"Oh," you say, "I am in the pit of sin!" Joseph was in the pit. "Oh,"
you say, "I am in the prison of mine iniquity!" Joseph was once in
prison. "Oh," you say, "I didn't have a fair chance; I was denied
maternal kindness!" Joseph was denied maternal attendance. "Oh," you
say, "I am far away from the land of my nativity!" Joseph was far from
home. "Oh," you say, "I have been betrayed and exasperated!" Did not
Joseph's brethren sell him to a passing Ishmaelitish caravan? Yet God
brought him to that emblazoned residence; and if you will trust His
grace in Jesus Christ you, too, will be empalaced. Oh, what a day that
will be when the old folks come from an adjoining mansion in heaven,
and find you amid the alabaster pillars of the throne-room and living
with the king! They are coming up the steps now, and the epauletted
guard of the palace rushes in and says: "Your father's coming, your
mother's coming!" And when under the arches of precious stones and on
the pavement of porphyry you greet each other, the scene will eclipse
the meeting on the Goshen highway, when Joseph and Jacob fell on each
other's neck and wept a good while.
But oh, how changed the old folks will be! Their cheek smoothed into
the flesh of a little child. Their stooped posture lifted into
immortal symmetry. Their foot now so feeble, then with the
sprightliness of a bounding roe as they shall say to you: "A spirit
passed this way from earth and told us that you were wayward and
dissipated after we left the world; but you have repented, our prayer
has been answered, and you are here; and as we used to visit you on
earth before we died, now we visit you in your new home after our
ascension." And father will say, "Mother, don't you see Joseph is yet
alive?" and mother will say, "Yes, father, Joseph is yet alive." And
then they will talk over their earthly anxieties in regard to you, and
the midnight supplications in your behalf, and they will recite to
each other the old Scripture passage with which they used to cheer
their staggering faith: "I will be a God to thee and thy seed after
thee." Oh, the palace, the palace, the palace! That is what Richard
Baxter called "The Saints' Everlasting Rest." That is what John Bunyan
called the "Celestial City." That is Young's "Night Thoughts" turned
into morning exultations. That is Gray's "Elegy in a Churchyard"
turned to resurrection spectacle. That is the "Cotter's Saturday
Night" exchanged for the Cotter's Sabbath morning. That is the
shepherd of Salisbury Plain amid the flocks on the hills of heaven.
That is the famine-struck Padan-aram turned into the rich pasture
fields of Goshen. That is Jacob visiting Joseph at the emerald
castle.