"The story of Joseph is at once so simple that childhood is arrested and rivetted by it, and so profound that sages may deepen their wisdom by meditating on the truths which it embodies. An attempt is here made to point out some of the more important lessons which the narrative teaches,—to manifest the wisdom and the watchfulness of Providence,—and show how God on high exercises his prerogative of educing good from what we are often tempted to regard as only and hopelessly evil. While man displays his wickedness by committing sin, the Holy One displays his goodness by restraining it; and though his ways are confessedly “a great deep,” we get glimpses through the gloom,—we catch echoes amid the silence, which enable us to know, that when the tangled web of providence shall have been unrolled in light, it will be seen that he “has done all things well.” As the bones of Joseph were carried before the Hebrews during all their wanderings, from Egypt to Canaan, till they found a resting-place in that land of promise, the truth of God here goes before us still, a very pillar of cloud and of fire." - Summary by preface