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 1

The Ruby Way: Solutions and Techniques in Ruby Programming,

Second Edition
By Hal Fulton
...............................................
Publisher: Addison Wesley Professional
Pub Date: October 25, 2006
Print ISBN-10: 0-672-32884-4
Print ISBN-13: 978-0-672-32884-8
Pages: 888

Table of Contents | Index

Ruby is an agile object-oriented language, borrowing some of the best features from LISP, Smalltalk, Perl,
CLU, and other languages. Its popularity has grown tremendously in the five years since the first edition of
this book.

The Ruby Way takes a "how-to" approach to Ruby programming with the bulk of the material consisting of
more than 400 examples arranged by topic. Each example answers the question "How do I do this in Ruby?"
Working along with the author, you are presented with the task description and a discussion of the technical
constraints. This is followed by a step-by-step presentation of one good solution. Along the way, the author
provides detailed commentary and explanations to aid your understanding.

Coverage includes

• An overview of Ruby, explaining terminology and basic principles

• Operations on low-level data types (numbers, strings, regular expressions, dates)

• The new regular expression engine (Oniguruma)

• Internationalization (I18N) and message catalogs in Ruby

• Operations on hashes, arrays, and other data structures such as stacks, trees, and graphs

• Working with general I/O, files, and persistent objects

• Database coverage including MySQL, SQLite, Oracle, DBI, and more

• Ruby-specific techniques in OOP and dynamic programming

• Graphical interfaces in Ruby (Tk, GTK+, Fox, and Qt)

• Working with Ruby threads for lightweight multitasking

• Everyday scripting and system administration in Ruby

• Working with image files, PDFs, YAML, XML, RSS, and Atom

• Testing, debugging, profiling, and packaging Ruby code

• Low-level network programming and client-server interaction

1
2

• Web development tools including Rails, Nitro, Wee, IOWA, and more

• Working with distributed Ruby, Rinda, and Ring

• Ruby development tools such as IDEs, documentation tools, and more

The source code for the book can be downloaded from www.rubyhacker.com

Hal Fulton has worked for over 15 years with variousforms of Unix, including AIX, Solaris, and Linux. He
was first exposed to Ruby in 1999, and in 2001 he began work on the first edition of this bookthe second
Ruby book published in the English language. He has attendednumerous Ruby conferences and has given
presentations at several of those, including the first European Ruby Conference.

He has two degrees in computer science from the University of Mississippi and taught computer science for
four years before moving to Austin, Texas to work as a contractor for variouscompanies, including IBM
Austin. Hal currently works at Broadwing Communications in Austin, Texas, maintaining a large data
warehouse and related telecom applications, working daily with C++, Oracle, and, of course, Ruby.

The Ruby Way: Solutions and Techniques in Ruby Programming,

Second Edition
By Hal Fulton
...............................................
Publisher: Addison Wesley Professional
Pub Date: October 25, 2006
Print ISBN-10: 0-672-32884-4
Print ISBN-13: 978-0-672-32884-8
Pages: 888

Table of Contents | Index

Copyright

Foreword
Acknowledgments
About
the
Author
Introduction

Chapter
1.
Ruby
in
Review
Section
1.1.
An
Introduction
to
Object
Orientation

2
 3
Section
1.2.
Basic
Ruby
Syntax
and
Semantics
Section
1.3.
OOP
in
Ruby
Section
1.4.
Dynamic
Aspects
of
Ruby
Section
1.5.
Training
Your
Intuition:
Things
to
Remember
Section
1.6.
Ruby
Jargon
and
Slang
Section
1.7.
Conclusion

Chapter
2.
Working
with
Strings
Section
2.1.
Representing
Ordinary
Strings
Section
2.2.
Representing
Strings
with
Alternate
Notations
Section

3
4
2.3.
Using
Here-Documents
Section
2.4.
Finding
the
Length
of
a
String
Section
2.5.
Processing
a
Line
at
a
Time
Section
2.6.
Processing
a
Byte
at
a
Time
Section
2.7.
Performing
Specialized
String
Comparisons
Section
2.8.
Tokenizing
a
String
Section
2.9.
Formatting
a
String
Section
2.10.
Using
Strings
As
IO
Objects
Section
2.11.
Controlling
Uppercase

4
 5
and
Lowercase
Section
2.12.
Accessing
and
Assigning
Substrings
Section
2.13.
Substituting
in
Strings
Section
2.14.
Searching
a
String
Section
2.15.
Converting
Between
Characters
and
ASCII
Codes
Section
2.16.
Implicit
and
Explicit
Conversion
Section
2.17.
Appending
an
Item
Onto
a
String
Section
2.18.
Removing
Trailing
Newlines
and
Other
Characters
Section
2.19.
Trimming
Whitespace
from
a

5
6
String
Section
2.20.
Repeating
Strings
Section
2.21.
Embedding
Expressions
Within
Strings
Section
2.22.
Delayed
Interpolation
of
Strings
Section
2.23.
Parsing
Comma-Separated
Data
Section
2.24.
Converting
Strings
to
Numbers
(Decimal
and
Otherwise)
Section
2.25.
Encoding
and
Decoding
rot13
Text
Section
2.26.
Encrypting
Strings
Section
2.27.
Compressing
Strings
Section
2.28.
Counting
Characters
in
Strings
Section
2.29.

6
 7
Reversing
a
String
Section
2.30.
Removing
Duplicate
Characters
Section
2.31.
Removing
Specific
Characters
Section
2.32.
Printing
Special
Characters
Section
2.33.
Generating
Successive
Strings
Section
2.34.
Calculating
a
32-Bit
CRC
Section
2.35.
Calculating
the
MD5
Hash
of
a
String
Section
2.36.
Calculating
the
Levenshtein
Distance
Between
Two
Strings
Section
2.37.
Encoding
and
Decoding
base64
Strings

7
8
Section
2.38.
Encoding
and
Decoding
Strings
(uuencode/uudecode)
Section
2.39.
Expanding
and
Compressing
Tab
Characters
Section
2.40.
Wrapping
Lines
of
Text
Section
2.41.
Conclusion

Chapter
3.
Working
with
Regular
Expressions
Section
3.1.
Regular
Expression
Syntax
Section
3.2.
Compiling
Regular
Expressions
Section
3.3.
Escaping
Special
Characters
Section
3.4.
Using
Anchors
Section
3.5.
Using
Quantifiers
Section

