father from his throne, and embittered the rest of his days. Jacob deeply lamented and bewailed the absence of Joseph, little knowing that very absence was the means of saving him and his family from famine, and that it was a necessary link in the chain of those astonishing events, the mighty influence of which extends even to our days, and whose final results are still hidden in the womb of time.
One of the seven sages of Greece, on being asked what was best, replied, "To do the present thing well." This is the testimony of experience to the truth of Revelation: "Take no thought for the morrow: sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." Such will ever be the testimony of experience. For, as the whole duty of man is made up of various individual duties, so in the faithful discharge of the latter, in obedience to the Divine will, are found peace, happiness, and contentment. Worldly motives, however, will not suffice for the accomplishment of this object. In the discharge of every duty selfish feelings will arise, and must be resisted, till the love of God and man reigns supreme, and the ordinary employments of life are regarded no longer as burthensome duties, but as ever-present sources of new delight. Thus dying daily will be but the prelude to a daily new life; a birth of pleasures ever new. But, in the daily conflict against evil, the truth of Divine wisdom will ever be verified: "Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof."
