Of being useful in
the world; they had found an aim or
hope; they had, like Joseph, discerned their
suddenly they seem to be thrown out and
are left to learn that the world can do
very well without them, that the sun and
| moon and eleven stars do not drop from
their courses or make wall because of their
sad condition. High aims and commend
able purposes are not SO easily fulfilled
as they fancied. They begin to
think ii a mistake their being in the world
at all. All this is in the way to
attainment. This or that check, this long
burial for years, does not come upon you
merely because stoppage and hindrance
have been useful to others but because
your advancement lies through these ex-
perienees. = God must make us hum
bic by the actual experience we meet with
In our ordinary life.
Joseph, no doubt, knew very we'll what
his aged grandfather must often have told
him, that man must die before he begins
to live. But what could an ambitious,
happy youth make of this, till he was
thrown into the pit and left there? AS truly
passing through the bitterness of death as
Isaac had passed through it, and as keenly
feeling the pain of severance from the light
| of life. Then. no doubt. he thought of Isaac.
and of Isaacs God, till between himself
and the inpenetrable dungeon walls the
| everlasting arms seemed to interpose, and
| through the darkness of his death-hke soli-
tude the face of Jacobs God appeared to
beam upon him, and he came to feel what
we must. by some extremity, all be made
| to feel, that it was not in this worlds life
| but in God that he lived, that nothing could
| befall Him which God did not will, and that
what God had for him to do, God would
| enable him to do"
| OF Jesephs journey down to Egypt we
know little. though one cannot help con-
occurring about his influence upon the Ish-
maelites. God was sending him forth from
| a quiet home in the tents of his father
down into the world. where polish and
| learning, ease and culture would be given
| him. and every step Of the way must have
had something to do with his future char
| acter. One wonders If he learned his les
| son right away, the lesson of the pit, and
! Of humility. for strangely enough We find
! him attaining to princely power at once,
! even as a slave to Potiphar. Everywhere
| he goes we are told God is with him, and
| obviously for that reason power is with
| him. Even when through his own purity
and courage he Is cast into prison even
I there God Is with him. and even there he
| is put In control OF all his surroundings
| 1t Is better to be in prison with God than
| to be a ruler without him. He who would
| rule must learn to be ruled, must begin by
| submitting to God. All the later years Of
Joseph's life showed that fact. More than
| many of the great characters in the Bible
| Joseph seems to have attained his ambi-
! items in this life-after he gave them up az
| ambitions for himself and perhaps the
| great reason for this lies in the strength
he gained by giving UP the lofty nobility
| gained through humbling himself
| Success Is a comparative matter. In the
! eyes of God Joseph was as much of q sue
| cess when he ruled the prison as when he