MOSES.-PART I.

"Come now, therefore, and I will send thee unto Pharaoh, that thou mayest bring forth my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt," Exod. iii, 10.

MOSES is one of the most singular characters of whom sacred or profane history makes mention. Considered merely as a political or private character, his history can never be read without a singular degree of interest. In the circumstances of his birth, education, and adventures, there is something exceedingly romantic. The history of his political life is a part of the history of the world. The people he governed are, to this day, the wonder and astonishment of mankind. Part of them live among us; and are governed by the same laws as ourselves. But though we see them daily, they are, comparatively, strangers; and we have more sympathy for men born in the most distant regions than for them. They have their peculiar customs and ceremonies, civil and sacred, which they profess to deduce from the remotest antiquity; and of whose institution we read, in this man's life, for he was their legislator. To be possessed then of any authentic account of the origin of such a people must be a matter of high interest.

But, in another respect, the character of this man is of importance, more especially to such as believe the divinity of the Bible. He was not only a man of singular piety, as an individual; but he occupied a distinguished station in the church of God. He was

divinely commissioned to work miracles in confirmation of his divine mission. He beheld God face to face; and talked with him, "as a man talketh with his friend." He received, by divine communication, a revelation of his will, his law, and a large commentary upon that law; as also the whole economy of the Levitical institutions. He foretold the coming of Messiah; and described himself as a type of him that was

to come.

We propose to consider him in his life as a private, as a political, and as a sacred character.

I. We consider Moses as a private character. He was of the children of Israel. His father and mother were of the tribe of Levi. He was born at the time when the long-foretold period of Israel's sojourn in Egypt was hastening to its close. Only seventy-five persons, the family of Jacob, had gone down into Egypt; but these, in the course of a hundred and thirty-five years, had prodigiously multiplied, till they had become a great nation. The circumstance of their living separate, in property, pursuits, and family connections, from the Egyptian nation, even in the heart of their country, was sufficient to awaken the jealousy of the king, and of the inhabitants of the land. Indeed it is almost a matter of surprise that their jealousy should have so long lain dormant. Actuated by a fear (or feigning it for political purposes) that these strangers, in a case of rebellion or invasion, events no way uncommon in the then unsettled state of governments, might join the king's enemies, Pharaoh resolved, with savage policy, to exterminate the whole of the Israelitish males. He thought to have compassed his design by procuring the destruction of every male infant; but in this attempt he utterly failed. Nor was he more

successful in the infliction of various cruelties upon the people; for the more they were oppressed the more they grew and multiplied.

It was at this period that Moses was born. For three months after his birth his mother contrived to elude the execution of Pharaoh's inhuman order, that every male child should be cast into the Nile. But, after spending that time in the utmost anxiety, she resolved to commit him to the care of Providence; and having made a little basket of bulrushes, " and daubed it with slime and with pitch, she put the child therein; and laid it in the flags by the river's brink." By the wise and kind providence of God, a circumstance of the most romantic kind led to the preservation of the child. One of the princesses, the daughter of Pharaoh, as she was walking on the banks of the river, with her attendants, saw something remarkable among the flags; and sent one of them to see what it was. She received the little basket from her servant; and, on opening it, behold there was a child! "And the babe wept." Its tender age, its helpless condition, and the eloquence of its tears had a powerful effect upon the princess; and from that moment, although fully aware it was an outcast of the Hebrews, she loved him as her own. The sister of Moses, either by her mother's direction, or through the impulse of her own affection, looked, from a distance, on the scene; and, coming forward, offered to bring a Hebrew woman to nurse the child for her. Under this character she introduced the mother of Moses to Pharaoh's daughter. The child was committed to her care; and when he was weaned, he was adopted by the princess as her son; and subsequently instructed "in all the learning of Egypt." The whole story is so much out of the common course of events,

that scarcely any thing less than the authority of the Bible could have recommended it to our belief. It should teach us the doctrine not merely of a general, but also of a particular providence, which orders every event, and, in a special manner, watches over those who are designed by God to fill distinguished stations in his church.

By the circumstance of his adoption, Moses obtained an education which, otherwise, he could not; and which he turned to the best of purposes. He continued for forty years of his life to breathe the tainted atmosphere of a court. "And he was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and was mighty in words and in deeds."

But, notwithstanding the pride of heart which, in an unsanctified mind, these things tend to awaken and nourish; (for whose moral constitution is so vigorous that he can retain his health amidst pollution? who can be wiser than his fellows and not be vain?) they had not this effect upon him. But two other circumstances are to be kept in view, as suggested by St. Paul, Heb. xi, 24, namely,-1. His refusal "to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter," although a prospect was thereby opened to his ambition of one day swaying the Egyptian sceptre, as the Jewish writers. assert without reserve; and, 2. His choosing the only remaining alternative, if he fled the court, the schools, and the avenue to the throne, namely, affliction with the people of God. He certainly owed a debt of gratitude to his adopting mother for having saved his life, and for the advantages of education. But neither the plea of gratitude nor the attraction of a court, neither the pride of ambition nor the dread of suffering, could prevent this holy man from bearing his cross with his brethren.

A very awful circumstance obliged him to leave the land of luxury and snares. He was forty years of age when it came into his mind to go and visit his afflicted brethren, whose residence and place of occupation were, probably, at some distance from the residence of Pharaoh and his court. As he approached the tents of his oppressed brethren, and beheld their cruel burdens, he saw, what was no rare occurrence, an Egyptian smiting a Hebrew. Grief, pity, and indignation, by turns, swelled his breast; till, at length, the last prevailed: and, looking this way and that to see if he were within observation, he hastened to side with his countryman; and, in the end, slew the oppressor. His crime did not, perhaps, amount to murder; for, as the law of God has it, "he hated not the man aforetime." He did not come to the place with any intention of perpetrating such a deed; and, at the moment of conflict, it was not likely that he contemplated such an issue. These are palliating circumstances, to say nothing of the provocation, which was very great. But we do not mean altogether to defend, but simply to state his conduct. Having slain the Egyptian, he hastily buried him in the sand; and thought he had concealed the deed from every eye. In this expectation, however, he deceived himself: for, the next day, it was his lot to see two Hebrews striving with each other. He attempted to separate them, in an affectionate manner, reproving the aggressor. "Wherefore," said he, "smitest thou thy fellow?" Inflamed with every cruel and bad passion, the other retorted by asking, "Who made thee a prince and a judge over us?" and by reminding him of his conduct on the preceding day, saying, "Intendest thou to kill me as thou killedst the Egyptian ?" It is no way unlikely that there was a tone of superiority in