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MORNING FIFTH.

LESSON.-Exodus, Chapters ix. and x.

MAMA. Methinks, my dear Mary, there is something doubly appropriate in the signal judgment with which our chapter commences; first, to the prevailing superstition of Egypt, and next, to the insolent refusal of its king to permit animal sacrifices in honour of Jehovah, even of the cattle which belonged individually to the Israelites. As if it were to mark this, as well as to aim a death-blow at that idolatrous worship, of the ox tribe especially, (of which Israel in the desert, in the matter of the golden calf, retained but too faithful a memory,) it is on the cattle of Egypt that the outstretched arm of the Lord is now made to fall; while, as in a former instance, the flocks and herds of the Israelites, their chief present possession, and future provision for the service of their God in the wilderness, are miraculously exempted from the prevailing epidemic.

MARY. How good it was of God to give Pharaoh once more a day to think better of it! I thought He had given up warning him!

MAMA. And so would any outraged human superior long ago, Mary! but the "compassions of the Lord are infinite," extending, as he would have those of his creatures to do, unto " seventy times seven." Did this forbearance prove more efficacious than usual?

MARY. No; less so, I think; for Pharaoh never even pretended to relent, though he sent into Goshen to see if the cattle were really alive.

MAMA. HOW were he and his people now punished in the tenderest point?

MARY. Moses threw up handfuls of the dust of the furnace, and it brought "boils" upon every body, magicians and all.

MAMA. Surely, Mary, one would have thought this personal infliction infallible. Do you remember a case where it was pronounced so by one, who (in a very opposite sense from our gracious Lord)" knew what was in man," and whose object in inflicting it was not to bring honour, but blasphemy on the name of God?

MARY. I can't think what you mean, Mama. MAMA. Oh! it is only a casual coincidence suggested to me by the similarity of the disease of Pharaoh and his subjects, to the "sore boils" with which Satan was permitted, for a very different purpose, to put the climax to the afflictions of Job. In both cases this ultimate attack on

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that tenderest possession of man, his body, proved ineffectual. Job "in all this, sinned not with his lips," while Pharaoh, continuing insensible, was now at length judicially confirmed in his incorrigible impenitence.

MARY. Had this plague any thing to do with the idolatry of Egypt?

MAMA. The scattering of the ashes has been supposed to refer to a similar practice at the close of the human sacrifices, which (in spite of their sickly sensibility on the subject of animal life) they offered in honour of their God Typhon; while the learned have also discovered appropriateness in the air, one of the Egyptian deities, being made, as well as water, an instrument in their punishment. Who are mentioned here as included in its distressing effects?

MARY. The magicians, Mama, "they could not stand before Moses, because of the boil."

MAMA. Did you observe, as you went along, any aggravation of Pharaoh's guilt, which probably moved God at length to give him up " to his heart's lust, and the fruit of his own ways?"

MARY. I don't know, unless it was his having twice promised to "let the people go," and drawn back.

MAMA. Just so; not content with defying, "Satan had put it into his heart to lie unto the

Lord." Do you recollect to whom these words were addressed in the New Testament, and the dreadful judgments which followed?

MARY. Yes, you mean Ananias and Sapphira, who were both struck dead for their lie.

MAMA. Very well; and in the following verses of our chapter the Lord tells Pharaoh (according to the best explanations we have of rather an obscurely rendered passage) that though He could at once have smitten him with pestilence, and cut him off from the earth for his audacious breach of faith with the Most High; yet for this cause had he made him stand," or preserved him, (not "raised him up," as translated in our Bibles, whence some have drawn the false and impious conclusion, that he was created for the purpose of sinning) that the power of Jehovah might be magnified in the awful catastrophe by which this monument of Divine vengeance should justly and finally perish.

MARY. How very good it was of God to give notice of the hail! I suppose it was not meant for wicked Pharaoh, but for those believing Egyptians who took warning by it.

MAMA. Doubtless; yet nothing but experience of former judgments could have made even such believe it. Why so? Why was it so peculiarly incredible?

MARY. Because there never was any natural rain in Egypt, you told me. Is that the reason

you meant?

MAMA. Exactly; I wished to see if you remembered it. Nothing but the miraculous power of God could have produced a phenomenon totally unknown in that country, and still more so as combined with hail, which its dry sultry atmosphere utterly precluded. The mingling of "fire" with these strange visitations must have added greatly to their destructive effect and awful character. Do you see any special propriety in this addition?

MARY. Water and air had been made to punish the Egyptians already, perhaps they worshipped fire also.

MAMA. They did, Mary, and I am glad you understood this desecration of another of their elemental deities. Did the Israelites suffer from this great storm?

MARY. Oh! no. "There was no hail in Goshen."

MAMA. My dear Mary, let this simple phrase remind us of a precious spiritual truth. The word "Goshen" is often applied to the "city of refuge," enjoyed in this world of storms by God's chosen and peculiar servants; who, though not like the Israelites exempted from their share