FROM SLAVE TO VICEROY Genesis 39.1 to 41.46 =Interpretation.= There are no surer tests of character than transplantation to a strange country without hope of return and degradation to a lower social stratum without hope of rising. For a great part of our moral strength comes from the consciousness that the eyes of others interested in our life are on us, that we dare not disappoint their expectations of us, and that our acts affect their happiness and honor. The person who finds himself alone in a strange land from which he does not expect to return and from which he does not expect rumors of his deeds to reach his former associates must have an iron character to maintain his loyalty to the moral standards of his earlier environment in the face of new temptations. And particularly is this true if, at the same time as he is transplanted into a strange land, he finds his social status also reduced. For the ambition to rise in his new environment, to achieve success and recognition there, might be sufficient incentive for some "to scorn delights and live laborious days", but for the enslaved in a new land this incentive also is lacking. Both these tests of character Joseph had to meet and he met them successfully. Arrived in Egypt, he wastes no time brooding over his wrongs but sets to work diligently at his tasks in such a way as to win him the confidence of his master. This confidence he will not abuse even under the most seductive of temptations and even though his fidelity to principle results in the very loss of his master's confidence in him and in his consequent confinement in the royal prison. Note that what keeps Joseph pure is the sense of responsibility not only to Potiphar, but, in the first instance, to God, so that the very fact which might lead others to sin, namely the fact that Potiphar could not know of his misdeeds, fortifies him against sin. "He refused and said unto his master's wife, 'Behold, my master, having me, knoweth not what is in the house and he hath put all that he hath into my hand; he is not greater in this house than I; neither hath he kept back any thing from me but thee, because thou art his wife. How then can I do this great wickedness, _and sin against God_?'" In prison he shows the same qualities with the same result of winning the confidence of people. =Aim.= The aim of this lesson is to inspire the child with the example of Joseph's patience, cheerfulness and faithfulness under difficulties, all of which qualities were influenced by his trust in God.