8
 9
3.6.
Positive
and
Negative
Lookahead
Section
3.7.
Accessing
Backreferences
Section
3.8.
Using
Character
Classes
Section
3.9.
Extended
Regular
Expressions
Section
3.10.
Matching
a
Newline
with
a
Dot
Section
3.11.
Using
Embedded
Options
Section
3.12.
Using
Embedded
Subexpressions
Section
3.13.
Ruby
and
Oniguruma
Section
3.14.
A
Few
Sample
Regular
Expressions
Section
3.15.
Conclusion

Chapter

9
10
4.
Internationalization
in
Ruby
Section
4.1.
Background
and
Terminology
Section
4.2.
Coding
in
a
Post-ASCII
World
Section
4.3.
Using
Message
Catalogs
Section
4.4.
Conclusion

Chapter
5.
Performing
Numerical
Calculations
Section
5.1.
Representing
Numbers
in
Ruby
Section
5.2.
Basic
Operations
on
Numbers
Section
5.3.
Rounding
Floating
Point
Values
Section
5.4.
Comparing
Floating
Point
Numbers

10
 11
Section
5.5.
Formatting
Numbers
for
Output
Section
5.6.
Formatting
Numbers
with
Commas
Section
5.7.
Working
with
Very
Large
Integers
Section
5.8.
Using
BigDecimal
Section
5.9.
Working
with
Rational
Values
Section
5.10.
Matrix
Manipulation
Section
5.11.
Working
with
Complex
Numbers
Section
5.12.
Using
mathn
Section
5.13.
Finding
Prime
Factorization,
GCD,
and
LCM
Section
5.14.
Working

11
12
with
Prime
Numbers
Section
5.15.
Implicit
and
Explicit
Numeric
Conversion
Section
5.16.
Coercing
Numeric
Values
Section
5.17.
Performing
Bit-level
Operations
on
Numbers
Section
5.18.
Performing
Base
Conversions
Section
5.19.
Finding
Cube
Roots,
Fourth
Roots,
and
so
on
Section
5.20.
Determining
the
Architecture's
Byte
Order
Section
5.21.
Numerical
Computation
of
a
Definite
Integral
Section
5.22.

12
 13
Trigonometry
in
Degrees,
Radians,
and
Grads
Section
5.23.
More
Advanced
Trigonometry
Section
5.24.
Finding
Logarithms
with
Arbitrary
Bases
Section
5.25.
Finding
the
Mean,
Median,
and
Mode
of
a
Data
Set
Section
5.26.
Variance
and
Standard
Deviation
Section
5.27.
Finding
a
Correlation
Coefficient
Section
5.28.
Generating
Random
Numbers
Section
5.29.
Caching
Functions
with
memoize
Section

13
14
5.30.
Conclusion

Chapter
6.
Symbols
and
Ranges
Section
6.1.
Symbols
Section
6.2.
Ranges
Section
6.3.
Conclusion

Chapter
7.
Working
with
Times
and
Dates
Section
7.1.
Determining
the
Current
Time
Section
7.2.
Working
with
Specific
Times
(Post-epoch)
Section
7.3.
Determining
the
Day
of
the
Week
Section
7.4.
Determining
the
Date
of
Easter
Section

14
 15
7.5.
Finding
the
Nth
Weekday
in
a
Month
Section
7.6.
Converting
Between
Seconds
and
Larger
Units
Section
7.7.
Converting
To
and
From
the
Epoch
Section
7.8.
Working
with
Leap
Seconds:
Don't!
Section
7.9.
Finding
the
Day
of
the
Year
Section
7.10.
Validating
a
Date/Time
Section
7.11.
Finding
the
Week
of
the
Year
Section
7.12.

