Cæsars of the day: we visit their tents, and listen to their projects to disturb the repose of mankind: we perceive these designs carried into effect, just so far as the wisdom of Providence permits, and no farther: and we see these destroyers of the order and harmony of society, sinking one after another into the dust and the silence of death. History snatches from the hand of time, all that is valuable and useful. By her magic pencil the departed visions of ancient days return, and the fathers pass and repass before our eyes, that we may see, and admire, and imitate their excellencies: that we may abhor and avoid their vices: that we may pity and escape their weaknesses that our understandings may be enlightened, our judgments established in the truth, and our minds conducted through the lowly and peaceful paths of religion to the eternal temple of God..

And we derive information from the sources of present knowledge, and from the teachings of present experience. Every day adds something to the intellectual stature of an intelligent man: every day developes something important and interesting. The moment reason dawns upon the mind, the man finds himself surrounded by beings occupying the same rank

with himself in the scale of creation: he feels his destiny and his happiness inseparably linked with their's; and he awakes to a sense of new duties, involving in them a correspondent responsibility. He can no longer deem himself an idle spectator of the bustle and activity around him. Every day something transpires which affects his interests and his peace: or the interest and the peace of those whom he loves; and he is drawn from his solitude in spite of himself he is roused into exertion in defiance

of his preference for inactivity. He is soon involved in a thousand perplexities. He calls in the assistance of his contemporaries, that he may avail himself of the aid of their observations, in connection with his own, to learn something of the road which they are mutually travelling; and that by their combined exertions they may more successfully combat, and more effectually subdue, the temptations by which they are mutually assaulted. We are justified then, my friends, in trying every source of information which God permits to us--and not only in availing ourselves of present experience, but in plundering, as at this time, the past of it's treasures.

But we know nothing of futurity. God has reserved to himself the knowledge of that which

shall be and he conceals it from the highest orders of his intelligent creation.

Chain'd to his throne a volume lies,

With all the fates of men:

With ev'ry angel's form and size
Drawn by th' eternal pen.

His providence unfolds the book,
And makes his counsels shine;
Each opening leaf, and ev'ry stroke,
Fulfils some deep design.

1

Here he exalts neglected worms.
To sceptres and a crown :
Anon the following page he turns,
And treads the monarch down.

Nor Gabriel asks the reason why,
Nor God the reason gives;
Nor dares the favourite angel pry
Between the folded leaves !*

We may go back to the creation of the world, but we know not what shall be on the morrow. He alone knoweth the end from the beginning; and we shall have occasion to notice a most decisive evidence of this foreknowledge, in the prediction with which we commenced this Lecture respecting the subject of the present discussion, and which was delivered four hundred

1

* Dr. Watt's Lyric Poems. b. I. poem 6.

years before the event to which it relates was accomplished.

The book of EXODUS commences with a recital, by name, of the eleven patriarchs, who accompanied their father into EGYPT, God having sent Joseph before them, to provide for them, and to nourish their little ones. With conciseness characteristic of the sacred writings, Moses sums up the number of the family of Jacob, sweeps off that generation, exhibits the increasing population of their descendants, and hastens to

THE SLAVERY AND DELIVERANCE OF ISRAEL IN EGYPT: which part of his narration is to occupy your attention at this time. We shall, as usual, simply detail the facts as they are recorded by Moses, and corroborate them by foreign testimonies. Let us,

I. DETAIL THE FACTS AS THEY ARE RECORDED BY MOSES.

In discovering the sources of the slavery and sufferings of the Israelites, we are naturally led to contemplate the wonderful changes effected by the lapse of a few years. Nor shall we find it difficult to persuade those, of the truth and

fidelity of the sacred historian's representations on this point, who have accustomed themselves to mark the vicissitudes around them, caused by the revolution of a few months, not to say years. What changes are effected in one year! When we separate, who can say whether we shall see each other's faces in the flesh again? We meet at the house of friendship—we behold the father of a family happy and exulting. The bloom of health blushes in the cheek of his children. The partner of his life enjoys unusual vivacity. We return-but grief spreads her shadow over his countenance. In the intermediate space of a few weeks, the spoiler, death, has robbed him of his wife, or of some of his children: or perhaps we find the mother a widow, and the children fatherless. A man who travels along the vale of years, finds himself deserted by his contemporaries, and passes through the most gloomy part of his way, while the evening sun sets upon him, alone. Some have left him from mutability of disposition: some are divided from him by distance: some have been separated from his interests, by forming new connections: some have been driven from his embraces by the envenomed tongue of calumny: some have gone before him into the land of spirits. And thus the sons of Jacob sunk one after another into the till Egypt

grave,