Joseph is not at all a perfect man. He hasn’t the kind of faults that David possessed, that show clearly to the person that isn’t even looking for them; but he has what seem to be more terrible faults because they are gilded over with success. And I can think of no character in history more magnanimous than was Joseph, for when his father was dead and his brethren came to him and were afraid that he would be avenging, he wept at their doubting him, and then said these significant words: “Fear not: for am I in the place of God?” It seems to me that these are the words that best show the high ideal that ruled Joseph. As far as I can see it is the same spirit which was in Luther, only in another form—that is, that each one of us must settle all our doubts with God alone. Human help is unavailing here. Such a high ideal as this of Joseph fills me with awe and reverent admiration, and when I realize that he was at the head of, and the former and the creator of the most stupendous trust that the world has ever known, I find myself bewildered in trying to reconcile such different elements in one man,—Joseph’s tenderness and magnanimity to his brethren, and Joseph’s creating a trust which forced the Egyptians to sell their land to him and finally their bodies as slaves to ward off starvation. Think of one man combining such opposite qualities. Is it because the golden rule that Christ gave us had not yet come into the world? Of course Joseph did what John D. Rockefeller is trying to do, and has in no small degree accomplished, though perhaps we do not see the slave-chains that he has put upon us. But John D. Rockefeller hasn’t, as far as we know, the godlike nature that Joseph had. He and Joseph are alike in each possessing the inhuman quality of being able to crush out the life of their fellowmen.