.)

EXODUS iii. 14. And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM.

And now, my friends, we are come, on this Sunday, to the most
beautiful, and the most important story of the whole Bible--
excepting of course, the story of our Lord Jesus Christ--the story
of how a family grew to be a great nation. You remember that I told
you that the history of the Jews, had been only, as yet, the history
of a family.

Now that family is grown to be a great tribe, a great herd of
people, but not yet a nation; one people, with its own God, its own
worship, its own laws; but such a mere tribe, or band of tribes as
the gipsies are among us now; a herd, but not a nation.

Then the Bible tells us how these tribes, being weak I suppose
because they had no laws, nor patriotism, nor fellow-feeling of
their own, became slaves, and suffered for hundreds of years under
crafty kings and cruel taskmasters.

Then it tells us how God delivered them out of their slavery, and
made them free men. And how God did that (for God in general works
by means), by the means of a man, a prophet and a hero, one great,
wise, and good man of their race--Moses.

It tells us, too, how God trained Moses, by a very strange
education, to be the fit man to deliver his people.

Let us go through the history of Moses; and we shall see how God
trained him to do the work for which God wanted him.

Let us read from the account of the Bible itself. I should be sorry
to spoil its noble simplicity by any words of my own: 'And the
children of Israel were fruitful, and increased abundantly, and
multiplied, and waxed exceeding mighty; and the land was filled with
them. Now there arose up a new king over Egypt, which knew not
Joseph. And he said unto his people, Behold, the people of the
children of Israel are more and mightier than we: Come on, let us
deal wisely with them; lest they multiply, and it come to pass,
that, when there falleth out any war, they join also unto our
enemies, and fight against us, and so get them up out of the land.
Therefore they did set over them taskmasters to afflict them with
their burdens. And they built for Pharaoh treasure cities, Pithon
and Raamses. . . . And Pharaoh charged all his people, saying,
Every son that is born ye shall cast into the river, and every
daughter ye shall save alive. And there went a man of the house of
Levi, and took to wife a daughter of Levi. And the woman conceived
and bare a son: and when she saw him