wly to the most exalted, trained every power for highest service.
At the time when he was called to the court of Pharaoh, Egypt
was the greatest of nations. In civilization, art, learning, she was
unequaled. Through a period of utmost difficulty and danger, Joseph
administered the affairs of the kingdom; and this he did in a manner
that won the confidence of the king and the people. Pharaoh
“made him lord of his house, and ruler of all his substance: to bind
his princes at his pleasure; and teach his senators wisdom.” Psalm
105:21, 22.
The secret of Joseph’s life Inspiration has set before us. In words
of divine power and beauty, Jacob, in the blessing pronounced upon
his children, spoke thus of his best-loved son:
“Joseph is a fruitful bough,
Even a fruitful bough by a well;
Whose branches run over the wall:
The archers have sorely grieved him,
And shot at him, and hated him:
But his bow abode in strength,
40 Education
And the arms of his hands were made strong
By the hands of the mighty God of Jacob; ...
Even by the God of thy father, who shall help thee;
And by the Almighty, who shall bless thee
With blessings of heaven above,
Blessings of the deep that lieth under: ...
The blessings of thy father have prevailed
Above the blessings of my progenitors
Unto the utmost bound of the everlasting hills:
They shall be on the head of Joseph,
And on the crown of the head of him that was separate
from his brethren.”
Genesis 49:22-26.
[54]
Loyalty to God, faith in the Unseen, was Joseph’s anchor. In this
lay the hiding of his power.
“The arms of his hands were made strong By the hands of the
mighty God of Jacob.”
Daniel, an Ambassador of Heaven
Daniel and his companions in Babylon were, in their youth,
apparently more favored of fortune than was Joseph in the earlier
years of his life in Egypt; yet they were subjected to tests of character
scarcely less severe. From the comparative simplicity of their
Judean home these youth of royal line were transported to the most
magnificent of cities, to the court of its greatest monarch, and were
singled out to be trained for the king’s special service. Strong were
the temptations surrounding them in that corrupt and luxurious court.
The fact that they, the worshipers of Jehovah, were captives to Babylon;
that the vessels of God’s house had been placed in the temple of
the gods of Babylon; that the king of Israel was himself a prisoner in
the hands of the Babylonians, was boastfully cited by the victors as
evidence that their religion and customs were superior to the religion
and customs of the Hebrews. Under such circumstances, through the
very humiliations that Israel’s departure from His commandments
had invited, God gave to Babylon evidence of His supremacy, of the
Chapter 7—Lives of Great Men 41
holiness of His requirements, and of the sure result of obedience.
And this testimony He gave, as alone it could be given, through
those who still held fast their loyalty.
To Daniel and his companions, at the very outset of their career,
there came a decisive test. The direction that their food should be
supplied from the royal table was an expression both of the king’s [55]
favor and of his solicitude for their welfare. But a portion having
been offered to idols, the food from the king’s table was consecrated
to idolatry; and in partaking of the king’s bounty these youth would
be regarded as uniting in his homage to false gods. In such homage
loyalty to Jehovah forbade them to participate. Nor dared they risk
the enervating effect of luxury and dissipation on physical, mental,
and spiritual development.
Daniel and his companions had been faithfully instructed in the
principles of the word of God. They had learned to sacrifice the
earthly to the spiritual, to seek the highest good. And they reaped
the reward. Their habits of temperance and their sense of responsibility
as representatives of God called to noblest development the
powers of body, mind, and soul. At the end of their training, in their
examination with other candidates for the honors of the kingdom,
there was “found none like Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah.”
Daniel 1:19.
At the court of Babylon were gathered representatives from all
lands, men of the choicest talents, men the most richly endowed with
natural gifts, and possessed of the highest culture this world could
bestow; yet amidst them all, the Hebrew captives were without a
peer. In physical strength and beauty, in mental vigor and literary
attainment, they stood unrivaled. “In all matters of wisdom and
understanding, that the king inquired of them, he found them ten
times better than all the magicians and astrologers that were in all
his realm.” Daniel 1:20.
Unwavering in allegiance to God, unyielding in the mastery of
himself, Daniel’s noble dignity and courteous deference won for [56]
him in his youth the “favor and tender love” of the heathen officer
in whose charge he was. The same characteristics marked his life.
Speedily he rose to the position of prime minister of the kingdom.
Throughout the reign of successive monarchs, the downfall of the
nation, and the establishment of a rival kingdom, such were his
42 Education
wisdom and statesmanship, so perfect his tact, his courtesy, and his
genuine goodness of heart, combined with fidelity to principle, that
even his enemies were forced to the confession that “they could find
none occasion nor fault; forasmuch as he was faithful.” Daniel 6:4.
While Daniel clung to God with unwavering trust, the spirit
of prophetic power came upon him. While honored by men with
the responsibilities of the court and the secrets of the kingdom, he
was honored by God as His ambassador, and taught to read the
mysteries of ages to come. Heathen monarchs, through association
with Heaven’s representative, were constrained to acknowledge the
God of Daniel. “Of a truth it is,” declared Nebuchadnezzar, “that
your God is a God of gods, and a Lord of kings, and a revealer of
secrets.” And Darius, in his proclamation “unto all people, nations,
and languages, that dwell in all the earth,” exalted the “God of
Daniel” as “the living God, and steadfast forever, and His kingdom
that which shall not be destroyed;” who “delivereth and rescueth,
and ... worketh signs and wonders in heaven and in earth.” Daniel
2:47; 6:25-27.
True and Honest Men
By their wisdom and justice, by the purity and benevolence of
their daily life, by their devotion to the interests of the people,—and
they, idolaters,—Joseph and Daniel proved themselves true to the
[57] principles of their early training, true to Him whose representatives
they were. These men, both in Egypt and in Babylon, the whole nation
honored; and in them a heathen people, and all the nations with
which they were connected, beheld an illustration of the goodness
and beneficence of God, an illustration of the love of Christ.
What a lifework was that of these noble Hebrews! As they bade
farewell to their childhood home, how little did they dream of their
high destiny! Faithful and steadfast, they yielded themselves to the
divine guiding, so that through them God could fulfill His purpose.
The same mighty truths that were revealed through these men,
God desires to reveal through the youth and the children of today.
The history of Joseph and Daniel is an illustration of what He will
do for those who yield themselves to Him and with the whole heart
seek to accomplish His purpose.
Chapter 7—Lives of Great Men 43
The greatest want of the world is the want of men—men who
will not be bought or sold, men who in their inmost souls are true
and honest, men who do not fear to call sin by its right name, men
whose conscience is as true to duty as the needle to the pole, men
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who will stand for the right though the heavens fall.
But such a character is not the result of accident; it is not due
to special favors or endowments of Providence. A noble character
is the result of self-discipline, of the subjection of the lower to the
higher nature—the surrender of self for the service of love to God
and man.
The youth need to be impressed with the truth that their endowments
are not their own. Strength, time, intellect, are but lent
treasures. They belong to God, and it should be the resol