called to be a comforter to souls. He summons his sympathy, he persuasively approaches those whose hearts are sore, he obtains their confidence, and relieves their anxiety. Still again, this prisoner, this shepherd boy, this household servant, this man with pity in his eyes, is called to a new adaptation. He must appear before a Pharaoh and as a courtier have interview with him! That underlying purpose of his heart, always to make the best of the hour and place, stands him in good stead, and the courtier conducts himself so wisely that he is advanced to be an Egyptian viceroy. Later still this viceroy must become a minister of agriculture and charge a nation when and how to sow the fields. Still later he must become a secretary of the treasury, purchasing grain and building store-houses. Still later he must be a great premier, both providing for present need and making arrangements for future taxation. Later he must be a brother with a true brother's heart and a son with a son's gentleness toward an aged and perhaps imperious parent. Later he must be a mourner, then a traveler, and then as an orphan son he must assume again the heavy burdens of statesmanship.

What strange varieties of experience Joseph thus met! How those experiences kept changing every little while! Why did he succeed so well in them? Because in every one of them he made the best use of himself that the occasion allowed. He magnified the opportunity he had. The thing that was at hand to do he did with absolute fidelity.

We do not forget and we must not forget that at the very bottom of his life was a belief in God and an intention to do what God sanctioned and only what God sanctioned. He would not disobey what he believed to be a wish of God! Somehow, in that far-away country, surrounded by temples and idols, meeting the thousands of priests of Isis, hearing the daily services of heathenism, and seeing the unceasing vices of the land, he kept God and God's principles in his soul. Those principles in general taught him purity and honesty; in particular they taught him fidelity in the service of others and desire to benefit his fellow-men. Such fidelity and helpfulness—united with dependence on the aid of God—enabled him always and everywhere to make the best use of his life. He trusted God when doors were shut as well as when they were open. Privation as truly as prosperity was to him an opportunity.

Accordingly, heartiness went into his opportunities. The spirit of grumbling never appeared in his career. No hour came too suddenly for him, no task was too small nor too great, no occasion too low nor too high, no association too mean nor too noble. As a household servant he did his work as under God and for God, and as a ruler of a nation he did it as under God and for God, and as an obedient son he did it as under God and for God.

A physician whose life has been beautiful in good deeds and in a high faith once said, "My happiness and usefulness in the world are due to a chance question from a stranger. I was a poor boy and a cripple. One day, standing on a ball-field and watching other boys who were strong, well clothed, and healthy, I felt bitter and envious. The friends of the players were waiting to applaud them. I never could play nor have applause! I was sick at heart.

"A young man beside me must have seen the discontent on my face. He touched my arm, and said, 'You wish you were one of those boys, do you?' 'Yes, I do,' I answered quickly. 'They have everything and I have nothing.'

"Quietly he said, 'God has given them money, education, and health that they may be of some account in the world. Did it never strike you that he gave you your lameness for the same reason, to make a splendid man of you?'

"I did not answer, but I never forgot the words. 'My lameness given me by God to teach me patience and strength!'

"At first I did not believe the words, but I was a thoughtful boy, taught to reverence God, and the more I considered the words, the clearer I saw their truth. I decided to accept the words. I let them work upon my temper, my purposes, my actions. I now looked on every difficulty as an opportunity for struggle, every situation of my life as an occasion for good. If a helpless invalid was cast on me for support, or whatever the burden that came to me, I resolved to do my best. Since then life has been sweetened and growth into peace and usefulness has come."

Soon after the death of Carlyle two friends met: "And so Carlyle is dead," said one. "Yes," said the other, "he is gone; but he did me a very good turn once." "How was that," asked the first speaker, "did you ever see him or hear him?" "No," came the answer, "I never saw him nor heard him. But when I was beginning life, almost through my apprenticeship, I lost all interest in everything and every one. I felt as if I had no duty of importance to discharge; that it did not matter whether I lived or not; that the world would do as well without me as with me. This condition continued more than a year. I should have been glad to die. One gloomy night, feeling that I could stand my darkness no longer, I went into a library, and lifting a book I found lying upon a table, I opened it. It was Sartor Resartus, by Thomas Carlyle. My eye fell upon one sentence, marked in italics, 'Do the duty which lies nearest to thee, which thou knowest to be a duty! The second duty will already have become clearer.' That sentence," continued the speaker, "was a flash of lightning striking into my dark soul. It gave me a new glimpse of human existence. It made a changed man of me. Carlyle, under God, saved me. He put content and purpose and power into my life."

"The duty lying nearest" was the duty Joseph magnified. He accepted that duty as divine, and he performed it under God faithfully, serviceably, and cheerily. Any and every life that meets duty as Joseph did, will make the best of its life. We may be placed in low position or in high position; we may have menial or kingly responsibilities; we may have temptations of all possible kinds about us; but if we look to God for guidance, and carry faithfulness, serviceableness, and cheer into each and every duty, we shall have made of life the best.

Putting the Best into Others.

CHAPTER IV.

Putting the Best Into Others.

There is nothing more worthy than the desire to perpetuate the good. That desire implies that the person cherishing it has good within himself, and that he wishes that good to live and flourish after his death. If a man thinks that his views are the best that can be held, then, if he is a noble soul, interested in the world's welfare, he longs to have his best enter into other lives, and so continue to bless the world.

This longing characterized Elijah. He came upon the scene of human life at a time when the worship of the low and debased threatened to dominate the people of Israel. The priests of Baal, an impure god, were in the ascendant. Vices, as a consequence, prevailed. These vices controlled even the court. King Ahab and Queen Jezebel were impiously wrong. Elijah had stern work to do. He must reprove the people for their errors. He must face the priests of Baal and show them and show the nation that their god, as