and all the same summary record is to be made— "And Joseph died, and all his brethren, and all that generation."

Surely it seems as if the Lord intended by this bill of mortality for a whole race, which his own Spirit has framed, to stamp as with a character of utter mockery and insignificance the most momentous distinctions and interests of time;-these all being engulfed and swallowed up in the general doom of death, which ushers in the one distinction of eternity.

I. Look to the announcement as it respects the individual,-"Joseph died." Carry this intimation back with you into the various changes of his eventful life, invested as these are in your recollection with a peculiar charm by the affectionate associations and the fresh feelings of childhood; and does not the intimation impart to them all a still more touching and tender interest? You see him a child-a boy-a youth at home-the favourite of a widowed father-the first pledge of a love now hallowed by death. You follow him with full sympathy through the petty plots and snares of a divided family, to which his frank and unsuspecting simplicity made him an easy prey; and when you think of him as even then, in boyhood, honoured by direct communications from above, and on that very account persecuted and hated by those who naturally should have cherished and watched over him; when you read of his unsuspecting readiness to meet them half-way in their plans against him, and of the desperate malignity of these plans-the cruel deceit practised on his aged parent, and his own narrow escape, his providential deliverance ;—are you not

touched by the reflection, that all this is but to lead to the brief conclusion, "Joseph died?" You follow him to Egypt. You go with him into Potiphar's house, and rejoice in his advancement there. You share in his disgrace and degradation. Joseph in prison is to you like an old familiar friend. His innocence, his unsullied honour to his deceived master, his unshaken loyalty to his God, endear him to your hearts, and you burn with indignation at the wrongs he suffers. The dreams which he interpreted, the chief baker's fate, the chief butler's fault, all the particulars, in short, of his exaltation to royal favour-his rank at Pharaoh's court, his power over all Egypt, his policy in providing for the years of famine, his treatment of his father and his father's house-these circumstances in his history, the history which first won your regard in childhood, and will longest retain its hold over you in age these things give to the earthly career of Joseph an attractiveness and beauty in your fond esteem, equalling, nay, far surpassing, what you have ever found in any of the pictures of romance.

It may not be pleasant to cast over all this stirring picture the sullen gloom of death! Yet it does invest it all with a sort of softened and twilight charm, like the peaceful shades of evening shed over a busy landscape-and it teaches, at all events, a salutary lesson-to bear in mind, that prominent as was the station Joseph occupied in his day famous through all ages as his name has become great and lasting as were the fruits of his measures after he was gone, touching not the Israelites alone, but Egypt and all the world-he himself had to go the way of all flesh. His trials, with their many aggravations

his triumphs, with all their glories—were alike brief and transient; and his eventful career ended, as the obscurest and most commonplace lifetime must end -for "Joseph died."

Read over again the history of Joseph with this running title, this continual motto, "And Joseph died." Call before your mind's eye its successive scenes; and as one by one they pass in review before you, and you gaze on the man of so many changes, let a loud voice ever and anon ring in your ears the knell," And Joseph died." And try how this startling alarum will affect the judgment you form and the emotions you feel! Take each event by itself-isolate it separate it from all the rest-bring it at once into immediate contact with the event which closes all—and see how it looks in the light, or in the lurid shade, of the tomb.

Joseph is at home, the idol of a fond parent. Ah! dote not, thou venerable sire, on thy fair and dutiful child. Remember how soon it may be said of him, and how certainly it must be said of him, that "Joseph died." Joseph is lost, and the aged father is disconsolate. He thinks of his son's bright promise, and of all that he might have been, had he been for a season spared. But grieve not, thou greyhaired patriarch. What though thy child has gone ere he has won life's empty prizes? Ah! think, though he had been left to win them all, how it must have come speedily to the same issue at the last, and it must have been said of him that "Joseph died." Joseph is in trouble-betrayed, persecuted, distressed, wounded in his tenderest feelings, a stranger among strangers, a prisoner, a slave. But let him not be disquieted above measure,

nor mourn over the loss of his prosperity. It will be all one to him when a few years are gone, and the end comes. It is but a little while, and it shall be said of him that "Joseph died." Joseph is exalted-he is high in wealth, in honour, and power. He is restored to his father he is reconciled to his brethren. But why should all his glory and his joy elate him? It will be nothing to him soon-when it comes to be said of him that "Joseph died." Ah! there is but one of Joseph's many distinctions, whether of character or of fortune, that does not shrink and shrivel beside this stern announcement. The simplicity of his trust in God, the steadfastness of his adherence to truth and holiness, the favour of Heaven, his charity out of a pure heart and a good conscience and faith unfeigned -these will stand the shock of collision with this record of his decease. And the one bright thought on which chiefly we love to rest when we read this record is, that he of whom we learn the tidings that he is dead, is the same Joseph whom we have heard uttering, in his prosperity, the noble sentiment, "How shall I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?"-the same Joseph of whom we have read in prison, that "the Lord was with him, and showed him mercy; "the same Joseph whom we have seen in Pharaoh's presence disclaiming all personal credit, and giving glory to God alone-"It is not in me; God shall give Pharaoh an answer of peace; "-the same Joseph who has spoken so kindly to his father and his brethren, soothing his father's death-bed with the promise that he should indeed, as he so fondly wished, lie with his sires in the promised land, “I will do as thou hast said "—and relieving, with ex

quisite delicacy, the troubled consciences of his brethren, "Fear not; ye thought evil against me, but God meant it unto good; I will nourish you and your little ones;"—and finally, the same Joseph who is found strong in faith when his own hour of departure comes, hoping against hope, "making mention of the departing of the children of Israel, and giving commandment concerning his bones," saying, "God will surely visit you, and ye shall carry up my bones from

hence."

-Yes, it is something to learn that it is such a man, who so fears to offend against God, so trusts in His mercy, and so glorifies Him before kings; one, moreover, so dutiful to his father, so generous and forgiving to his brethren; and one, in fine, so firm in faith to the last, and so joyful in hope of the inheritance of God; it is something to learn that it is such an one, that it is Joseph, who is dead. There is comfort in the news that Joseph died. "The righteous is taken away from the evil to come ""Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord." So "Joseph died "—

II. "And all his brethren." They too all died, and the vicissitudes of their family history came to an end in the silent tomb. That family history has its scenes of tenderness and of trouble, of pathos and of passion, like other family histories before and since-scenes of similar though surpassing interest; and do not all these scenes derive a new import and new significancy from so solemn an intimation of death at the close? The actors in these scenes, the members of this family, would surely have thought and felt far otherwise than they did, had they reflected always how soon the time