tree, and flung recklessly to the earth. That he had not perished then in his apparent helplessness, was owing to nothing less than the watchful Providence of God, who had transplanted him into Egypt and nourished him there. Changing the figure, the Patriarch next alludes to the harsh treatment he had met with, before attaining the high honour with which he was now invested. "The archers sorely grieved him, they shot at him, and hated him." His own brethren had most maliciously persecuted him in early life, ridiculed his pretensions to eminence, and, finally, sold him for a contemptible price into the hands of the Ishmaelites. The wife of Potiphar had wrought him much additional mischief; the finest feelings of his nature had been shocked, his character injuriously defamed, and his prospects, just as they began to clear up, of a sudden darkened. Yet, notwithstanding all this, his destruction was averted, yea, his ultimate prosperity advanced. "His bow abode in strength, and his arms were made strong by the hands of the mighty God of Jacob." Under trials of far inferior severity, thousands would have sunk down in despair. But the faith of Joseph had not failed, nor did he let his integrity go. The very weights that threatened to crush him did but call forth the opposing energies of his character; and, having within him a good conscience, he had waited the issue with patience. Fortune did not make him great, but found him so. Had he even perished in the dungeon where he was unjustly confined, he would have been honoured by angels as a nobleminded man. His was the dignity of moral worth; and, in point of all that constitutes true greatness, no earthly monarch could compare with him. There is always some

thing admirable in the struggles which principle makes against adversity. We find a pleasure even in looking upon the stately tree, that has for many successive

winters stood in the face of those storms beneath which others have been driven prostrate to the ground; or in contemplating the gallant ship, which has defied the fury of these elements that have scattered her sister voyagers into fragments on the waters. But these objects, interesting as they are, are but faint and poor emblems of the human mind beaten by the tempests of calamity, and yet maintaining its integrity. It was not, however, in virtue of his own native strength that Joseph had thus persevered in welldoing under adversities which thousands would have felt to be overwhelming. No-his bow abode in strength, because his arms were made strong by the hands of the mighty God of Jacob. The grace of the most high was largely given to him, and by a divine light he walked through darkness. Abandoned to his own strength, he would have been utterly incompetent to resist the temptations by which he was assailed, or to exercise the virtue by which he was distinguished. But the spirit of wisdom was vouchsafed unto him from on high; and no man who reads his history can doubt that his prayers at a throne of grace were both frequent and fervent.— Taking next into view the blessings which Joseph had been the instrument of procuring for his kindred, he describes him as the Shepherd and Store of Israel; their shepherd, as he had provided for their comforts; their store, as he had upheld and supported them in years of famine. Then, looking down by the eye of prophecy through the vale of fu

ture time, he sees that the fame of Joseph shall continue to spread, that his progeny shall be numerous, and their fortunes illustrious. "The Almighty shall bless thee with blessings of heaven above, blessings of the deep that lieth under, blessings of the breasts, and of the womb. The blessings of thy father have have prevailed above the blessings of thy progenitors, unto the utmost bound of the everlasting hills; they shall be on the head of Joseph, and on the crown of the head of him that was separated from his brethren."

In the preceding chapters we have had frequent occasion to point out resemblances between Joseph and our blessed Lord, nor may we now overlook some of those that are suggested by the passage in hand; for more emphatically may it be said of Jesus than of Jacob's son, that the archers sorely grieved him, and shot at him, and hated him. It was so at his birth, when Herod sought the young child to destroy him, and his mother had to carry him for safety into that very land which had so long before furnished an asylum to his Type. It was so when the tempter assailed him for forty days in the wilderness, and all the perverted ingenuity of the accursed fiend was exercised against his peace. It was so when his own brethren after the flesh taunted him with the obscurity of his birth, and contemptuously asked, "Is not this the carpenter's son ?" It was so when, although he spake as never man did, they reviled him as a seducer of the people; when the most slanderous imputations were brought against his purity of motive and intention; when his very miracles, which could not be denied, were ascribed to the agency of Satan ;

when his heavenly doctrine was set at nought, and his gracious invitations laughed to scorn; when, instead of being welcomed as the benefactor of mankind, he was despised and rejected by the world which he came to save: "The ploughers ploughed upon his back; they made long their furrows. The wicked bent their bow; they made ready their arrow upon the string. False witnesses rose up and laid to his charge things that he knew not. They that hated him without a cause were more than the hairs of his head." But it was especially at the close of his sorrowful existence that the archers so sorely grieved him. Then every arrow that could work agony was let loose against him; to say nothing of the contradiction of sinners and the malice of hell, he had to bear what was infinitely worse, the wrath of God. The sufferings inflicted on him by men and devils were indeed very painful and severe-the buffeting, the scourging, and the crucifying, were all very grievous to be borne; but these are tortures which many righteous men and martyrs have sustained unshrinkingly. Had these been all we should have heard nothing about the travail of Christ's soul. In that case it could not have been said that there never was sorrow like unto his sorrow. The prospect of these things could never have wrung from him the affecting prayer" Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me." Ah no. The bitterness of that cup consisted in this, that the Lord God laid on him the iniquities of us all. It was because the arrows of Divine wrath fell thick as hail upon him that his soul was exceeding sorrowful, and that his sweat was like great drops of blood falling down to the ground.

Throughout all his previous life, indeed, he had been acquainted with grief, but now he began to be sore amazed. Terrible thought! he endured the wrath of God. This was the iron that entered deep into his soul. The ingenuity of men and of devils could not have devised such tortures as he endured when THE LORD PUT HIM TO GRIEF. The stroke that so heavily affected him was a stroke from heaven. The burden which he bore was the burden of atonement for the sins of many. It was this which extorted from him strong crying and tears. It was because he was stricken, smitten OF GOD and afflicted, that he cried out-" My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me ?" Far sharper than all the nails which tore his flesh were the arrows that pierced his soul. Then came to pass the saying which had been written"Awake, oh sword, against my shepherd, and against the man that is my fellow."

But notwithstanding all, HIS BOW STILL ABODE IN STRENGTH. The prince of this world could find nothing in him; the principalities of darkness could not turn him aside from rectitude. Even under that awful burden of Almighty wrath which pressed him to the very dust of death, he showed himself still mighty to save, and, in testimony that all power was his, he bore with him to paradise the soul of a penitent fellow-sufferer. The victory which he achieved was matchless. Angels looked with wonder down; and their song, even at this present hour, is of the Lamb that was slain-the man that was crucified in weakness but raised again with power.

Wherefore, we may well ask, was it that he was able to stand in the face of all this formidable opposi