Now this is seen in Joseph’s brethren. Another has noticed it already in a general way. But it is deeply worthy of notice. It was their sin against Joseph they called to mind in the day of their distress. "We are verily guilty concerning our brother," they say, "in that we saw the anguish of his soul, when he besought us, and we would not hear." Other sins might have been present to the conscience then. Reuben might have thought of the defilement of his father’s bed, Simeon and Levi of their blood-shedding and treachery, and Judah of his marriage; but, stirred into life, not merely by the trouble which had come upon them, but by the Spirit, they are mindful of the _common_ sin, and speak, as with one conscience, of their wickedness touching Joseph. And it is this which bespeaks the Spirit’s work in this conviction. Needed work, again I say, this is in every one of us. But the _fountain_ has to do its work as well as the Spirit of grace. Joseph, as we saw, interpreted his sorrows, though at their wicked hands, very differently from what their fears and guilt had interpreted them. They said, and very rightly, "we are verily guilty concerning our brother;" he says, and very truly, "God did send me before you, to preserve life." And this is the gospel. We are convicted, but saved. We learn that we have destroyed ourselves, but that in Him is our help. The blood meets the spear. The fountain is opened in those very wounds which our own hands have inflicted. And this will be the experience of the Jewish election (whose history that of these brethren foreshadow, as we know) in the day of Isaiah liii. and Zechariah xiii. The cross is the witness. Faith stands before it, and there learns _ruin_ and _redemption_. In the progress of this wondrous story, the reconciliation, as we have now seen, is accomplished. Joseph has received his brethren; and all is therefore ready for Israel’s full blessing. Restoration must follow conversion. Times of refreshing and restitution must come upon Israel’s repentance. The aged father, with his household and flocks, is brought from Canaan, and with his sons presented to Pharaoh, and they are seated in the very best of the land, the land of Goshen in Rameses. They were told that they might leave all their own stuff _behind_ them, for all the good of the land of Egypt was _before_ them. And so it proved to be. Their empty sacks had come down to Egypt at the first to be made full, and they were still to prove that there were a heart and a hand there, both equal and ready to give without measure, and the emptier they came down the fuller they would learn this.