against the shepherds that would not let them water their flocks. That was goodnatured as well as bold-but I wonder, Mama, that Moses married one of these Midianite women; I don't think it was right in him.

MAMA. Probably not; and it has sometimes struck me as the possible reason that, while the family of Aaron was consecrated to the highest honours of the priesthood, that of Moses was left totally undistinguished in Israel. Perhaps Moses too had misgivings, when he called his son born in that heathen land "Gershom," or a "desolate stranger;" as he must have felt himself to be, during his long sojourn of forty years, at a distance from his people, 66 an alien from the commonwealth of Israel, without hope"-but we shall soon see, not "without God in the world."

It was at this period of deep despondence in the mind of Moses, and probably in that of his countrymen, who in him had lost their sole protector, that the fulness of time being come, in the expiry of the four hundred years at the end of which God had promised Canaan to the posterity of Abraham, that gracious covenant “

came

up in rememberance before Him," and God "looked upon the children of Israel, and had respect unto them."

с

We may gather from the opening of this instructive history, deep insight into the inscrutable ways of providence. What could be more unfavourable to the existence and elevation of Moses, than his exposure in a frail canoe to the mercy of the winds and waves? What more apparently fatal to his exalted mission than his retreat as a fugitive into Midian? But did either defeat the counsel of God? No. And from the very delays in its accomplishment we may learn, with St. Peter, that the "Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as men count slackness," but merely defers till the maturity of those "times and seasons which he hath kept in his own power," the designs which all the "strength of his adversaries shall neither be able to gainsay nor resist." Let us apply this, Mary, whenever in our own experience the "wheels of His chariot" seem to our impatient finite conceptions "to tarry." As surely as at the precise period fixed by Omnipotence-the cry of the children of Israel came up to heaven, from the bondage of Egypt-so surely will the promise of deliverance to the tried and faithful Christian find its accomplishment in that "day of the Lord," known neither to the angels in heaven nor to the Son of man upon earth-but to the Father only!

15

MORNING SECOND.

LESSON. Exodus, Chapters iii. and iv.

MAMA. I know not, my dear Mary, that the whole compass of Scripture affords a passage of greater sublimity than that contained in our present chapter, where Jehovah is introduced talking "face to face" with a trembling and well nigh overwhelmed mortal, and speaking of Himself in language as incomprehensible by unassisted man, as the subject of which it treats is unfathomable. But there is great and deep interest in this mysterious colloquy-and if we come to it with the humility becoming in such a Presence—we too may return from the "Mount of God," enlightened like Moses, in our understandings, and strengthened in the path of duty. How was the future lawgiver of Israel employed when thus highly favoured?

MARY. Keeping the sheep of his father-in

law.

MAMA. Do you remember any one else thus "taken from the sheep-fold" to be the ruler of God's people?

MARY. Yes, David, Mama, who was really a little shepherd boy, while Moses was brought up to better things.

MAMA. My dear, were we to form our estimate of "better things," as you call them, over the humbler employments of life, from the general tenor of Scripture-the conclusion would certainly be, that "not many wise, not many noble, not many rich in this world are called;" (I do not here mean to be the objects of God's future salvation) but to be eminent instruments in His providence on earth. The time would fail us to enumerate the outcast Moses, the fugitive Jacob, the prisoner Joseph-Elisha summoned from following the plough, and Saul from seeking asses, and David from keeping sheep, to be prophets and monarchs over God's people ; and more striking still, the tent-makers, and fishers, and publicans, taken from their daily labour, and the receipt of custom, to "confound the wisdom of the wise," and change the face of the civilized world. But we must not ascribe this, as some have rashly done, to any inherent advantages of ignorance over learning-but merely to the additional glory reflected on the

majesty of God by the apparent inadequacy of His instruments. We have a proof of this in Moses, who, though keeping sheep, in compliance with primitive custom, had been prepared by God for the office of lawgiver by a most careful education. Who appeared to him on Mount

Horeb ?

MARY. The "angel of the Lord," Mama. MAMA. Do you know what the word "angel" means? It signifies a messenger. Did God often send such on errands of mercy to man?

MARY. Yes. Angels came to Abraham, and to Lot, and to Zechariah the father of John, and Mary the mother of Christ, and many more.

MAMA. Very well; and did these highly favoured persons fall down and worship them?

MARY. NO, Mama, the angels would not have let them; for when St. John wanted to do it once, the angel said, "See thou do it not, for I am thy fellow-servant."

MAMA. Then this could have been no mere "angel" or minister, but one far higher; for not only was worship permitted, but solemnly enjoined. It being impossible to ascribe the awful name of "Jehovah" to any created being, and equally impossible to designate by that of "angel" or "messenger" the first person in the glorious Godhead-all expositors have agreed in con