upon these courageous women for their resistance to a heathen tyrant, and fear of the living God; a proof that "godliness is profitable in the life that now is as well as that which is to come." What barbarous order was next given for exterminating the devoted Israelites

MARY. All the boys were to be thrown into the river, and the girls saved alive. Why were they spared?

MAMA. That by their marrying Egyptians all trace of the Israelites as a separate people might gradually be lost. But do you know what river Now is the time to apply your

is here meant?

little geographical knowledge.

MARY. It must have been the Nile, Mama. I know it runs through Egypt, and I believe there is no other.

MAMA. No, Mary; and so important is it to the existence of that country, as to be an object of religious worship. We shall have to talk of this further when we come to the " plagues."

MARY. Mama! now comes dear little Moses, and his ark of bulrushes! I have known about him all my life.

MAMA. Yes! as an object of childish sympathy. You must now recognise in him the chosen liberator of God's people. Of what tribe was he?

MARY. Of the tribe of Levi. How sorry his poor mother must have been when she could no longer hide him!

MAMA. Doubtless; but she was better off than many in having not only a daughter but another son. You forget his elder brother

Aaron.

MARY. Oh! and how had he escaped?

MAMA. The decree, it is supposed, was not in force at his birth, as he was three years older than Moses. Still his mother was much to be pitied. How did she prove her faith in God?

MARY. She put the dear child in an ark of bulrushes. What a frail useless thing that must have been, Mama! It surely could not hold out water even for a moment.

MAMA. My dear, the word here translated "bulrushes," signifies the tall reed called " papyrus," which grows by the banks of the Nile, and of which many of the boats used on that river are still made. It was strong enough to have borne a far heavier weight, and, when properly prepared, impervious to water. But how precarious was the life of an infant thus exposed! There was the slow sure death of famine, if not speedily rescued by some charitable hand, and the more imminent peril arising from the alligators or crocodiles with which the river abounds.

MARY. Horrid monsters they are, Mama! Able to swallow poor Moses, ark and all, in a

moment.

MAMA. Yes, if not restrained by the providence which watched over him. Who was made the unconscious instrument of God's future designs on the child?

MARY. The daughter of Pharaoh. How odd that she should have gone to bathe that day!

MAMA. And how far more striking, if, as is supposed, her compliance with an idolatrous custom in honour of the Nile, led to the signal triumph of true religion over idolatry, in her native land! Her being (as is mentioned by Josephus) a married woman without children, is another singular coincidence, and probably led to her adoption of the little foundling.

MARY. How sensibly his sister behaved! And how nicely she managed his being nursed at home. His mother must have been so happy!

MAMA. Doubtless, my dear. But God had a far higher end in view in thus overruling events than even the reunion of a mother and her child. Had Moses been estranged even in infancy from his people, and brought up entirely at the court of Pharaoh, he might have been learned indeed "in all the wisdom of the Egyptians," but never could have sympathized in either

the religious feelings, or temporal miseries of his countrymen; nor would probably have made, when he 66 came to years," that memorable choice recorded for our edification by an inspired apostle, viz.-"Refusing to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, and esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt."

MARY. Of Christ, Mama? Did the Israelites in Egypt believe in him?

MAMA. In a Saviour, or Redeemer, the enlightened among them it is probable did; though the spiritual nature of the redemption was as yet but darkly shadowed forth. But at all events, the resolution of Moses to renounce all this world could bestow, and "suffer affliction with the people of God," may be traced to feelings awakened in the humble dwelling of his persecuted parents. How did he first show his interest in the oppressions of his countrymen?

MARY.

"When he saw an Egyptian smiting one of his brethren, he slew him." Had he any right to do this?

MAMA. My dear, the taking of human life. can only be justified by self-defence, or the no less imperative duty of saving another in imminent jeopardy. St. Stephen, in the Acts, says

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the poor Israelite was 'suffering wrong," and had probably no way of escape but the one which Moses ("the meekest of men") must we are sure have reluctantly adopted. This is evident, from the necessity it laid him under, when he found it known-of forsaking all his advantages at the court of Pharaoh, and fleeing into Midian.

MARY. That was cowardly, Mama, was it not? God would have protected him there.

MAMA. Remember, my dear, that Moses had as yet no open commission from God to take the part of his countrymen; and killing another, under any circumstances, was, by the laws of of Egypt, certain death. Many of God's servants have thus withdrawn in times of peculiar peril. Do you remember any ?

MARY. Elijah did, you know, into the desert, from the face of Jezebel-and it could not be wrong, for God sent ravens to feed him. And our Lord himself, at times, "walked no more openly, for fear of the Jews."

MAMA. For the same reason as Moses, viz. that the time for braving the utmost malice of his enemies was not yet come. What occurred in Midian to prove that want of courage had little share in Moses' character?

MARY. He helped the daughters of Reuel