of temporal calamities, experience nevertheless under "the shadow of the Most High," a sense of safety and tranquillity amid them, which neither the "stings" of the world's impotent malice, nor the "hail" of its undisguised fury, nor the "pestilence" of its evil examples, nor the "thick darkness" of its wilful ignorance, can penetrate or even approach. The Israelites in Goshen doubtless felt deep gratitude for the miraculous protection vouchsafed them by their God. How much more should we bless His holy name if, by a power greatly beyond our own strength, we are, (while sojourners in a world lying in wickedness), in fulfilment of our Saviour's gracious petition, "kept from the evil that is in it!"

MARY. Mama, the hail must have been very dreadful, when it made Pharaoh own he and his people were wicked!

MAMA. And he more wicked than even conscience pronounced him, so soon to retract a confession, the fruit, indeed, not of penitence, but merely of slavish terror! Have you any notion why the flax and barley are particularly mentioned as destroyed by the hail?

MARY. No, Mama. I should have thought the wheat of more consequence.

MAMA. In the worship of the country the

flax at least had a peculiar utility. It was celebrated all over the world for its quality; and in the "fine linen" woven from it, the priests were exclusively clothed. To them the loss of a year's growth must have been peculiarly annoying. From barley it is supposed they made a fermented liquor essential to their health and comfort at those seasons when the Nile was undrinkable. But the destruction of the later sorts of grain was only deferred, and left to another class of God's ministers of vengeance. By the locusts was Pharaoh's mock penitence signally avenged, and the devastation of the land completed. But before following them in their ravages, let us remark a further and merciful purpose announced by Jehovah to Moses, in the extension of Pharaoh's life; and the multiplication of judgments no longer designed for his amendment. See if you can find this purpose for me.

MARY. "That thou mayest tell in the ears of thy son and thy son's son, what things I have wrought in Egypt, that ye may know that I am the Lord."

MAMA. Very well. Do you know any Jewish writer besides Moses, by whom the gracious office of reminding his people of those mighty works has been faithfully discharged? Whose

eloquent description of the "signs and wonders in the land of Ham," have you often (perhaps without due attention) repeated?

MARY. I think, Mama, David uses these words in a Psalm all about the children of Israel

in Egypt.

MAMA. Yes, in a most faithful as well as succinct recapitulation of the history of his people contained in the 105th and 106th Psalms; ushered in and summed up, in the truly pious spirit of its author, by earnest exhortations to praise and thanksgiving. Let us join with him, Mary, in exclaiming, when we read of similar displays of Almighty power, "Oh! that men would praise the Lord for his goodness, and His wonderful works to the children of men!" But what "Israelites indeed" recalled in later times, still for the benefit of their countrymen and our own, the deliverance from Egypt, and transactions in the wilderness?

MARY. I don't remember.

MAMA. Stephen in the Acts, and St. Paul in the Hebrews, allude to them as things perfectly well known, and impressed on the hearts and memories of their countrymen, even at that remote period. So completely had the “ sons and sons' sons" of the generation who witnessed them, participated in the knowledge thus gra

ciously provided by God! But by the Jews we fear these signal favours were perverted into sources of carnal pride, and vain-glorious exultation. They forgot the wholesome addition, "That ye may know that I am the Lord," and attributed to their merits a course of national mercies, which Moses, on the contrary, perpetually wonders their national degeneracy had failed in forfeiting. But we must return to the locusts. I think I have explained to you their destructive character.

MARY. Yes, Mama, they are a sort of large grasshoppers which appear in clouds, and eat up every green thing that comes in their way.

MAMA. Very well remembered, but to heighten your general idea of this destructive insect, I will quote you the words of a modern traveller, an actual eye-witness. "Those I saw in Barbary were much bigger than common grasshoppers. In the heat of the day they formed themselves into large bodies, and darkened the very sun. On being hatched, the new broods immediately collected together, forming compact bodies of several hundred yards square, and marching directly forward, climbed over trees, walls, and houses, eat up every plant in their way, and let nothing escape them. The inhabitants made trenches and filled them with water, and set on

fire large quantities of combustibles.

vain.

But in

The trenches were quickly filled up, and the fires put out, by infinite swarms succeeding each other; the last gnawing off the young branches and the very bark of such trees as had before escaped with the loss only of fruit and foliage."

MARY. Dreadful indeed! no wonder Pharaoh sent for Moses and Aaron " in haste," to rid him of such enemies.

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MAMA. Yes, especially as from this scourge of other eastern countries, Egypt being protected by the barrier of the Red Sea, was usually exempt; yet in one day, even by to-morrow," did the Lord "hiss for the fly" out of the remotest regions of Arabia; and locusts-such as never were known before or after-desolated the scanty remnant of vegetation this once fertile country yet boasted. These, as well as the frogs before mentioned, forsook their usual character, by infesting houses, thereby adding loathsomeness to calamity.

MARY. Mama, the servants of Pharaoh showed more sense than their master; they ventured to desire him to "let the people go."

MAMA. And by what miserable subterfuge did this infatuated prince think to mock God, and to compromise literally (the children of