lurked in the bosoms of political rivals and military chieftains.

But one thing certainly extinguishes envy; and that is death. Hence the
envy of Joseph's brothers, after they had sold him to a caravan of
Ishmaelite merchants, was succeeded by remorse and shame. Their
murmurings passed into lies. They could not tell their broken-hearted
father of their crime; they never told him. Jacob was led to suppose
that his favorite son was devoured by wild beasts; they added deceit and
cowardice to a depraved heartlessness, and nearly brought down the gray
hairs of their father to the grave. No subsequent humiliation or
punishment could be too severe for such wickedness. Although they were
destined to become the heads of powerful tribes, even of the chosen
people of God, these men have incurred the condemnation of all ages. But
Judah and Reuben do not come in for unlimited censure, since these sons
of Leah sought to save their brother from a violent death; and
subsequently in Egypt Judah looms up as a magnanimous character, whom we
admire almost as much as we do Joseph himself. What can be more eloquent
than his defence of Benjamin, and his appeal to what seemed to him to be
an Egyptian potentate!

The sale of Joseph as a slave is one of the most signal instances of the
providence of God working by natural laws recorded in all history,--more
marked even than the elevation of Esther and Mordecai. In it we see
permission of evil and its counteraction,--its conversion into good;
victory over evil, over conspiracy, treachery, and murderous intent. And
so marked is this lesson of a superintending Providence over all human
action, that a wise and good man can see wars and revolutions and
revolting crimes with almost philosophical complacency, knowing that out
of destruction proceeds creation; that the wrath of man is always
overruled; that the love of God is the brightest and clearest and most