15
Other documents randomly have
different content
what the fifty are doing"? No, you may be quite sure that they will
look at the deficiency of the four hundred and fifty, and say, "Is this
a Church of Christ?" Who blames them?
A living Church must work, and it must work on, and it must send
life through every part and fragment of its whole frame, or else it
has begun to die. It is not a small thing, of no concern, if some
members of a Church are doing nothing by being idle. The work that
a Church has to do is the creation of living Christian character, and
of the conviction that being in Church on Sunday and belonging to a
congregation make a man a kinder brother, or a more loving father
or husband, and make a woman a better mother or a more kindly
neighbour. That is the best work a Church can do, and that does not
come to a man through a dead Church. A living Church must be
making itself felt all around in the world outside by work of that
kind; and I say that it is not a matter of no consequence if some
members of a Church are not receiving and not transmitting that
warmth and activity. It is not a small matter if one organ of my body
be dying, be passing into mortification; it means death to the whole
body, and I must cut it off unless life can be brought back again into
it. It is the very law of life, as God has made it, that everything
which has life in it must be working; it cannot stop. If your heart
stops it is death; nothing else can make it stop but death. If any
organ in your body is always receiving, but giving nothing, and not
sending out what it gets, improved, to the rest, it means diseased
life, it means death. Does the stomach receive its daily food to keep
it to itself, as we so often receive the prayers and sermons in a
Church? No; as soon as the feeding is done the hard work begins;
the stomach gives it to the blood, and what does the blood do? As
the great carrier of the system, it delivers it here and there—here a
little to this muscle, there to that bone, there to the brain, and all
through the body. And what the muscles and the other parts have
received do they keep? No; if the various portions of the body did
not give out what they receive they would get choked; it would be
death by surfeit; they must work. And so the circle of life goes
round; stop it at any one point, and you spoil the whole circle. If the
blood-vessels do not do their work, if the muscles do not do their
work, and so on throughout the entire system, it means this, that
that body is not healthy; it means death to the whole frame. A
business man said to me yesterday, "As soon as a man ceases
pushing his business, and does not endeavour to extend it, it falls
off." He does not want actually to increase it, but he must adopt that
plan to keep it up to its present mark. The Church, alas! has not
been willing to increase its work, desiring to take on other
responsibilities; it does not say, "I cannot rest while people are cold
and not interested in doing the Church's work, not bent upon
bringing in sinners, and bringing children into the Sunday-schools to
be taught to love and reverence religion, and causing people whose
life is sour and bitter to be soothed and comforted."
What I have been pressing upon you is the law of life. Is it a hard
law? No, it is a kind law. That is how God rewards you for what you
have done; He gives you more work to do. In reading the parable of
the men to whom it was assigned to rule over the cities did you ever
mark how they were rewarded? Here is a man who has actively and
effectively used ten talents. How does his lord reward him—by giving
him a sinecure? No; he says, "You shall be ruler over ten cities;" and
in the same way the man who has been successful with five talents
is made ruler over five cities. Did you ever know a man who had
served his country well, and benefited it, wish to withdraw into a
drawing-room, and spend the remainder of his life in luxury and
ease? Did you ever know a successful general who wanted to get a
big fortune and to retire? No; successful men cannot be rewarded
better than by giving them a deal more to do—larger responsibilities,
larger powers, a larger sense of strength successfully exerted. That
is the blessing and the joy which shall go with larger toil, and
grander accomplishment, and brighter goodness. The few who are
used to work shall have plenty of work. I take it as a sign that God is
pleased with the results of a Church when He gives them new work
to do, and the heart to take it up. It is not extra work; it is the
reward of the past, and it is a step that shall lead you to a higher
throne. Nay, more; work is indispensable to the enjoyment of a
Church's good. No Church can heartily enjoy what we call religious
privileges unless it is working hard; and no individual member of
that Church will get the good of it unless he is taking a part in the
Church's work. He does not need to be an office-bearer or anything
of that sort; his work may be just friendliness to others in the house
of God, showing a kind spirit to them or taking an interest in them,
showing neighbourliness by his Church character. Do not think that it
is a high array of talents that is required; no, it is the Church's
function of being "all of one mind," and knit together and helping
one another, and sympathising with one another, being bound up in
the common lot of disasters and trials. I say that no individual
member, unless he is taking his part, is a living member of that
Church. If people are very fastidious about the doctrines which are
preached, if people are searching into the sense of every hymn or
prayer, if people are finding fault with the way in which everything is
done, then it may be that the Church is to blame; but if the Church
is doing its work as well as any poor human Church can do it, I
advise such a one to say to himself, "May not I be to blame?" If you
think that the daily food which is provided for you is not properly
cooked, and it is not of the proper sort, and does not taste well, is it
not your doctor you want to go to, to ask him to cure you of
dyspepsia? And in all probability he will recommend to you exercise
and hard work. A hard-working man does not complain even of dry
bread; he is not particular; he has an appetite. I have known, in the
Church to which I belonged before I began to preach, how pleased I
was even with sermons which had no originality in them if I saw that
they were part of the common work. It was my home, and you do
not criticise your own home; and you do not criticise your father and
mother; you believe in the power which you get from your father,
because he is yours. Throw yourself into the Church, become a part
of it, take an interest in everything, and it is wonderful how little you
will have of criticism about you. Take plenty of spiritual exercise, and
you may be sure that even a bare and poor spiritual diet will agree
wonderfully with you.
 Christ reckons with Churches—Christ at God's right hand, what is
He about? When He was down here on earth He went hither and
thither, seeking the lost; He forgave the woman that wept at His
feet; He saved the dying thief. Oh, gentle, loving Saviour Jesus, "the
same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever"! And at God's right hand
He is loving, and pitying, and forgiving my sins, and pleased with my
tears of repentance—forbearing, tender, saving Jesus! We preach
that; we should not be men, we should not be Christians, if we did
not preach that; we could not live without that thought of Jesus. But
let us be true; do not let us hide facts. That same Jesus stands at
God's right hand, judging the Churches, reckoning with them. Oh, to
a penitent sinner He is all heart, but to a slothful servant He is a
faithful Master! He reckons with Churches; He reckons with
individuals. It would not be kind if He did not reckon with you.
Would you wish Him not to reckon? Would you like to say, "I do not
care whether He does anything with me or not"? Ah, I should begin
to think that Christ did not love you at all if He did not reckon with
you, if he were not grieved and angry when you did not do your
duty to Him and to your neighbour! Where would be the dignity of
life if we did not believe in a great last judgment, with a stern
reckoning with sin? We should sink to the level of the animals if
there were no judgment. It proves that man has an immortal spirit.
What does it matter, with the animals, what they do? But God must
reckon with man, and He would not be reigning if man had not to
reckon on an awful judgment-day for every spirit. It is a proof to me
that I am of moment, and that my human spirit has dignity; it makes
clear to me my place in the universe, and my claim to immortality; it
shows me that I am of sufficient importance to necessitate God's
reckoning with me. Churches, too, must be reckoned with. It would
argue that they were mere nurseries, were hospitals for people to be
convalescent in, mere nonentities, counting for nothing in the great
work of the world and the mighty purpose of God, if we did not
know that Christ was to reckon with them. They have great powers
given to them, they have great capabilities, they have tremendous
responsibilities; they can fulfil God's purposes in the world, and
nothing but their supineness and listlessness hinders them; and God
and Christ must reckon with Churches. I would not have it different.
Let Them reckon with them, and let me remember that They will
reckon with me and my Church; and let me be full of good works.
Christ must reckon with it, for the Church's sake. How could He but
care? Oh, if we did but believe what we preach and what we read in
our Gospels! It is that Jesus lost all things which men look for; that
He turned aside from every joy of life; that He gathered sorrows
around Him; that His great heart was broken upon the cross; that
He spent all His life—for what? That He might save men from eternal
banishment from God; that He might put happiness instead of
misery into every house where there are unholiness and evil; that He
might make men brighter and better. His great heart was all warm
and eager for it. Oh, what He has sacrificed! He is a disappointed,
lost man if He fails, and if He succeeds it must be done through His
congregations, through His Churches, through men and women
here. How can He but care? how can He but watch? As all the
Church's activity goes by before God's throne, the recording angel
takes it down. Does He see a Church whose members have taught
the little children on the Sunday afternoon to love Him better; a
Church which has made men whose faith in Him was nearly crushed
out by sinful practices think again of Christ and heaven; a Church
which has put a man once more on his feet, and given him to his
wife and children, and they have been glad because the father and
husband has loved them again? How can it but be that those who
fight for Him should rejoice when a Church is thus acting for God, as
compared with a Church that does nothing? Oh, if we could but
believe and feel, when we come into church on a Sunday morning,
that Jesus is watching all that is going on—watching to see if our
hearts are made more soft and tender, more reverent and gentle,
more full of kind thoughts to those who sit round about us—
watching to see if we speak a kind word—watching to see if we
resolve to do more for Him—watching to see if we can give liberally
to help in what is being done for Him, and to support those who
have special gifts for special work! The Lord Jesus has His eyes upon
us in this spiritual Church framework. It does bind us together, and,
thank God! I will say of ourselves has bound us together for much
good work, and I believe will bind us more closely together. If every
Sunday morning we only felt and believed it, and came and knelt
and praised, and listened with light in our hearts, we should do our
work well and have the reward of very faithful servants.
 V.
A LESSON IN CHRISTIAN HELP.
"Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down, and the [en]feeble[d] knees;
and make straight [smooth] paths for [with] your feet, lest that which is lame be
turned out of the way; but let it rather be healed [or, in order that that which is
lame may not be caused to go astray, but may rather be healed]."—Heb. xii. 12,
13.

