LECTURE II. PSALM CV. 17, 18. He sent a man before them, even Joseph, who was Whose feet they hurt in fet sold for a servant. ters, he was laid in iron. VIRTUE in distress, and persecuted innocence, seldom fail to strike the finest chords of human feeling, and awaken the tenderest sympathies of our nature. There is a charm in such a theme, against which no temper is altogether proof; even vice-hardened vice, might bow to its influence, and be melted with the recital of those sanguinary deeds, in the practice of which there was no repugnance, for it hath softened men of iron mould, "and wrung the involuntary tear from eyes unused to weep." Of this peculiar nature, is that part of Joseph's history, at which we closed our last lecture; for, methinks, it is impossible to produce a scene more deplorable and pity-moving than that in which we see this gentle and inoffensive youth snatched from the endearments of his indulgent father, and consigned to the thankless drudgery of a bond-servant ; cut off from all communion with the worshippers of the true God, and companied with aliens! But no adversity, however sharp, could damp the ardency of Joseph's spirit, touched as it was by the coal of inspiration; hosts of troubles, with all the corrupt doctrines and vicious practices of the Egyptians, were impotent to crush his stubborn virtue, armed as he was with faith in the God of Israel; for virtue, that gem of heaven, like its most precious representative in the earth, shines brightest in the shade. Desolate and forsaken as the youth appeared, there was still one who did not desert him in this ex |