s, the daughter of Pharaoh approaches the
river. The slight ark, with its precious burden, floating among the
reeds, attracts her eye, and, as her maidens draw it from the water, the
wail of the desolate infant strikes her ear.

"The babe wept"--and full fountains of womanly tenderness were broken up
in the heart of the princess of Egypt. "This is one of the Hebrew
children," said she; and as she drew him from the waves, she resolved to
save and adopt the child.

Miriam, the sister, had lingered near to watch, if not to save the
child. We may fancy the Hebrew maiden at a little distance, eagerly
bending forward, and gazing with intense and breathless interest. And
when the princess announces her intention to protect the infant, in all
the gladness of childhood she bounds forward, and, mingling with the
royal train, asks, "Shall I go and call to thee a nurse of the Hebrew
women, that she may nurse the child for thee?" And Pharaoh's daughter
said unto her, "Go;" and the maid went and brought the child's mother!

Thus had the God of Israel overruled all the designs of evil to his
people, by providing in the very family of Pharaoh a shelter and a home
for the child--doomed by the impious monarch to destruction--but
designed by Jehovah to be the saviour of his people. He who was thus
drawn from the water was the ordained deliverer, guide, legislator, and
prophet of Israel.

As Jehovah had appointed him to this high vocation, he not only guarded
his life, thus threatened, but made the instruments intended for the
extermination of the race the means of the full accomplishment of all
its mysterious destiny.

The child thus adopted into the royal family was not only saved from
death, but was thus placed under influences most propitious for the
attainment of all the various knowledge which could fit him for the high
station to which he was destined. That helpless infant was not only to
be the deliverer of Israel, but by his political institutions, his
legislative enactments, his moral precepts, his inspired teachings, he
was to mould the character of his own people, and to influence other
nations down through all coming ages. High was the honour allotted him
as the deliverer and the lawgiver of Israel--still higher that as the
prophet of the Lord. He was the promulgator of the great moral laws of
the universe, originally engraven on the hearts of men, but now so
effaced by sin as to be scarcely legible;--he was to establish