ue
removed.

"But the Lord made strong Pharaoh's heart," and so, his fears being
conquered, his own rebellious will went on upon its evil way. He would
not let Israel go.

This narrative throws light upon a thousand vows made upon sick beds,
but broken when the sufferer recovers; and a thousand prayers for
amendment, breathed in all the sincerity of panic, and forgotten with
all the levity of security. It shows also, in the hesitating and
abortive half-submission of the tyrant, the greater folly of many
professing Christians, who will, for Christ's sake, surrender all their
sins except one or two, and make any confession except that which really
brings low their pride.

Thoroughness, decision, depth, and self-surrender, needed by Pharaoh,
are needed by every soul of man.

THE NINTH PLAGUE.

x. 21-29.

We have taken it as settled that the Pharaoh of the Exodus was
Menephtah, the Beloved of the God Ptah. If so, his devotion to the gods
throws a curious light upon his first scorn of Jehovah, and his long
continued resistance; and also upon the threat of vengeance to be
executed upon the gods of Egypt, as if they were a resisting power. But
there is a special significance in the ninth plague, when we connect it
with Menephtah.

In the Tombs of the Kings at Thebes there is to be seen, fresh and
lifelike, the admirably sculptured effigy of this king--a weak and cruel
face, with the receding forehead of his race, but also their nose like a
beak, and their sharp chin. Over his head is the inscription--

"Lord of the Two Lands, Beloved of the God Amen;
Lord of Diadems, Beloved of the God Ptah:
Crowned by Amen with dominion of the world:
Cherished by the Sun in the great abode."

This formidable personage is delineated by the court sculptor with his
hand stretched out in worship, and under it is written "He adores the
Sun: he worships Hor of the solar horizons."

The worship, thus chosen as the most characteristic of this king, either
by himself or by some consummate artist, was to be tested now.

Could the sun help him? or was it, like so many minor forces of earth
and air, at the mercy of the God of Israel?

There is a terrible abruptness about the coming of the ninth plague.
Like the third and sixth, it is inflicted unannounced; and the
parleying, the driving of a bargain and then breaking it, by which the
eighth was attended, is quite enough to account for this. Moreover, the
experience of