as being unclean, they were not tolerated in the land.

Camels, it is said, are not to be found on the monuments, but yet they
were certainly known and possessed by Egypt, though there were many
reasons why they should be held chiefly on the frontiers, and perhaps in
connection with the Arabian mines and settlements. Upon all these "in
the field" the plague should come.

The murrain still works havoc in the Delta, chiefly at the period,
beginning with December, when the floods are down and the cattle are
turned out into the pastures, which would this year have been signally
unwholesome. It was not, then, the fact of a cattle plague which was
miraculous, but its severity, its coming at an appointed time, its
assailing beasts of every kind, and its exempting those of Israel. We
are told that "all the cattle of Egypt died," and yet that afterwards
"the hail ... smote both man and beast" (ix. 6, 25). It is an
inconsistency very serious in the eyes of people who are too stupid or
too uncandid to observe that, just before, the mischief was limited to
those cattle which were "in the field" (ver. 3). There were great stalls
in suitable places, to give them shelter during the inundations; and all
that had not yet been driven out to graze are expressly exempted from
the plague.

Much of Pharaoh's own property perished, but he was the last man in the
country who would feel personal inconvenience by the loss, and therefore
nothing was more natural than that his selfish "heart was heavy, and he
did not let the people go." Not even such an effort was needed as in the
previous plague, when we read that he made his heart heavy, by a
deliberate act.

There was nothing to indicate that he had now reached a crisis--that God
Himself in His judgment would henceforth make bold and resolute against
crushing adversities the heart which had been obdurate against humanity,
against evidence, against honour and plighted faith. Nothing is easier
than to step over the frontier between great nations. And in the moral
world also the Rubicon is passed, the destiny of a soul is fixed,
sometimes without a struggle, unawares.

Instead of spiritual conflict, there was intellectual curiosity.
"Pharaoh sent, and behold there was not so much as one of the cattle of
the Israelites dead. But the heart of Pharaoh was heavy, and he did not
let the people go." This inquiry into a phenomenon which was surprising
indeed, but yet quite unable to affect his acti