S UBJECTED to severe and harassing persecution on account of

their Christian faith, and plied by subtle arguments and doubts,
which had all the more seductive powers from the immunity from
suffering which would be gained by yielding to them, the members
of the Church to whom this letter was addressed had become
discouraged, depressed, perplexed, and some, staggered and
tempted, were even in danger of renouncing their allegiance to
Jesus of Nazareth. After warning them of the doom and misery of
deserting the cross of Christ, inciting them to endurance by the long
and shining roll of patriarchs, prophets, martyrs, and by the example
of the dying Saviour, the Apostle explains to them how all this trial
and suffering is the chastening of Fatherly love, destined to bring
forth the peaceable fruit of righteousness, and finally exhorts them
to rise above their despondency and enfeeblement, to advance with
strong, unwavering faith in the right path, in order that thereby
those who were crippled by doubt or temptation might be saved
from straying quite away, helped over their difficulties, and in the
end restored to firm and abiding faith.
The command in the text assumes the existence of two classes in
the Church—those that need help, that must lean on others, and
those who are able and ought to give help and support. Just as in a
flock of sheep, so in the Church, there will be some strong, vigorous,
active, and others weak, feeble-kneed, lame. Let us recognise this
fact honestly, and be prepared to face it. Differences and degrees of
faith, assurance, consistency, there are and must be. When the
Church of Christ is oppressed by persecution, seduced by
temptation, assailed by unbelief, do not be amazed to find that some
spirits will be crippled, drawn away into wrong, just on the very
point of being altogether perverted, and remember that there ought
to be others who, by their indomitable perseverance, their
immovable faith, the unbroken solidarity and persistence of their
march, shall support and carry forward in safety those who, but for
such environment and protection, if left to combat solitary and
unaided, had stumbled and fallen in the storm of persecution and
seduction, or been clean swept away by the waves of doubt and
unbelief.
There are ever these two classes among the followers of Jesus—
the strong, the brave, the helpful, the steadfast; the weak, the
timorous, the dependent, the wavering. Brother, to which of these
do you belong? Answer that question honestly, and then think what
you should reply to this other question: To which class ought you to
belong?
I am confident if Christian men and women would but enrol
themselves not according to their meaner and unworthier
inclinations, but in accordance with the voice of duty and the
promptings of all that is most noble and generous in them, we
should not have (as we do now) in the army of Christ the vast
majority ranking as incapable and non-efficient, while only a small
minority do the fighting and defending. Clearly my text supposes
that the mass will be strong and helpful, with only one or two feeble,
incompetent; just as in a flock of sheep the greater number are
healthy, whole, and able-bodied, while only a few are disabled and
lamed. It should be so in all our congregations. Perhaps in some the
ideal is fairly realised. But looking at the Church as a whole, do I
exaggerate in thinking that there are many, very many, who ought to
be able-bodied and aidful, but who regard themselves as exonerated
from active service, as incompetent to take part in any way in the
warfare of the Cross, as persons to be defended, not to help in the
defence?
 How is it with each of you? What is your habitual attitude when
goodness, truth, righteousness, Christ are assailed? In some social
or intellectual company where the followers of Christ are in the
minority, or it may be where you stand quite alone, you hear virtue
or purity sneered at, condemned; or justice and mercy ridiculed,
discredited; or the faith in things unseen rudely mocked and denied.
Do you then always bravely speak out for the glory and majesty of
purity and goodness, for the reality and grandeur of God and Christ?
or do you yield to the craven cowardice that lurks even in regenerate
men, and, saying it is for ministers, or apologists, or the strong and
clever to defend Christ, meanly hold your peace? So far from
dreaming that you are bound to defend the truth, you perhaps pity
yourself for being subjected to such trial, and admire your own
fidelity, that can survive such assaults. Instead of feeling yourself a
coward, you rather regard yourself as a martyr, a person much to be
commiserated and admired, and wonder how the Lord should so
heartlessly expose your faith to such trials, while all the time you are
in reality a weak, ignoble recreant. But you may say, "What! am I to
speak when I know that I should only be ridiculed, laughed at,
beaten in argument, when I am certain my effort would be defeated,
rejected with ignominy?" But there is no necessity you should argue;
nay, if your arguments will be foolish or weak it is your duty to keep
them to yourself. But you are not bidden to argue, prove,
demonstrate anything; only you are to confess, to protest against
evil, and loyally side with the truth. And if you are not to do that
except when you know you will be applauded and triumphant, what
of your Master's conduct? He was laughed at, scorned, despised,
rejected, defeated, and He knew it all from the first. Brother, you are
to "follow Him" in all He did, and so you are to stand by the truth
even when you know it will only bring scorn, scoffs, defeat, failure
on you. Nevertheless be sure in such a defeat and failure only you
shall suffer. As in Christ's death, though He dies, the truth triumphs,
and the crown of thorns becomes a crown of glory.
This sin of selfish indolence, of weak-minded inaction, carries its
own penalty with it. Who of us has not learned the terrible
retribution by bitter experience? If you who ought to have been
strong, who ought to have defended your Lord, were guilty of timidly
shirking your duty, of feebly failing to declare your faith, then your
faith will seem to you a poor, weakly thing, and Christianity itself
feeble and infirm. In these days of outspoken unbelief, of staggering
attack, and of widespread defection, if you think only of yourself,
feel no obligation of defence, yield aggrievedly to terror and alarm,
regarding yourself as wronged in being exposed thus, and
reproaching others who, you think, ought to have been able to
silence such foes and quite shelter you from seduction, then your
faith will be shaken, your hands hang down, and your knees
tremble. But if you felt yourself bound to be considerate of others, to
be one of the strong, not one of the feeble, to defend the infirm and
the timid, how different it would be with yourself! you would have
courage, faith, strength; in this fashion doing the will of God, you
would learn that the doctrine was of God.
In the case of Christianity men act as they would be ashamed to
act in other situations. You who are so given over to alarms, so
hopeless of the faith, suppose you were in a ship that has sprung a
leak, how should you act? Should we find you among the timid and
the hysterical, who lose head and heart, refuse to help at the
pumps, fling themselves in despair on the deck, and do their best to
dishearten and impede the brave men who, keeping their misgivings
to themselves, toil on with bravery to try and save the lives of all?
There are some constituted with such despondent, enfeebled nerves
as to be excusable for such conduct, but in the Christian Church
there are many with no such justification, who shake their heads
gloomily, cry despairingly that the Church is in danger, the faith
abandoned, do their utmost to weaken and dispirit their brethren, all
the time never dreaming how weak and cowardly is their conduct, or
that they ought rather to be comforters, helpers, defenders.
The cause of this ignoble conduct seems to me to consist in the
fact that many Christians have got to see only one side of
Christianity, and that the selfish or personal side. They have learned
that by becoming Christ's He undertakes to save them, but they
have failed to apprehend that, on the other hand, this relation
involves that they are to serve Him. Again, their notion of what is
implied in entering the membership of the Church is quite as one-
sided. They consider that the purpose of this tie is that you may be
cared for, guarded, developed by the Church—all which is true; but
then they quite fail to see that also you are bound to aid, defend,
and protect the Church. How many Christians are there who never
dream of owing any duty to the Church, but consider it to be simply
constructed for the purpose of doing everything for them needful for
salvation. Within it they are to be surrounded by sanctifying
influences, fed by ordinances, guarded in its holy atmosphere from
the world's miasma; in a word, they are to be fostered, preached to,
prayed for, visited, tended, and all the time they have nothing
whatever to do for the Church. But while all this is done by the
Church, that is not the only nor the cardinal conception of either the
Church or its members. Brethren, the Church of Christ is a great
army of valiant and able-bodied soldiers, sent out to battle with evil,
led on by officers who ought indeed to encourage and care for the
men, but whose main duty, nevertheless, is to lead them to conflict
and conquest. According to this modern notion, that Church
members are to do nothing but be cared for and protected, the
Church is made to be more a sort of great nursery or convalescent
hospital, provided with a staff of doctors, nurses, and visitors, and
the Church members are not soldiers, but rather a sect of weaklings,
invalids, and infirm, who are just kept in life by ceaseless care and
nursing.
From this mistaken and perverted notion of what it means to
belong to Jesus Christ, from the miserable failure to recognise the
public and primary obligations resting on all the Lord's followers,
from forgetting that the kingdom of God is founded not merely to
foster and ripen those in it for heaven, but that they may extend its
conquering boundaries over all the world; from these unhappy errors
spring the impotency, the half-heartedness, the dispirited timidity of
