Brethren, it is for this that the Master has gathered us into families and homes, friendly circles and fellowships, congregations and churches. It is because some of His own will be very weak, timid, facile to fall, lukewarm, tempted, erring, doubting. Have you settled it with yourself, strong, high-principled, undoubting Christian, that the Church is not a club of stainless, perfect souls, but that there are to be in it such foolish, feeble, ignoble ones, real doubters, backsliders, wanderers, and that yet they are your brethren, little ones of the common Lord? And it is just for their sake, that they may be saved, that He has caused us to be knit together into one flock, that they may be kept from falling, restored when they err, strengthened, cheered, loved, and helped. Ah, we know not for the most part how much there is of strength and comfort for us in this! For all of us there is, for even the very strong, they that have comforted most, sometimes will be very weak themselves, and long for sympathy and support. Once even the blessed Master Himself in broken-hearted agony besought that help, and prayed His followers, "Tarry ye here, and watch with Me." My brother, if you can remember a time when you were enabled to endure, to conquer, because Christian friends stood around you and watched with you, then be pitiful to your tempted brother now. It may be that his limping, stumbling gait is very unpleasant to you, and you do not care to be known as of his company; his halt, ungainly walk does not look well beside your high, triumphal march. Perchance in heaven there is more good pleasure over his paltry pace than over your proud progress. Ah, friends, we see too little now to judge, who know not one another's hurts and trials! We who have the sunshine on our path, and bounding vigour in our tread, forget, I fear, how to many struggling souls the path is very flinty, rough, and hard, swept by wild storms of passion and rushing floods of fierce temptation; while the thick darkness and awful solitude, haunted by mocking spectres of death-like doubts and fears, wrap them round with a chill, paralysing shroud of despair. You who have never been so tempted, give God thanks and be humble, very humble, and lowly, and merciful. Have infinite forbearance and compassion. Remember that one harsh word, one hopeless look from you may numb a last feeble grasp on goodness, and sink a brother despairing in the black abyss; while a kindly look, a helping hand, a loving, free, generous pardon and word of hope from you may be to him the voice of eternal forgiveness in heaven, and power of restoration even now.

Brethren, when, against some brother who has fallen, sinned or gone astray, quick anger flames in your heart, and to your lips sharp, cutting words of reprobation leap, let this word of Christ ring in your ears: "Whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in Me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea." And as that word of dreadful condemnation awes each lurid spark of hasty anger from your soul, let these words of endless peace, and joy, and mercy steal in, and soften all your spirit into gentlest pity, tenderness, and love: "Brethren, if any of you do err from the truth, and one convert him; let him know, that he which converteth the sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death, and shall hide a multitude of sins." "Wherefore let us lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees; and let us make straight paths with our feet, lest that which is lame be turned out of the way; but let it rather be healed."

VI.
JOSEPH'S FAITH.[1]

"By faith Joseph, when he died, made mention of the departing of the children of Israel; and gave commandment concerning his bones."—Heb. xi. 22.

FAITH is a word that we hear a great deal of in theological exposition and in religious teaching. It is a good thing constantly to remind ourselves of what its actual meaning is. The 11th chapter of this Epistle begins with a definition of faith, and then gives examples of it. The definition is a little hard to understand; nobody can misunderstand the illustrations. According to the inspired writer, faith is recognising the will of God, taking it and doing it; that is faith, and nothing else is—no theories about God, no rules, and laws, and definitions about God's government of the world, no intellectual adherence to any explanation of theology. Faith, real and living, means that the God who comes into contact with you in your life and your world has a will, and shows it to you. If you bow down before that actual will of God, that it may save you from your real sins, and that He may use you in saving the dead around you; if you adore it, and worship it, and account it the best thing in your life, and give yourself up to it, as the one thing worth doing, though there be many a forsaking and many a return to God, if you hold on through your life, doing the will of God, then you are a man of faith.

Joseph was a man of faith, in the olden times, all his life long. From his very boyhood he had possessed faith. In the dreams that came to him as a lad he welcomed God's face, not quite understanding all He meant, and a little misusing the high vocation that came to him, accepting it in the pride of his heart. In his trials and his prosperity, in his public career, in his private home life, on his death-bed, he lived with God, reckoned with God, and loved God, and tried to do God's will on the earth. One deed stands out supreme and stupendous. Joseph on his dying bed looked forward into the future, and there, amidst the mists, discerned the promise of the world's redemption, forecast the coming of God's kingdom on earth, and chose what to him was the greatest and grandest thing in his dying, and so gave commandment for the burying of his bones away in distant Canaan.

