month, and hour and minute of the day. This period contains a succession of seven lives, including Abraham's from his seventy-fifth year to the eightieth of the life of Moses.

From the creation, then, to the exodus, is the space of two thousand five hundred and thirteen years, and a succession of twenty-four lives. The date of this event, in relation to other important and well known events in the history of mankind, stands as follows: it happened after the death of Abraham, three hundred and thirty years. After the death of Isaac, two hundred and twenty-five. After the death of Jacob, one hundred and ninety-eight. After the death of Joseph, one hundred and forty-four. Before the destruction of Troy, about three hundred. Before the first Olympiad, or the earliest reckoning of time among the Greeks, seven hundred and fourteen. Before the building of the temple, when the Israelitish glory was in its zenith, five hundred and six. Before the Babylonish captivity, nine hundred and sixty-three. Before the building of Rome, seven hundred and thirtyeight. Before Christ was born at Bethlehem, one thousand five hundred fifty-one. Before the present year 1793, three thousand three hundred and fortyfour.

What is the conclusion of the whole matter? "A thousand years," O Lord, "in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night," Psalm xc. 4. "Our fathers, where are they? the prophets, do they live for ever?" "Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness; looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat? Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness," 2 Pet. iii. 11, 12, 13. "So teach us to

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number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom," Psalm xc. 12. "Many shall come from the east and west, and shall sit down with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven,” Mat, viii. 11, "The law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ," John i. 17. "And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new.' ""He which testifieth these things saith, Surely, I come quickly. Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus," Rev, xxii. 20.

HISTORY OF MOSES.

LECTURE XIII.

And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, I have heard the murmurings of the children of Israel; speak unto them, saying, At even ye shall eat flesh, and in the morning ye shall be filled with bread: and ye shall know that I am the Lord your God. And it came to pass, that at even the quails came up, and covered the camp: and in the morning the dew lay round about the host. And when the dew that lay was gone up, behold, upon the face of the wilderness there lay a small round thing, as small as the hoar frost on the ground. And when the children of Israel saw it, they said one to another, It is manna: for they wist not what it was. And Moses said unto them, this is the bread which the Lord hath given you to eat.-ExoDUS, xvi. 11-15.

MAN, composed of body and spirit, is giving continual indication of the origin from which he springs. His creative imagination, his penetrating understanding, his quickness of apprehension, loftiness of thought, eagerness of desire, fondness of hope; nay, even his erect figure, and a countenance turned upward to the skies, bespeak him the son of God, into whose nostrils Jehovah has breathed the breath of life, and whom he has framed after his own image. On the other hand, appetites perpetually craving a supply out of the earth; the law of his nature, which stretches him in a state of insensibility upon the lap of his mother, for one third of his existence, in order to support

the employments of the other two; and rational powers subjected to the will of sense, show us a creature taken FROM the dust of the ground, always dependent upon it, and hastening to return thitherward again.

Providence permits us not for a moment to forget who and whence we are. Have we laboured an hour or two? Hunger and thirst and weariness irresistibly draw us to the grosser elements of which we are compounded. A little bread and water having dispensed their nourishing virtue, a short sleep having restored our wasted powers, the soul starts up into conscious immortality, it springs forward to eternity, grasps the globe, expatiates from sphere to sphere, ascends to the throne of God himself. At one time, we behold a grovelling contemptible being, all body, absorbed in the low and gross desire of the moment, a fit companion to the beasts that perish; and anon we see that very same wretched creature becoming all spirit, leaving the earth behind him, mixing with angels, and holding fellowship with the Father of spirits.

Religion is constantly aiming at the restoration of our fallen nature, is still exerting her quickening power to raise the beastial into rational, the rational into di'vine; she graciously employs herself in gradually detaching us from things seen and temporal, and in uniting us to those which are unseen and are eternal. The world, on the contrary, is as constantly striving to degrade, to depress, to extinguish the immortal principle, and to sink the man in the brute. Hence we see the worldling dreaming of much goods laid up for many years, endeavouring to confer duration even upon his sensuality; while Christ teacheth his disciples to pray, saying, "Give us this day our daily bread." And by this admonition, he powerfully checks immoderate anxiety about the future. "Therefore I say unto you, take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye

shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment? Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?" Matt. vi. 25, 26.

To teach men their constant dependence, their provision is bestowed in a gradual, daily supply; not in heaps but in handfuls. And when God was pleased miraculously to feed Israel in the wilderness for forty years together, the food of every day came in its day. All attempts to hoard were defeated. Every one's portion was sufficiently ample; and accumulation became a nuisance instead of wealth.

Men, under the impulse of their passions, sluggishly crawl, or eagerly run to the objects of their pursuit; but God is ever advancing towards his in the same steady, majestic pace. When we hear of the birth of Moses, the deliverer of Israel, we immediately conclude that the time of their redemption is now at hand. But behold forty years elapse before a single effort is made for this purpose. And, it is then the feeble effort of a solitary individual to avenge a private wrong; while the general enfranchisement seems rather retarded than accelerated by it; and another period of forty years passes, without one apparent step taken towards public liberty. The fetters of Egypt are at length broken, and Israel is enlarged; but the possession of Canaan is still at a distance; and a third space of forty years consumes that whole generation in the wilderness; and Moses, their conductor, dies at the age of one hundred and twenty years, before the sole of one foot enters into the land of promise, as a possession. So unlike are the preconceptions of erring men to the designs of the infinitely wise God.

When we behold that vast congregation, by such a display of Omnipotence rescued from bondage, conducted through the Red Sea, made to triumph over all their enemies, we are apt to consider them as the

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