up, and asked her, "Shall I go and call a Hebrew woman to nurse the child?" She said, "Go." The little girl went home at once and brought her own

mother, who took the babe and nursed him for Pharao's daughter. After he was grown, the princess adopted him for her own son, and called him Moses.

3. Moses sees the affliction of his people.

After Moses was grown up, he refused to pass among

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the Egyptians for the son of Pharao's daughter, and went out to visit his brethren. Here he saw for the first time the affliction to which they were subjected,

and the hard service that was exacted from them. He felt such deep indignation at the oppression he witnessed, that he struck with his own hand one of the Egyptians, whom he saw ill-treating one of the Hebrews

his brethren, and slew him. No one was looking on at the time, and he hid the dead body in the sand. As he went out the next day, he saw two Hebrews quarrelling, and he said to him who did the wrong, "Why strikest thou thy neighbour?" The man answered, "Who made thee a prince or a judge over us? wilt thou kill me as thou didst kill the Egyptian yesterday?" Moses was afraid, and said, How is this thing come to be known ?" When the circumstance was brought to the knowledge of Pharao, he sought to put Moses to death, and Moses upon this fled for his life into the mountains of Arabia.

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§ 4. Moses is received into the tent of Jethro, a Priest of Madian.

Moses made his way across the desert, along what is now become the principal caravan route for the merchandize of the East, intending to take refuge with some of the shepherd tribes of the Arabian mountains. After several days of flight he came and sat by a well, in the country of the Madianites. A priest of Madian had seven daughters, who had the care of their father's flocks. As these maidens came to the well to draw water from it for their flocks, the other shepherds of the country were in the habit of coming and driving them away. Moses, on observing this, rose up and took their part, and helped them to water their flocks. When they returned to Jethro, their father, he said to them, "Why are ye.come sooner than usual?" They answered, "A man of Egypt delivered us from the hands of the shepherds, and gave the sheep to drink." Jethro said, "Where is he? why have you

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let the man go? call him, that he may eat bread." Moses was invited into the tent of Jethro, and was soon engaged to remain with him, Jethro giving him his daughter Sephora to wife.

Time went on, and the king of Egypt died, and the of the children of Israel from the midst of their oppression went up to God, and He heard their groan

cry

ing, and God remembered the covenant which He made with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

§ 5. God reveals Himself to Moses, and sends him to deliver the children of Israel.

the desert, and came to And the Lord appeared of the midst of a bush,

Moses had now the charge of the flocks of his father-in-law, and on a certain occasion he drove his flocks into the inner parts of Horeb, the mountain of God. to him in a flame of fire out and he saw that the bush was on fire and was not burnt. Moses said, "I will go and see this great sight, why the bush is not burnt." And when the Lord saw that he went forward, He called to him out of the midst of the bush, and said, "Moses! Moses!" And he answered, "Here I am." And He said, "Come not nigh hither; put off thy shoes from thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground." And He said, "I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." Moses hid his face for he durst not look at God. And the Lord said to him, "I have seen the affliction of my people in Egypt, and I have heard their cry because of the rigour of them that are over the works: and knowing their sorrow, I am come down to deliver them out of the hands of the Egyptians, and to bring them out of that land into a good and spacious land, into a land that floweth with milk and honey, to the places of the Chanaanite, the Hethite, the Amorrhite, the Pherezite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite. For the of the children of Israel is come unto Me: and I

cry

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