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『我在困苦中，你曾使我寬廣。』（詩四篇一節）
這是一個最偉大的見證。他的感謝不是因為從苦難得到釋放，乃是因為因苦難得到釋放：『我在困苦中，你曾使我寬廣。』他告訴我們：人生的困苦，就是人生寬廣的來源。
經上記著約瑟在牢獄中『…被鐵捆拘』（詩一百零五篇十八節）。約瑟所需要的正是鐵。他以前所看見的，只是黃金的燦爛；所享受的，只是少年的幻夢。人生的悲哀，是他所不能想像的。我們，像約瑟一樣，也都需要鐵來使我們寬廣。金不過是幻夢，鐵才是經歷。
啊！如果你要寬廣，你必須先去受苦。約瑟的牢獄，是約瑟登寶座的路徑。如果你自己沒有被鐵捆拘，你就不能取去你弟兄的鐵荷。神用悲哀的鐵鏈約束你，為要使你寬廣。－馬得勝（George Matheson）
如果約瑟不做埃及的囚犯，決不能做埃及的宰相。他腳上的鐵鏈，引進了他頸上的金鏈。－選
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“Thou hast enlarged me when I was in distress.”(Psalm 4:1)
This is one of the grandest testimonies ever given by man to the moral government of God. It is no a man's thanksgiving that he has been set free from suffering. It is a thanksgiving that he has been set free through suffering: “Thou hast enlarged me when I was in distress.” He declares the sorrows of life to have been themselves the source of life's enlargement.
And have not you and I a thousand times felt this to be true? It is written of Joseph in the dungeon that “the iron entered into his soul.” We all feel that what Joseph needed for his soul was just the iron. He had seen only the glitter of the gold. He had been rejoicing in youthful dreams; and dreaming hardens the heart. He who sheds tears over a romance will not be most apt to help reality; real sorrow will be too unpoetic for him. We need the iron to enlarge our nature. The gold is but a vision; the iron is an experience. The chain which unites me to humanity must be an iron chain. That touch of nature which makes the world akin is not joy, but sorrow; gold is partial, but iron is universal.
My soul, if thou wouldst be enlarged into human sympathy, thou must be narrowed into limits of human suffering. Joseph's dungeon is the road to Joseph's throne. Thou canst not lift the iron load of thy brother if the iron hath not entered into thee. It is thy limit that is thine enlargement. It is the shadows of thy life that are the real fulfillment of thy dreams of glory. Murmur not at the shadows; They are better revelations than thy fettered thee; thy fetters are wings-- wings of flight into the bosom of humanity. The door of thy prison-house is a door into the heart of the universe. God has enlarged thee by the binding of sorrow's chain. --George Matheson.
If Joseph had not been Egypt's prisoner, he had never been Egypt's governor. The iron chain about his feet ushered in the golden chain about his neck. -- Selected.
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