I am going to ask you to follow me as I rapidly sketch the great outstanding elements of struggle and triumph in Joseph's career, in order that I may show you the splendid feature of faith, and that in dying he was still loyal to the dreams of his youth. Joseph was a younger son. He had the misfortune to be his father's favourite; he was exempted from hard toil; he was kept near his old father; his brethren hated him for it; probably he misbehaved himself; he was no saint, else there would be no good in my preaching about him. He had the misfortune to be spoiled by his father. He had intelligence, and he was wide awake; but there was nothing in the early years of the lad to give evidence of any extraordinary ability, or to forecast any splendid career for him, with the exception of one thing: Joseph was a great dreamer in his sleep; and as a boy he woke up from his sleep, and saw visions, glorious castles in the air; and they were not all floating away in cloudland, high up above him, but he saw himself in them; they had an intense personal interest for him. Perhaps he was very injudicious, and probably disagreeable, in the tone and fashion of telling these dreams to his brothers. Their sheaves in the harvest gathered round and made obeisance to his sheaf; the meaning plainly being that he was to rise to great power, that he would hold them in his hand, and be lord and master over them. They might not have much interest for us; but Joseph belonged to a family that believed that they held a unique position in the world's history, and that they were to bring a great blessing into this world. They had not grasped exactly what it was, nor understood the significance of the spiritual kingdom of heaven; but none the less they heard God's voice around them, so that this world became to them a place in which He lived and moved: thus they rose to the grandeur of the conception that they were to have a master hand in carving the fortunes of the world. Out of many of his brethren, God had selected Joseph to be an inheritor and administrator of the Divine purpose of blessing to the world, and to do unique deeds of valour for the kingdom of God.

Now I have said that the one remarkable thing about Joseph's boyhood, the one thing that might excite your expectation about his future, was that he dreamt dreams; he was a great dreamer in his youth. I can understand many a shrewd, practical man saying that that was not much to his credit: "A lad that is always dreaming dreams will not do much." Quite true, if the one, the only purpose of life is to eat and drink and to gather all the dirt together with the muck-rake; but if man has a Divine destiny in him, if man lives in two worlds—a world that you see with your eyes, a world where money is current, and another world where your sovereigns are worth nothing, a world of truth and honour, generosity, love, goodness, self-denial, moral achievement and victory, then it comes to a great deal; it means very much for a boy's future if he has dreams that are not of earth, but of heaven. There are dreams and dreams. There are dreams that come of laziness, idleness, selfishness, and over-feeding, gross nightmares, fit for swine; dreams coming of self-indulgence and worldliness, poor grovelling things; a man's mind is not much better for them. There are dreams that are born of a back-boneless sentimentality, of sweet mock chivalry, that loves to represent itself in pretty pictures; not much good comes of them. But there are other dreams, that come out of a man's wide-awake activity; dreams that are the vapours rising from a fervent spirit, from the cooling of the machinery. They work out the character that God is weaving in that lad or in that young girl. These dreams are prophetic; they have something of heaven in them; they are something higher than the common: from God they come; they are the threads and fibres by which He would lead us on to do great deeds on earth, and at last receive us as faithful and good servants of our Master. I do believe in the dreams of youth, that come in at that window which is open heavenward in every young soul, until the dust and dirt of earth cloud it over; the dreams of romance, that stupid old people try to crush and drive out, and that the world puts its heel upon; those dreams of friendship and honour, of truth and purity, to be chosen rather than worldly gain; those dreams of love, generous and tender, that shall make two lives knit together into one of exceptional tenderness and goodness. There is the breath of heaven here; these are the golden glows in the mists of life's morning, that come from God, and are the guarantees of a splendid sunset on earth, and beyond, a brighter dawn in heaven. Would to God that all of us, when we are old men and women, may be able to think without shame and remorse about the dreams of our youth; that the woman has been true to her dreams, and has fulfilled the sweet, unselfish ideals of her girlhood, and been a noble, loving wife and mother; that the lad has come through this world, at least comparatively unspotted, with a heart fresh and tender, not eaten up by selfishness and greed, with a clean conscience, with the benediction in his old age of having made other men happy and good. Oh, the worst enemies of your dying bed, that will come to mock you, will be the dreams of your youth, of your boyhood and girlhood, should they be unfulfilled! But if you can only in part realise them in your life they will be angels that will come to comfort you.

There is a great deal more dreaming done in this world than we dull, prosaic, old people will allow. It is not merely the lads and girls that dream, for the fact is that we do not know how much we ourselves dream; both young and old do it, but with a difference: the young folks mostly dream about themselves, and the old folks are tired of dreaming about themselves; but there are the wonderful dreams in the hearts of fathers and mothers, to keep their children pure and good, and to make them happy. What would the world be without those sweet, loving dreams? Thank God for them! How much it means for the boy and the girl that their mother dreamt noble things for them when they were young! There never was a man yet that came to be a very great or good man in God's world but his mother dreamt how he was to be brave, true, generous, loving, helpful to others; and because her dreams came from God, she prayed for that son that he might be good, and brave, and noble, and the lad grew great because his mother dreamt great things for him.