he temple. The wise men
of the East were some peddlers who presented toys to the child Jesus;
and the star which went before, their servant carrying a torch. The
angels who ministered to Christ in his temptation were a caravan bearing
provisions. The transfiguration was an electric storm. The plagues of
Egypt, the passage of the Red Sea, and the miracles of the desert, were
merely natural phenomena, dextrously used by Moses and Aaron to suit
their purpose.

It is alleged that these enthusiastic patriots, full of the
superstitions of an early age, which attributed all prodigies to God,
and placed all heroes under his guidance, succeeded by their fiery
eloquence in inspiring their captive countrymen with the love of
liberty; and had political dexterity enough to create a faction in their
favor in the Egypt cabinet. Then taking advantage of a fortunate
succession of calamities arising from natural causes--such as an
extraordinary rising of the Nile, in consequence of which it was more
deeply colored than usual with the red mud of Nubia, and overflowed the
country to a greater extent than usual, leaving on its retreat numerous
ponds, which, of course, bred swarms of frogs and gnats, and raised
malaria, spreading various sicknesses over the land, both to man and
beast; a devastating visit of locusts, the well-known scourge of Africa;
a remarkable thunder-storm, accompanied with hail, causing great havoc
of growing crops, as such hail-storms always do; followed by the
chamsin, or dust-storm from the desert, darkening the air with clouds of
dust and sand; and by an extraordinary mortality, the natural result of
these various causes--they persuaded the superstitious Egyptians that
these calamities were tokens of the displeasure of the God of the
Hebrews, and improved the opportunity to escape, while the resources of
the Egyptians were exhausted, and their minds confounded by these
various misfortunes. Leading them to that part of the Red Sea south of
Suez, where a succession of shoals stretch across from the Egyptian to
the Arabian side, they crossed safely at low water, while the Egyptian
army perished by the rising of the tide; and the Israelites betaking
themselves to a wandering, pastoral life in the wilderness of Arabia,
lived, as the Bedouins do at this day, on the milk of their flocks and
the manna which was spontaneously produced by the tamarisk trees of
Sinai; where they remained until they had framed a civil and relig