so large a part of the Church in the present day. This is the origin of
that general sort of notion as if we should be thankful if Christians
just survived; as if it were natural and changeless that the Church
should be despised and scorned; as if against unbelief Christianity
should not venture to raise her voice very assuredly, but stand on
the defensive, and be thankful if she can just hold her own; as if it
were natural and normal that Christians should find their faith hard
pressed, hardly able to stand its ground, and they themselves feel
weak, timid, alarmed, and helpless.
But perchance you may be inclined to defend this state of mind
and this selfish notion of Christianity; nay, you may think that you
have Scripture on your side. In opposition to the assertion that in
place of being merely cared for, you are to fight, and in place of
being timid, you are to be brave, you may recall the fact that Christ
compares His people to sheep whom He shelters safely and tends in
a snug fold, free from struggle and terror; and urge that sheep are
not suggestive of combativeness, and that it is natural for them to
tremble when a lion roars outside, and to count on the shepherd
driving the evil beast away, while nobody expects them to face the
ravager. But do you not see that our Lord meant that comparison to
illustrate only His relationship to them and His treatment of them?
while if you are to infer from it also that He meant them, in their
attitude to the world and unbelief, to be timid and helpless as sheep,
then how do you explain that elsewhere they are compared to
soldiers, commanded to be valiant, fearless, daring? If they are to do
no fighting, then why are they told to put on the whole armour of
God, to be faithful unto death, to endure hardness as good soldiers
of Jesus Christ? Ah, we are very fond of these pleasant, comfortable
comparisons, and are constantly perverting them by misapplying
them to positions they have nothing to do with. But you may reply,
"Did not our Lord say Himself, to His disciples, that He sent them out
as sheep among wolves?" Yes, indeed, but only to inform them of
what treatment they might expect from the world, not surely with
the intention of indicating that they were to meet the world's
hostility as a sheep meets a wolf's, cowering, trembling, fleeing. If
He meant that they were to be timid, helpless, sheeplike, why did He
say also, "I give you power to tread on serpents and scorpions and
over all the power of the enemy"? why did He send them out to
conquer the world? How was it that the disciples so thoroughly
misunderstood the command? When Peter, facing the hostile judges,
avowed that he would obey God, and not them, that was not timid,
that was not sheeplike. When Paul fought with wild beasts at
Ephesus, that, too, was not at all in the manner of a sheep among
its foes. When the Apostle, in the same Epistle, bids the readers
resist unto blood, when you remember how so many of our Lord's
followers have indeed sealed their witness with their lives, surely it is
plain that we have forgotten one side of our Christian duty. We
ought to be "wise as serpents" in dealing with the foe, "harmless as
doves" to our brethren and friends; but that is very much inverted
now, and the chief characteristic of many a soldier of the Cross is
just his perfect harmlessness in the combat. Brethren, you look for
the crown of righteousness that sparkled before Paul's closing eyes,
bright amid the gathering shades of his martyr death. But that
crown was not gained without hazard, not won by slothful ease, but
earned on many a bloody, painful field, while he "fought the good
fight." Believe me, there shall be no crown for you unless, like Paul,
you too have fought that fight, and kept that faith, for which he
bravely lived and bravely died.
Nevertheless there will always be among Christ's disciples those
that are weak-handed, feeble-kneed, and lame; some permanently
and constitutionally affected with feebleness and infirmity; and now
and again a strong one maimed, injured by extreme and undue
exposure, or crippled by some untoward accident. It was so among
these Hebrew Christians. Intimidated by persecution, disheartened
by the spoiling of their goods, shaken by the arguments of unbelief,
several grew less steadfast in their confession of Christ, others were
perplexed and confused, and some were just on the verge of
deserting and abandoning the faith. Among us there is no more
imprisoning, goods spoiling and persecution to stagger our faith in
Christ, but there are instead a whole world of seductions, of
discouragements, of mockeries, and of unbelieving sneers. Still, too,
there are with us the weak, the maimed, the misled; many who
never have attained to much spirituality or consistency; others who
for a time went well, but became entangled in the mazes of the
world's sinful attractions, or were overtaken by sudden temptation,
enfeebled by persistent opposition and ridicule, paralysed by
difficulties, disappointments, doubts, or unbelief.
I wish we did more fully realise and constantly remember that
there are to be among Christ's own ones really such as these,
weaklings, cripples, tempted, fallen; brethren overtaken by snares,
seductions, unbelief, whom we ought to pity, whom we ought to
help. Only it is needful to bear in mind that we are not to conclude
that every one who gives himself out as such is really a wounded
brother, to be sympathised with and aided. For there are many who
only imagine themselves distressed, who give themselves out as
greatly tried and buffeted, more from a kind of mental
hypochondriasis or foolish fondness for being talked of and fussed
over. This is especially so in the matter of doubt and religious
difficulty. For just as it happens that in the fashionable world it is
sometimes proper to have a lisp or limp, in imitation of some
dignitary, so, unfortunately, at the present day it has become
fashionable to go halt of one foot in faith; and there are persons,
thoroughly excellent and orthodox in reality, who are impelled to let
all their acquaintances know what dark struggles of soul they pass
through, and of how much it costs them to face the unbelieving
spectres of their minds. Brethren, when a man has a real skeleton in
his closet he does not go round the circle of his friends, flaunting
that unpleasant fact in their faces. When a man tells you, with a
smile of complacent superiority on his face, of his conflicts with
doubt, you need not expend much sympathy or anxiety on him; like
all other affectations, this one may be left to die a natural death. No,
the man to whom doubt is a real spectre, a veritable agony, does not
blazon his pain abroad; like Jacob's wrestle with his dread midnight
foe, the real soul-struggles are fought out in darkness and alone. It
is these who are truly stricken, wounded, well-nigh carried away—
these, and these alone, whom you are asked to pity and to help.
 But as a matter of fact, how do we Christian men and women who
have not fallen treat such weaker brethren, I mean persons who
have really been crippled, really erred? The text very plainly implies
that we are not to cast them off, but to compassionate them and
seek to recover them. Nay, mere human kindness would require the
same. As soldiers seek to rescue, not to slay, a comrade well-nigh
carried off by the foe, so surely we Christians should not attack, but
strive to regain a brother captured in the meshes of temptation or
unbelief. And no doubt to a very large extent true Christians do act
so, though I fear not with that unvarying pitifulness that ought to
extend the same charity to all. Do we not make unrighteous
differences, leaving room for restoration to some of the erring, and
closing heart and door against others? Partly from thoughtlessness,
partly from prejudice, partly from contempt of what is weakness or
cowardice, there are some falling, straying souls whom we treat too
much like those evil animals that whenever one of the herd is
wounded or crippled fall upon the victim and tear him in pieces.
When we hear of a brother falling, doubting, denying, have we not
all sometimes felt only anger, reprobation—nay, uttered sharp, cruel,
merciless words of final condemnation and irretrievable doom? Do
we not often treat erring ones so? It is very natural, for these feeble-
handed, weak-kneed, crippled ones are an eye-sore, unpleasant to
have to do with, a discredit to the Church and the most convenient
plan is to cast them off. Nevertheless, it is most inhuman, most
unchristian, and can only spring from one of two errors. Either you
do not have that fraternal love for all your brethren in Christ which
you ought to have. When your brother after the flesh, or your son,
catches a deadly complaint (it may be through his own recklessness
and disobedience), or is wounded by some hostile assault, you do
not in anger cast him out to die, for you love him. Would God we
had more love among Christians! Or it may be the reason of your
harsh treatment is that you mistake your straying, doubting brother
for an enemy, and fail to see that he is a victim. Of course there is a
great distinction between one of Christ's little ones swept into doubt,
and a hostile, malignant unbeliever, seeking to harm the flock. This
last you must indeed oppose, and seek to drive out of the fold,
though even then you will feel for him as our Lord did when He wept
over Jerusalem, and on the cross prayed, "Father, forgive them." But
it is not of such we speak now, only of those who are themselves
not wolves, but wounded, wandered sheep. Remember, therefore,
that they are your brethren, and pity and help them.
Perhaps you say, "What! can it be right to feel pity, kindness,
compassion, love for men who have gone astray from Christ,
rebelled against the Master, forsaken and denied the Saviour?"
Remember how Jesus treated the eleven, who deserted Him, Peter,
who denied Him, Thomas, who would not believe. Nay, more, can
you for one moment doubt the rightfulness of feeling so to sinning
brethren, be they as bad as they may, and of treating them so, you
who do believe that from all eternity God set His love, compassion,
saving purpose on sinners—rebellious, hateful sinners—without one
spark of merit or goodness in them to deserve it? Brethren, it is not
wrong, it is not weak, it is noble, Christlike, Godlike to pity, to love,
to tenderly seek and save the lost, the sinning, the erring, the fallen.

