further promise to counteract it, directed him to Aaron his brother, who was eloquent; and who, he was told, was coming to meet him and would rejoice at the meeting. The next words from the Deity were in mandatory tones:

"And thou shalt speak unto him, and put words in his mouth; and I will be with thy mouth, and with his mouth, and will teach you what ye shall do. And he shall be thy spokesman unto the people; and he shall be, even he shall be to thee instead of a mouth and thou shalt be to him instead of God. And thou shalt take this rod in thine hand, wherewith thou shalt do signs."

There was no further resistance, for every plea was taken away from him. The mighty work before him, so overwhelming in its nature, so full of dangers and toils, was made imperative. God had spoken clearly; he had to submit. Yet, as he took his way back now to his father-in-law's house, it was with convulsions of nature within him as if the very foundations of his being were becoming upturned. He was indeed becoming another man; he, lately the calm recluse among the mountains, the quiet student, the simple tender of sheep! His was a great soul, but it had been content with the ideal and with quietude. He had been suddenly shaken and waked up. He was now to rise up, to abandon for ever all thoughts of retirement and of rest; and to gird all his energies to scenes and troubles where every one of his faculties would be tried to the utmost. He trembled at the immensity of the work before him, who had never been a practical man, mingling with the busy world, and was now to be thrust forward as a leader to a nation, which was to be lifted by his arm as an instrument, out of thraldom into freedom. He trembled and shrank; but, as he walked along now toward Jethro's tent, he felt that there was a Presence with him, such as had never been so strikingly in companionship with him before. He trod therefore firmly, though humbly, as he went.

He asked permission at the tent to be allowed to visit his brethren in Egypt, and his father-in-law gave it with his blessing; "Go in peace." So taking his wife and children, and an ass to convey them, he set out on his journey. Afterward, however, he sent them back to her father's tent: they could be only an impediment, and might meet with danger. Indeed, on the way there was a scene only halfexplained in the Bible record, which caused the performance on them of the Hebrew rite, which had hitherto been neglected.

Aaron, forewarned by the Deity as had been promised, had come to meet him; and they met among these desert solitudes, "in the mount of God;"-an agitating meeting, one of them so full of great and wonderful purposes laid imperatively upon him, and the other wondering at the meaning of the mysteriously given summons to go forth. They communed together; and then both proceeded to their work.

Their work! They could have no hope in it, except what came from God. But as they walked along over the Arabian wastes toward the head of the Red Sea gulf, and then around it, toward Egypt, they felt always that strange Presence; for God had spoken, and they knew that he was with them.

Having reached Goshen, they assembled the elders of their countrymen together, as soon as they could. Aaron, the eloquent spokesman, communicated to them what had occurred to his brother, and what was the great commission given; and then the two brothers gave outward demonstrations in "signs,"-doubtless miraculous acts—before the people. The people believed; and when they heard that the Lord had visited the children of Israel, and that he had looked upon their affliction, they bowed their heads and worshipped.

The next transaction of the two brothers was to be with the king himself.

CHAPTER XXXI.

THE DEMAND FOR FREEDOM MADE.

WE present here the picture of Menephthah, taken care

fully from the great work of Lepsius; and the reader will be struck with the expression of face, so similar to what we might have imagined in one who, as shown on the Egyptian monuments and history, was vacillating, superstitious and weak. We notice also the singular prominence on this head of the Uræus or asp, the representative of their god Neph, and the emblem of royalty.

But, however wanting in real greatness his true characteristics may have been, he was still the Pharaoh, obeyed implicitly, as if a god himself; was absolute and powerful ; and his very weakness of character made him more jealous respecting honors due to his rank, and more anxious to establish a reputation for force. He was even more dangerous to a supposed enemy from the want of that quietude which conscious firmness and strength impart.

Thus we see him in the great palace of the Pharaohs.

It was with feelings very far different from any that he had ever before had in those royal halls, that Moses, accompanied by Aaron, now came and presented himself before the monarch. He stood erect now and strong, in the dignity of a man, and in the felt especial presence of God. On other occasions it had been Moses, a dependant, although the adopted prince of the household, submitting to be a participant in that immense system of Egyptian superstitious worship, and probably officiating as priest; having very many queryings, we may believe, starting up in his mind and growing stronger every day, respecting the truth of their system; but yet held down by the ties from education, his mind still blinded, and the struggle within him for light often feeble and ob

MENEPHTHAH (Mari-en-ptheh, Ba-en-Ra), Thought to be the Pharaoh of the

Exodus,

(Copied by careful tracing from Lepsius' work.)

structed. He had walked these halls of the palace, with a great struggle in his heart also, respecting his countrymen; intensely indignant at the cruelties exercised upon them by their masters, his associates, and yet repelled by the grossness and ignorance among themselves; mourning over their degradation, and yet not seeing how they could be raised. In their very religion there was a counterpoise to any hopes in his mind or to any efforts; for their notions of the Divinity which they acknowledged, were dark, and were inoperative upon them; and while they rejected the refined and intellectual system of symbols in use among the Egyptians, they had scarcely anything definite to offer in its stead.

Therefore it was as a man puzzled with doubts, in conflict with himself, bowed down, and despising his own position of subserviency to what his heart condemned, that he had before trod these royal halls among the royal princes and the priests.

Now it was all far different. He came with a raised-up head, a mind clear from mists, a heart strong in its faith in God, and with a mien and step such as would be learned among the sheikhs and the free wanderers in the desert. Above all, he felt that he stood before Pharaoh as a commissioner from Jehovah, and that God was with him there. He and Aaron spake with authority:

"Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, Let my people go, that they may hold a feast unto me in the wilderness."

"Who is the Lord that I should obey his voice to let Israel go?" demanded the indignant monarch; "I know not the Lord, neither will I let Israel go." They answered,

"The God of the Hebrews hath met with us: let us go, we pray thee, three days' journey into the desert, and sacrifice unto the Lord our God; lest he fall upon us with pestilence or with the sword."

1 Their plea for that distance had the excuse that some of the animals to be sacrificed by the Hebrews were considered as gods by the Egyptians.