A lad who had dreamt of being a ruler and king of men, so that his father would bow before him for what he could do for him, how terrible it must have been for the boy to be sold as a slave! How terribly he must have been tempted to say, "God has deceived me; He made me to dream dreams, and here I am left in a dungeon, a slave: I cannot get what I want honourably; I will get it dishonourably; I will snatch the fruit of life, even if it be in defiance of what God and good men call right"! That is the temptation that drives many a lad to dishonesty and treachery, and many a girl to bitterness and sin. It came to Joseph in the deadliest form. The mistress of the household made overtures to him which, had he accepted them, would have meant immediate promotion, perhaps to the court; for her husband was the chief of Pharaoh's body-guard. Could there have been devised a deadlier temptation for that poor, homeless boy, so treacherously treated by those who should have loved him—who had dreamt such dreams, and had such proud ambitions, and withal no danger of discovery if he would but take the path that opened up the way of promotion? I think that was the crisis in Joseph's life; that was the supreme deed which determined his destiny. Then it was that he had to stand, and stand for ever, for God and good, or to fall and sink for ever into ruin. And what saved him? I will tell you what saved him. When Fortune tells a clerk that he has but to take a little of his master's money, which he can repay very soon, and she will smile on him, what he will do all depends upon his past. Those dreams of Joseph's meant everything to him at that great moment. If his dreams had been of the flesh, if his dreams had been base, and selfish, and sordid, and of grasping the world's gains, honourably if possible, but anyway grasping them, he could not have stood. But that boy had dreamt of being a prince, a king among men; he had dreamt of a noble, stainless manhood, of self-respect, and honour, and truth; and he had dreamt of God caring about him, of God choosing him to be His instrument in this world; he was a lad in whose soul the whispers of childhood's prayers and of morning devotions murmured, with sweet echoes of heaven. A lad on whose head still rests the soft pressure of the blessing of his Father in heaven is no game for the devil. Joseph turned from that temptation without a moment's faltering; he said to himself, "Be a traitor and a knave! stain my soul and my manhood with this foul lust!"—and in the presence and the sight of God he conquered; he was loyal to the dreams of his youth, and the result was that he went to prison.