Finally, remark how the text suggests that you are to render them
assistance and support. Suppose it is a brother becoming involved in
worldly or dangerous entanglements, lapsing into doubtful courses,
or yielding to the freezing influence of ungodly or sceptical
companions. Now, direct interference, immediate intervention, is not
always possible, is often difficult, sometimes impossible. Besides,
often the mischief is already done ere you perceive it. Or again, it is
intellectual difficulty or doubt that you have to deal with. To meet
the objections, to remove the doubts, would be well, but perchance
you are not skilled, competent to do that; or it may be they are such
as cannot be removed. Here, again, direct remedies may be
impracticable. Are you, then, powerless, helpless to aid? Far from it.
A method better than all immediate and special action lies open for
you, for all Christian men and women. "Make straight, smooth paths
with your feet." It may be you cannot personally do anything to
support the maimed or arrest the erring, but you can nevertheless
render most important service. As a flock of sheep, by all moving on
regularly in one united mass, with their feet smooth down the
roughnesses and entanglements of the way, breaking down the
entrapping brambles, clearing away the furze and tripping briers,
leaving behind them a plain and open track, trodden down and freed
of obstructions, stones, and stumbling-blocks, so that the weak and
crippled are not turned aside or overthrown; so if the strong and
whole body of Christian men and women will but move steadfastly
on amid the mazes of temptation and over the stumbling-stones of
evil, the feeble, tempted, erring will be helped forward, and, borne
along in the united, combined advance, will not fall behind or be
baffled, overthrown, or led astray by difficulties and impediments.
Yes, infinitely more powerful than any isolated rebuke, or warning,
or intervention, is the force of united Christian example and
protecting aid, to keep in the right path the halt, the maimed, the
blind. What the tempted, the world-seduced, the doubting, the
unbelieving need is not rebukes, cautions, exhortations, refutations
of objections, but it is to be drawn out of the cold, freezing world of
evil and doubt into the warm, living, breathing atmosphere of loving,
real Christian fellowship; to be surrounded by the resistless
progression in rectitude, in faith and love, of Christlike, God-fearing
souls. With blows of reprimand and logical argument you may pound
and break the ice of sin and unbelief, but though broken, it remains
cold, winter ice, freezing still. Bring it into the summer radiance, the
golden sunshine of warm Christian life; then it will be melted away,
and the hard heart grow soft and tender in the breath of the all-
quickening Spirit.
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.

