Besides this, their exhausted spirits were continually sustained and revived by the reflection that right was on their side, and that the God whom they served, the God of their fathers, was their protector and friend. Joseph had told his brethren, when he died, that God would surely visit them, and bring them out of Egypt, unto the land which he sware to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. They had bound themselves by an oath, to carry his bones up with them, when they should go to Canaan. These hallowed relics, which they preserved with sacred care, kept fresh in their memories the declaration of Joseph. The time of their redemption would come. It might not be far distant. The hope which confidence in God always imparts, supported and strengthened them. To the discomfiture of their oppressors, the Israelites, so far from wasting away under their severe toils, actually kept on increasing in numbers. "The more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and grew. And they were grieved because of the children of Israel."

Other measures must be tried. The relentless Pharaoh would not be baffled in his designs. His wicked heart urged him forward. He devised, as he thought, an expedient which would certainly check the increase of the Israelites. It was an inhuman and bloody one. None but a cruel and revengeful tyrant would have adopted it.

He ordered the women who assisted in taking care of the little infants of the Israelites when they were born, without fail, to put all who were boys immediately to death. In this way there would soon cease to be any more who would grow up to become fathers; and one family after another dwindling away, none would be left. But the women did not carry his order into effect. They feared God, and were unwilling to commit such great wickedness. So the king was again defeated in his malicious purpose. Still "the people multiplied, and waxed very mighty."

Pharaoh was not deterred by all this from attempting, yet further, to carry into effect his designs against the Israelites. He did what he thought would, at length, make their destruction sure. He issued a decree, commanding the Egyptians to take every infant born among the Israelites, who should be a boy, and cast it into the river Nile. Doubtless there were particular persons appointed, to put this cruel decree into execution. They were to search for such infants; to enter the houses of the Israelites; to force the tender babe from the arms of its fond mother, and consign it to its watery grave. What distress in families; what weeping among children, thus to have torn away from them the new-born brother whom they were eager to welcome with their caresses;-what grief in the father, deep and indignant;-what tears and groans, and shrieks of anguish, as the distracted mother saw her little one, plucked from her bosom, to die alone and helpless beneath the dark waters, or to be devoured, ere life should be extinct, by the ravenous crocodile, lurking there for its prey! What wretchedness will not a malicious tyrant inflict upon the victims of his cruelty! What misery will not his vindictive passions impel him to produce!

It was sin reigning in the breast of Pharaoh that made him such a tyrant. Sin is selfish, malignant, and cruel. He who cherishes it, knows not to what deeds of horrible wickedness it may lead him. Its hateful character may not at once be seen. Its beginnings are often faint and obscure. But its growth is rapid; and, at length, it becomes terrific, and, not unfrequently, fiend-like.

Who would have thought, when Pharaoh was himself a smiling, helpless infant in his mother's arms, that he would live to become so hardened in sin as to be the murderer of infants.

My dear young friend, does sin reign in your breast? Do you love to indulge it? Have you never truly repented of it? Do you carry on no struggle against it, looking to God for his Holy Spirit to aid you in the conflict? Then its power is increasing within you. Its growth will be fearfully rapid; and, if you thus keep on in sin, to what deeds of shameful and desperate wickedness may it not lead you!

Pause, and consider the end of such a course.

Repent of sin, and forsake it.

CHAPTER II.

Amram and Jochebed have a son;-who, after a concealment of three months, is left by his mother on the brink of the river Nile.

At the time when the Israelites were so cruelly oppressed by the Egyptians, there lived among them a inan and his wife, whose names were Amram and Jochebed. They were pious persons. They loved and obeyed God, and put their trust in his almighty protection. Before the cruel decree of Pharaoh respecting the male infants was issued, they had a daughter, Miriam, and a son, some years younger, whose name was Aaron.

Notwithstanding the afflictions which they and their people endured, they rejoiced in the birth of these two children. They loved them with the tenderest affection, and hoped, with the blessing of God, to bring them up in his fear and service.

When Aaron was three years old, God gave them another son, concerning whom they felt the deepest anxiety, as the decree of the king was passed that doomed the infant to destruction. At any moment, sudden and unexpected, a barbarous hand might seize the little one, and plunge it into the waters of the Nile. It was a lovely child, exceedingly fair and beautiful, winning by its early graces the warmest love of the parents, and of its young sister and brother.

Happy family! poor, probably, and obscure in station; but, in the midst of surrounding trials, enjoying the blessing of God, and clinging to each other,-parents and children, with endearments of the purest and sweetest kind. In their lowly dwelling how often would they caress the little stranger; and watch him day after day; and talk of what he would be as months and years should roll over him.

But this happiness was often interrupted. There were frequent victims of the king's unfeeling orders all around them. Babes, as dear to their parents as was their child to them, were continually discovered among their kinsfolks and friends, and cousigned to their appalling fate. They trembled to think how soon they might be called to a similar scene of anguish, and exercised all their prudence and skill to avoid it, They doubtless, too, most fervently and constantly, invoked the blessing of God upon their efforts, with a strong assurance that he would interpose his aid. In the Epistle of Paul to