selves converse about such mysteries. Of course these visitations upon the Egyptians were miraculous: and we are to have before us in this book still greater miracles for our contemplation; the crossing of the Red Sea; the feeding of more than two millions of people, for nearly forty years, with manna in the wilderness, with water also, and other necessaries of life; beside other instances of deliverances and of God's care.

What is a miracle? It is a suspension or a reversal of the ordinary laws over physical matter. God, for the safety and well-being of his creatures, proceeds by a uniformity of action, which we call a law or laws of nature. A law of nature is simply a uniformity of action on the part of the Creator, without which his creatures could have no anticipation of, and make no preparation for, the future. It is for our good that it should be so: and equally for the same reason, we may expect the Deity to depart from this uniformity, when, in his wisdom and benevolence, he sees this to be requisite. A miracle is therefore no more impossible, and no more an improbability as regards the Deity, than is a law of nature, when as good a reason occurs for a miracle. But the very reason for a law of nature will render miracles a rare occurrence; and also, we may expect them only when the occasion is worthy of such unusual action of Divine Providence.

Now in these writings in our Scriptures we have God in history. God is always in history, but man in his blindness. cannot always see him or find him out. Man, even in most advanced age and in his wisest state of intellect in this world, is but infantile compared with the infinities of knowledge, and of time. Even Newton could put his hands

on only a few links in the endless chain of knowledge, and then could go no further. So with all men. We know a few of the qualities of things, as of electricity, of light, of heat, etc.; but what is electricity? what is light? what is

heat? And if so in physical matter, what must it be with God's moral dealings with his creatures? Our ignorance is still greater there, because these subjects are more abstruse, and more hidden from our sight. And yet knowledge on these things is far more important to us than knowledge on the others.

For instance, if we could really see God in all history, the knowledge would be of the highest importance to us. But we cannot. History is too large and too wide for us, and our faculties are too limited and our time here too short. We cannot trace God and the workings of his moral laws, even in a small community, or even in one individual, although the Deity and his laws are operating in all.

But we have a history in which God comes revealed,not fully, because for this neither our faculties nor our condition will admit; yet so that we can study him there; and there also get the clue for studying him in all other history, if we so desire. In the Jewish history he makes a demonstration of himself; not continuously, but in flashes here and there; and we are not only able to recognize him there, but also by means of this history we may also be able to recognize him in other histories, where it is important that we should do so.

Here, for instance, in the case now under consideration, were slaves to be set free. They were people recognizing him -feebly, it is true-but still exercising that recognition; and therefore objects of his especial care. He desired to free them. They were important to their masters, essential indeed to the ease of the Egyptians, who were, of course, unwilling to part with them. God produces their liberation through a series of acts which, to our apprehension, are evident miracles-things where he has plainly impressed his power, and we can clearly see him in the acts. Such demonstrations of himself,—if we mortals can, and dare, judge of the Infinite—were worthy of him; for we have in the history of

the Israelites, a clue by which we can trace him in all history. Nations ever since have looked for God in history, and to some degree have found him there; and far oftener should we find him, if we were to try with clearer purposes of right in our hearts, through this clue given to us in the history of this people written by himself, with himself and with his laws for nations exhibited there. Nor is this period in Egypt now under consideration so far exceptional to all history as it may seem to us to be. It appears to be exceptional, because the facts belonging to it, back of what human eyes can see, are revealed to us in Scripture: but we have lately had a brushing away of slavery from our own country, and by ways that every one must acknowledge to be strangely exceptional, and by means entirely unforeseen and unexpected. If God in the history of this recent deliverance could be shown to us by revelation, we might possibly see many acts as exceptional as those in the deliverance from Egypt, although they seem now to us to have been according to the usual laws regulating our world. There is, doubtless, in all human affairs a mingling, inexplicable by us, of the exceptional and the regular in nature; and of the Divine sovereignty harmonizing with man's free agency. We know and can know but little of the infinite in God, but it was important for us that such demonstrations of his constant rulership over the world as we can understand should be made to us; and they are made in revelation,-very strikingly in the case which we are now considering.

There was one more demonstration to be made. It was to be the slaying of all the first-born in Egypt. Many a heart has recoiled from that strange, horrible winding up of these miracles; and has stood contemplating it with silent. queryings about God as a doer of such things: and yet— and the coincidence is a very singular one-we have just been going through scenes in our own country, where the first-born in it, that is, our bravest and our best, very

many thousands of them,-have been slain, and this resulting also in a deliverance from cruel slavery. This last has seemed to us to be according to the laws among men ; but it may well set us to thinking; and in these thoughts we shall find many helps from this history of the Israelites so full of the miraculous in the delivery from bondage in Egypt. God's acts among nations even now seem very often to take the form of miracles.

At the end of the third day of this darkness which might "be felt," Pharaoh sent for Moses and Aaron. A strong and fearful compulsion was upon him, but he wished still to keep a hold upon the Israelites. It has been obvious that from the very first, he understood fully the meaning of the demands by Moses.

"Go ye," he said, "serve the Lord: only let your flocks and your herds be stayed: let your little ones also go with you." The answer was,

"Thou must give us also sacrifices, and burnt-offerings, that we may sacrifice unto the Lord our God. Our cattle also shall go with us: there shall not an hoof be left behind for thereof must we take to serve the Lord our God; and we know not with what we must serve the Lord, until we come thither."

The issue between the two had now been fully made. Pharaoh's feelings grew stern and determined.

"Get thee from me," he cried, "take heed to thyself, see my face no more; for in that day thou seest my face, thou shalt surely die." The answer was—

"Thou hast spoken well, I will see thy face again no more."

W

CHAPTER XXXII.

THE EXODUS.

HILE the events in the last chapter were transpiring, the Israelites, scattered all over the land, were agitated, anxious, nervous, and watchful. Their home wast chiefly still at Goshen, but a very large number of them, called upon for servile work, were engaged in the quarries at the mountains bordering the Nile-valley eastwardly, and also at the various constructions going on in the country and at preparing bricks, and as slaves in agricultural work. Ignorant they were, debased, brutalized by the unremitting hard work. They were closely watched by their taskmasters; but from the first of these proceedings news had been spread among them by stealthy messengers, and where speech was not allowed, by secret signs; and they knew, more or less clearly, of the demands by Moses for their deliverance. Then came the plagues, one after another, all open to the observation of slave as well as master; and hope crept into the hearts of the former and increased, while the alarm of the latter was also obvious. The lash of the taskmaster was less frequent and less severe, unless in instances where madness in revenge nerved the overseer's arm. Wonderings and queryings, alarms or hopes were agitating the communities everywhere in city and country; and the Israelites were beginning to look in earnest expectation, and, where they could do it stealthily, to move toward their homes in Goshen. After a while, when hail and locusts had destroyed all vegetation, many of the Egyptian masters were willing to be saved from the necessity of feeding their slaves, and from this cause or disgust, bade them depart: and thus there was a gradual congregating of the Hebrew