F AITH 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.
There is a sad experience that almost all young folks must come
to: the day which breaks so shiningly, with such sweet promise of
goodness, nearly always clouds over and grows dark and stormy;
the dreams get broken, the dreams that hover over you and seem so
easy to reach, recede farther and farther, like one of those Alpine
peaks when you are trying to climb it. From the village you start
from, you see a peak which you think must be the summit, but when
you reach it, it is only to find yourself separated from a far higher
ridge by a valley, which you have to descend in order to reach it, and
you have no sooner climbed up again than you realise that this,
again, is but an intermediate peak. How toilsome, how weary it is!
but in the same way dreams would be worth nothing if you had not
to win them by struggle and battle. It is the tedium of the contest, I
suppose, that disheartens most. It is not easy for young hearts to
wait for the fulfilment of life's promise till it can be achieved
honestly. Joseph is trapped in a pit, betrayed by his brethren, sold to
slave-merchants, settled in an Egyptian house, becomes the bond-
slave of Potiphar, torn from father, from his own country, from his
God, Who had not interfered to protect him, a bond-slave, his
dignity gone, all the pride of life gone! Would it have been wonderful
if all the heart had gone out of him too—if he had said that God had
forgotten him—"My dreams were a delusion; there is nothing worth
living for"? Are there young men and women here whose hearts are
aching very bitterly, and who are tempted to think that there is no
outlet to this slavery of life? How did Joseph look at it? He might
have broken down, and got wild with despair, and said to himself, "I
will become demoralised;" but though he lay down at night tired, yet
he was cheerful, and still dreamt his old dreams, and God was over
him. If a man is true to himself and to his God he will come through
anything; if he will be man enough, if he will not be beaten, if he will
make the best of things, he must conquer. So presently Joseph
reached a better position, things began to look up a little, his master
marked his spirit, and made him his chief slave.
A lad who had dreamt of being a ruler and king of men, so that
his father would bow before him for what he could do for him, how
terrible it must have been for the boy to be sold as a slave! How
terribly he must have been tempted to say, "God has deceived me;
He made me to dream dreams, and here I am left in a dungeon, a
slave: I cannot get what I want honourably; I will get it
dishonourably; I will snatch the fruit of life, even if it be in defiance
of what God and good men call right"! That is the temptation that
drives many a lad to dishonesty and treachery, and many a girl to
bitterness and sin. It came to Joseph in the deadliest form. The
mistress of the household made overtures to him which, had he
accepted them, would have meant immediate promotion, perhaps to
the court; for her husband was the chief of Pharaoh's body-guard.
Could there have been devised a deadlier temptation for that poor,
homeless boy, so treacherously treated by those who should have
loved him—who had dreamt such dreams, and had such proud
ambitions, and withal no danger of discovery if he would but take
the path that opened up the way of promotion? I think that was the
crisis in Joseph's life; that was the supreme deed which determined
his destiny. Then it was that he had to stand, and stand for ever, for
God and good, or to fall and sink for ever into ruin. And what saved
him? I will tell you what saved him. When Fortune tells a clerk that
he has but to take a little of his master's money, which he can repay
very soon, and she will smile on him, what he will do all depends
upon his past. Those dreams of Joseph's meant everything to him at
that great moment. If his dreams had been of the flesh, if his
dreams had been base, and selfish, and sordid, and of grasping the
world's gains, honourably if possible, but anyway grasping them, he
could not have stood. But that boy had dreamt of being a prince, a
king among men; he had dreamt of a noble, stainless manhood, of
self-respect, and honour, and truth; and he had dreamt of God
caring about him, of God choosing him to be His instrument in this
world; he was a lad in whose soul the whispers of childhood's
prayers and of morning devotions murmured, with sweet echoes of
heaven. A lad on whose head still rests the soft pressure of the
blessing of his Father in heaven is no game for the devil. Joseph
turned from that temptation without a moment's faltering; he said to
himself, "Be a traitor and a knave! stain my soul and my manhood
with this foul lust!"—and in the presence and the sight of God he
conquered; he was loyal to the dreams of his youth, and the result
was that he went to prison.
Young men and women, do you sigh? You would fight the battles
of life bravely enough, and resist its temptations, if there were a fair
field and no favour; but treachery and dishonesty are saturating
everything. It is not the best men who get the best wages. The
whole city is full of cheating. I am afraid it is so, for many good men
have told me they could hardly keep their hands clean. When you
hear of a lad going to the bad, for God's sake be just; be not hard
on him; it is but the common immorality tolerated everywhere. But
what of that? Are you going to lose your life, and stain your
conscience, because another has injured you? So long as you do not
injure yourself, never mind; be a man in the image of God.
If you come nearer and nearer to that standard it will be a
grander work to do in your lifetime, if you live in a poor lodging-
room till your death, than to become a millionaire by injustice or
cruelty. In prison Joseph played the man; he was not broken nor
dispirited. And remember what I said about dreams. Those dreams
of his did not allow him to lie down idly in the prison; he wanted to
do everybody's work. Joseph was industrious, and kept working on
because of his dreams. The keeper of the prison was evidently a
man who was glad to have things managed for him; and Joseph got
promoted in a wonderful way till he reached the royal court, and
aided by perseverance and intelligence and an untarnished
character, he became the premier, the first prince in the land. And
now followed—what, do you think? Prosperity, peace, ease? No;
immense responsibility, discharged nobly by Joseph, and perilous
temptations. When a man has overcome the temptations of
adversity I can tell him that he has fought a splendid battle, but the
deadliest are those that come in the days of prosperity. The
generous deeds that you thought you would do, when you were a
poor clerk, if you were only wealthy—the help to churches, to
missions, to the poor, where are they? You know the story told in all
the collection sermons about a man who gave liberally when he was
poor, but did not give in the same proportion when he grew rich,
and explained it by saying that when he was poor he had a guinea
heart, but now it was a penny heart! But Joseph conquers once
more. He loves his cruel brothers tenderly, and he brings them, with
the old father, to the land of plenty, and tends them. What was his
temptation? It comes out later on, and with it the reason why he
triumphed over it. While the old man lived the brothers that had
betrayed Joseph were safe, because of his love to his father; but
when he dies the brothers are fearful lest Joseph should wreak his
vengeance on them, and so they come with their whining lie to him;
the old father had told them, they say, to implore Joseph to be still
generous to them. Joseph burst into tears to think that his brethren
had judged so meanly of him. But to do these men justice, we must
confess that the average man would act as they did. How came it
that Joseph had preserved the heart of his boyhood amid his
Egyptian prosperity? Men and women, do you want to know the
secret of a pure and loving life? Do you want to know the magic
formula that will lift you up and ennoble your character, so that it will
not occur to you to pay off old wrongs when you get the chance, the
formula that will make you a blessing to others? It is to open your
heart wide to the sight, and the touch, and the presence of God in
your life and in your world. When I hear wise men, and men that
mean the world good, telling us that we shall be able to preserve
morality when we have ceased to believe that Jesus had a Father in
heaven, when we believe that we live our little day, and then die and
vanish, and the world goes on as well without us, my heart sickens
within me. Tell men and women that they are the highest race of
beasts, and what motives have they for being generous and doing
noble deeds? Take away the good Jesus, take away the great high
heaven with its sunshine, crush down a low roof over our earth, and
you crush out life's grandeur. Tell men that every human spirit has in
it something mysterious, that death means something awful, that
their souls are born for eternity; then life becomes great and
solemn, and the great thought arises that we are born to be the
sons of God.
And now the last thing in Joseph's life. I think that when he died
all men and women in Egypt were talking about him, and I am
pretty sure they talked about him as much in a mistaken fashion and
with as many blunders as people will talk about you and me when
we die. There is no man that ever lived yet that was known to the
world; God only knows what we are; so when we die they are bound
to speak of us better or worse than we deserve, for they will not
know you nor me as we are known to God, as we have lived, and
what has been our purpose in life, how earnestly we have striven for
it; these are known to God, and to Him only. Thank God, there are
more merciful judgments up there in heaven about us than the
kindest on earth will deliver. I am pretty sure that the Egyptians all
said that Joseph would be proud to be buried in Egypt. He had lived
very nearly all his life there. Had he not brought his relatives there?
Was he not engrossed, heart and soul, in Egypt, with not a particle
of interest left for the old land, the old home, and the old life? We
may imagine what would have been the exclamations of
astonishment if the Egyptians could have listened at the dying bed
of the prince and statesman, and have heard that while all the time
he had been a loyal servant to his royal master, his heart was
nevertheless away in the land of his boyhood, and that the future he
was looking for was not a future of immortality among the Egyptian
dead. "Promise me this one thing," he says, "that when God takes
you back to the sweet dear land, back to make God's kingdom there,
you will take all that is left of me, that you will take my bones out of
this Egypt, where I have been in body, but never in spirit." Oh, the
grandeur of such an utterance! All the Egyptian greatness, power in
one of the mightiest empires the world has ever seen, is as nothing
to him compared with the power that his dreams of sweetness, and
goodness, and the service of God had over him. That is a life that is
not broken in two when death comes.
 Men and women here, who have said your prayers when you were
young, and have stopped praying now; who have gone into society
and given yourselves up to the world, stop and look at your poor
broken life, and before it is too late come back to where in your
childhood you knelt at God's throne.
Oh, young men and women that have dreamed Joseph's dreams,
pray to God that you may dream the dreams of your childhood once
more, if you have let the lust and greed of the world into your heart!
Old men and women, for whom this world is not long, go back to
your childhood, and end your life as you began it.
 This is the supreme thought (and I like to end with it, for it is a
comforting thought too) in the story of Joseph's life; because I know
that there are so many lives crippled and broken through their own
fault, as well as through the wrongs and injuries of others; lives
dark, and poor, and disappointing; lives that have no triumph in this
world, and find it very hard to keep up heart, to keep true to hope,
and faith, and God. Listen to the lesson of Joseph's life. No true life
of goodness to man and God can ever be a failure. In a pit, in a
dungeon in far-off Egypt, you may seem to be shut out of all
splendid achievements; wronged and smitten by the storms of life, it
may seem as if God had left you; but if you can only keep your heart
sweet, and good, and pure; if you can but keep yourself honourable,
and generous, and loving, then, though God may give you no ties of
home life, and all may appear dark and cheerless; if you can only
keep yourself a good, sweet, loving woman, a brave, true,
honourable man, if you can but hold fast to your faith, there is a
great God over you, there is a Christ who came to die to save you,
there is a holiness which God will give you. If you will but hold fast
to the end—to His end,—then your life cannot be a failure; its roots
are in God, and its end shall be with God; from heaven you came,
and to God you shall return.
[1] Preached on Sunday evening, October 20th, 1889, in St.
John's Wood Presbyterian Church.
 VII.
THE BRAZEN SERPENT.
"He [Hezekiah] removed the high places, and brake the images, and cut down
the groves, and brake in pieces the brasen serpent that Moses had made: for unto
those days the children of Israel did burn incense to it: and he called it
Nehushtan."—2 Kings xviii. 4.

