Yet again; this lesson teaches that God uses means apparently rough and stern to prepare his servants for higher responsibilities and more signal blessings. We can not say what Joseph would have been if he had remained in the bosom of his doting father’s home through all those years from seventeen to thirty, instead of being in God’s school of suffering and trial; but it is safe to say that he made rapid strides forward in this school of God――in his knowledge of human nature; in his quick and manifest sympathy with every one in trouble; in his skill to gain the confidence of those about and above him; in his capacity for business; and not least in his living piety and his humble walk with God. His surroundings threw him roughly upon his own resources, and at the same time sweetly upon God’s resources; and in consequence he rose, as few men have even been fit to rise, from slave-life and from prison-life, to be the actuary of a great kingdom――the almoner of bread and of life to the nations of the then civilized world; and also to become one of the most exalted and spotless characters of all history. Are not the ways of God truly wonderful? * * * * * _The ways of God toward Jacob_ must not be overlooked. We need not debate the question how far his sufferings were those of innocence, and how far he was criminally responsible for the lack of moral culture and the power of fearful depravity in his sons. Be this as it may, it was hard for him to lose Joseph――the one son who was a comfort to his heart among so many who were quite otherwise. Even after thirteen years his heart seems still to be sore with that great sorrow, so that when his ten sons say that Benjamin must go with them to Egypt, he exclaims, “All these things are against me”! And when at length he is compelled to consent, his words indicate that he bows to an inexorable fate rather than yields in sweet trust to a divine hand believed to be wise and kind, though utterly and inexplicably mysterious;――“If I am bereaved of my children, I am bereaved.”