ld go on from conquering to conquer. Little did the gifted Burke see
in the atrocities of the French Revolution the overturning of a system
of injustices which for centuries had cried to Heaven for vengeance.
Still less did the proud and conservative citizens of New England
recognize in the cruelties of Southern slaveholders a crime which would
provoke one of the bloodiest wars of modern times, and lead to the
constitutional and political equality of the whites and blacks. Evil
appeared to triumph, but ended in the humiliation of millions and the
enfranchisement of humanity, when the cause of the right seemed utterly
hopeless. So let every one write upon all walls and houses and chambers,
upon his conscience and his intellect, "The Lord God Omnipotent
reigneth, and will bring good out of the severest tribulation!" And this
great truth applies not to nations alone, but to the humblest
individual, as he bows down in grief or wrath or penitence to
unlooked-for chastisement,--like Job upon his heap of ashes, or the
broken-hearted mother when afflicted with disease or poverty, or the
misconduct or death of children. There is no wisdom, no sound
philosophy, no religion, and no happiness until this truth is recognized
in all the changes and relations of life.

The history of Joseph in Egypt in all his varied fortunes is, as I have
said, a most memorable illustration of this cardinal and fundamental
truth. A favorite of fortune, he is sold as a slave for less than twenty
dollars of our money, and is brought to a foreign country,--a land
oppressed by kings and priests, yet in which is a high civilization, in
spite of social and political degradation. He is resold to a high
official of the Egyptian court, probably on account of his beauty and
intelligence. He rises in the service of this official,--captain of the
royal guard, or, as the critics tell us, superintendent of the police
and prisons,--for he has extraordinary abilities and great integrity,
character as well as natural genius, until he is unjustly accused of a
meditated crime by a wicked woman. It is evident that Potiphar, his
master, only half believes in Joseph's guilt, in spite of the
protestations of his artful and profligate wife, since instead of
summarily executing him, as Ahasuerus did Haman, he simply sends him to
a mild and temporary imprisonment in the prison adjacent to his palace.
Here Joseph wins the favor of his jailers and of his brother prisoners,
as Pa