I N that verse we hear the last of the brazen serpent; this morning
I am going to put before you some practical thoughts that spring
from the whole story. What has the brazen serpent got to do with
our modern life? The children of Israel, with their cattle and sheep,
wandering about the wilderness, get sick of it, complain against God
and against Moses, and are ready to break into active rebellion.
They are punished by a sudden attack of venomous serpents that
sting them, and they, in dread of death, lose that sham courage of
theirs and independence, and they appeal to God to save them. He
bids Moses manufacture a mysterious brazen serpent, put it upon a
pole, and then, if any dying Israelite looks at that serpent it heals
him. The brazen image is regarded ever after as clothed with great
sanctity. It was once the supernatural channel of life direct from God
to dying men, and so, in course of time, men came to it, and in its
vicinity offered up their prayers, and finally burned incense to it, and
surrounded it with a false worship. Then comes a reforming king,
who regards that symbol of wonderful old power Divine and
goodness, that has been turned into an idolatrous and superstitious
instrument of human degradation; and, divided between his respect
for it and his consciousness of the mischief it is doing, he finally
decides to break it into pieces, scatters it into the dust, and there is
an end of it. Now, what has all that got to do with your life and
mine? The Hebrew history does not have its meaning lying just on
the face of it. If you take the bare letter you will not get much out of
it; if you stick to the bare letter you will find yourself landed in a
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