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Joy is never so lively as when preceded by sorrow, as the evening sky never looks so beautiful as when the clouds that darkened the noonday heaven have melted at length away, and the deep voice of thunder has been followed by the stillness of renovated nature. Once let us be readmitted into the society of those whom we esteemed here, but whom, when we again behold them, we shall see incomparably greater cause to love, and it will seem to us as if our heaviest griefs were lighter than the dust of the balance. What cares the mariner for the storms that he has had to encounter, when he gains at length the haven of rest? Does not the traveller forget all the hardships of his journey when he reaches at last the home which terminates it? And may we not believe that when the living again join the dead the comfort of reunion shall immeasurably surpass, in point of intensity, the bitterness of separation. It must, it must indeed. Just, too, as Jacob would then acknowledge his mistake in lamenting as lost the son who was alive in honour, so shall we understand our error in weeping inconsolably over the remains of those who are not only living but reigning in glory. While Jacob deemed Joseph irrevocably gone, the latter was high in place and preferment, and his temporary absence was good for both; so they, too, whose decease we bemoan, if they died in the Lord, are happier far than we could make them; and it is good both for themselves and us that they are seen no more.

"Oh! when a mother meets on high

The babe she lost in infancy,

Hath she not then for all her fears,
The day of woe, the watchful night,
For all her sorrow, all her tears,
An overpayment of delight."

More had now been witnessed by the Patriarch than he had presumed to hope. Now, therefore, he thought that he could die in peace. Many an aged parent has expressed himself in similar terms when all that he cared for on earth was unexpectedly realised, and he was privileged to look once more upon the child from whom by time and distance he had been long divided. And although Jacob had still seventeen years more to spend on earth, he was now so reconciled to the Divine will that he could contentedly die at any time. The immediate hand of God in the whole matter he could now easily discern, and even as the aged Simeon, who had long waited for the redemption of Israel, could, in taking into his arms the heaven-born babe of Bethlehem, expire without regret, so Jacob, his wishes in regard to Joseph being far more than gratified, says, not in a fit of peevishness, but in the exercise of holy resignation, "Now let me die, since I have seen thy face, because thou art yet alive."

The tender interview with his venerable parent being over, Joseph instructed his brethren how to conduct themselves before Pharaoh. He goes, this being done, to inform that sovereign that his kindred had come down into his realms. Odious as the name of shepherd was to the Egyptians, they were not to disguise the fact that such had been their calling and occupation. It would have been very easy for Joseph to represent his brethren as persons of honourable descent; for so, in truth, they were. Their ancestor Abraham had been possessed of great riches, and his name was famous in the East. He had not only been honourably distinguished all his life-long for piety

and domestic virtue, but on one particular occasion also for valour in the field; and had Joseph desired to attach value to descent, no more noble name could have been selected by him than that of him who had so bravely acquitted himself in the vale of Siddim. He might have spoken of Isaac, in like manner, as one whose friendship was courted by Abimelech, and to whom that Prince had sent ambassadors for the ratification of an amicable covenant. He might even have gone over the history of his own father, Jacob, and drawn from it materials enough to show that they were highly and honourably connected. But Joseph, with all his rank and with all his dignity of extraction, was not a vain man. These things, he well knew, did not constitute greatness; and as it was his object to glorify God's Providence more than to honour either himself or his friends, he declares, with all honesty and singleness of heart, that the men's trade had been about cattle from their youth even until then. He was neither, in short, himself ashamed of his brethren's occupation, nor did he wish them to be ashamed of it. Why should he? It was lawful and innocent in itself; and although, from political causes which it is not necessary here to specify, it had been much hated by the Egyptians, that was no reason why the truth should not be told.

Let the conduct of Joseph, then, serve as a rebuke to those who, having themselves risen from obscurity to power and opulence, are ashamed of the humble condition in which, at one period of their lives, they were placed. How often has it happened that such persons have disclaimed all knowledge of their acquaintances and bosom friends; have shunned, as

they would shun a mortal infection, the playfellows of their youth; have denied their countenance to the persons who could attest their original poverty; and have been uneasy under the most distant allusion to the trade or calling which once they followed ? The meanness of their character is best seen by contrasting it with the nobleness of Joseph's. Poor notwithstanding all their wealth, and vile with all their dignity, they are as unlike the illustrious Governor of Egypt as it is possible to imagine. Did they possess true magnanimity, they would, instead of seeking to hide or disguise, esteem it a high honour to declare what they had been. They would hold nothing to be discreditable but sin; and, if their greatness was acquired in a just and innocent way, they would speak often of their original poverty as an encouragement to others in a low estate. Instead of despising their poor relatives, they would extend to them every countenance befiting their moral character. Instead of feeling sensitive under any allusion to their past history, they would take occasion from it to recommend to others the industrious habits by which they had themselves been enabled to attain eminence. This were to show themselves not altogether unworthy of the elevation to which they had been raised. This were to prove that their minds were yet greater than their fortunes. But surely when men so far forget what true dignity is, as to feel shame or uneasiness at that which would remind them of the obscurity whence they emerged, they who knew their history may well be excused for holding them in less estimation than the beggar on the highway, who has not where to lay his head.

Nor is the conduct of Joseph less eloquent of rebuke to those who attach more value to nobility of descent than to personal virtue. It is more truly honourable to raise a name than to inherit one-to make one's self illustrious by exemplary deeds, than faintly to reflect the light of bygone grandeur. What would it have availed Joseph that the fame of his ancestors was great and widely spread, if he himself had been wanting in the qualities for which alone they deserved to be remembered? Although the blood of Abraham flowed in his veins, was he not as a human being, in the judgment of every rightthinking person, to stand or fall upon his own character? And was he not greater far when he lay in a dungeon for righteousness sake, than if, affecting to prize his relationship to the dead, he had yet transgressed the rules which that righteous man recommended to the practice of his descendants? Throughout all generations the maxim holds good, that a man is nothing but what his own virtues or vices make him. 66 Estates, degrees, and offices," may all of them "be corruptly derived." There is an honour which heraldry cannot prove, nor sovereigns confer. It is that which a man's own exertions win, and upon which alone Heaven stamps the seal of its approval. Let us not, however, be misunderstood. mean not that it is either wrong in itself, or unworthy of a virtuous man, to take pleasure in remembering the well-earned honours of his forefathers. Far from it. There is much of generous emulation that may be roused by such memories. Indeed, it is as natural to rejoice in ancestral renown as to desire posthumous fame. What we mean is, that the mere

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