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Education
the conflict beside the Jabbok, when, renouncing cherished sins, Jacob
stood conqueror, and received the title of a prince with God.
A shepherd boy, tending his father’s flocks, Joseph’s pure and
simple life had favored the development of both physical and mental
power. By communion with God through nature and the study of the
great truths handed down as a sacred trust from father to son, he had
gained strength of mind and firmness of principle.
In the crisis of his life, when making that terrible journey from
his childhood home in Canaan to the bondage which awaited him in
Egypt, looking for the last time on the hills that hid the tents of his
kindred, Joseph remembered his father’s God. He remembered the
lessons of his childhood, and his soul thrilled with the resolve to prove
himself true—ever to act as became a subject of the King of heaven.
In the bitter life of a stranger and a slave, amidst the sights and
sounds of vice and the allurements of heathen worship, a worship sur-
rounded with all the attractions of wealth and culture and the pomp of
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royalty, Joseph was steadfast. He had learned the lesson of obedience
to duty. Faithfulness in every station, from the most lowly to the most
exalted, trained every power for highest service.
At the time when he was called to the court of Pharaoh, Egypt was
the greatest of nations. In civilization, art, learning, she was unequaled.
Through a period of utmost difficulty and danger, Joseph administered
the affairs of the kingdom; and this he did in a manner that won the
confidence of the king and the people. Pharaoh “made him lord of his
house, and ruler of all his substance: to bind his princes at his pleasure;
and teach his senators wisdom.”
Psalm 105:21, 22
.
The secret of Joseph’s life Inspiration has set before us. In words
of divine power and beauty, Jacob, in the blessing pronounced upon
his children, spoke thus of his best-loved son: