d for their race had hardly
induced the nation to leave their present abundance and protection.
Thus, by the various dispensations of his providence, Jehovah was at
once preparing a guide, leader, ruler, and future lawgiver for his
people, while by the continued vexation, oppression, and cruelty of the
Egyptian rulers, he was suffering them to alienate the affections of the
children of Jacob from a country which had become the native land of the
Israelites, which was the birth-place of generation after generation.

At the time Miriam, the sister of Moses, appears before us, the children
of Israel had reached the fourth generation. A family had become a
nation, a people in the bosom of another, dwelling together, distinct,
separate, too numerous to be easily or safely held in subjection, too
valuable as tributaries to be relinquished. Thus to hold them safely in
bondage and to prevent their further increase, it became the settled
policy of Egypt to oppress and degrade them. As their jealous
apprehensions were at length awakened, by a policy as profound as it was
cruel, the Egyptian monarchs endeavoured, in destroying the sons of this
people, to force the daughters of Israel to intermarry with their
oppressors, that they might obtain the wealth of the sons of Jacob,
while the name and memory of his family would be swept from the earth.
Yet dwelling, as the Israelites did, in a separate province, it was not
easy for Pharaoh to find those who would execute his purposes; and the
first efforts to cut off the race of the chosen, failed. He was however
so intent upon their extermination, that he did not hesitate to direct
that all the male children of the Israelites should be cast into the
river as soon as they were born.

While there were so many to court the favour of the monarch and ever
ready for the darkest deeds, how could the sons of the Hebrews now
escape? When Moses was born, his mother hid him three months; and when
concealment was no longer possible, she sought for the babe a strange
place of safety--in the very element which was indicated for its
destruction. The slender ark is framed by the mother's hands, and
deposited among the flags on the bank of the Nile. The morning was
perhaps dawning, and the sky yet gray, when the anxious mother
withdrew.

In a few hours after, the chant of the boatmen is suddenly hushed, and
the passing labourers shroud their heads in token of reverence, as,
surrounded by her attendant