ts of spiritual wisdom have been most
careful to cultivate their natural endowments.

Both Paul and Moses were learned before they were inspired, but God did
not supersede the use of the powers of the mind by the higher gift of
the Spirit. The providential dealings of God are adapted to the laws of
the human mind, and in the government of his creatures he never violates
the principles which he has established.

The occupation of the shepherd was at length to be abandoned. By
oppression and suffering and ignominious exactions, the children of
Israel were prepared to leave their homes--the land in which they had
dwelt for centuries--and venture across the sea and into the desert.
When we remember that husbandry had been the national occupation, when
we consider how strong is the instinct which binds man to the land of
his birth and the graves of his fathers, and how strong is that bond
which attaches one to the spot he has cultivated, to the land he has
ploughed and sowed and reaped, we cannot wonder at the coercion needful
to rouse a people whose energies were all depressed, and who had been
held in check and kept stationary for ages.

But the people were ready to depart. The oppression of Pharaoh had
prepared the way for the display of the Divine faithfulness and power.
Jehovah sent his ambassador from the desert to the court of the King of
Egypt, to demand their freedom. During his long exile, most who had
known Moses in his early days, had passed away; and the few that were
left would hardly recognise in the shepherd of the desert, with his
staff for his badge of office--bearing the marks of toil and exposure,
of deep thought and solitary meditation--the young and gallant prince,
the courtier and the warrior of former days. She who had cherished him
had probably been laid in the tomb of her royal race, and the name and
the memory of Moses may have been forgotten in the palace and the court.
Yet there he stood, before the throne which might have been his seat,
the ambassador of the King of kings, bearing the stern message of
Jehovah--"Let my people go, that they may hold a feast unto me in the
wilderness." Yet wo after wo was denounced and executed--pledge after
pledge given and violated--and not until one long wail over the dead and
dying resounded through the land were the children of Israel permitted
to leave the land of Egypt. The loss of three millions of subjects, of
their labour, their tribute, and the removal