Saw, and heard, and owned the mission.
With his outstretched prophet-rod,
To stir plagues upon the Pharoah,
Scorner of the most high God.
God, who brought His folk triumphant
From the strange taskmaster free,
And merged the Memphians, horse and rider,
In the deep throat of the sea.
Then uprose the song of triumph,
Harp and timbrel, song and dance,
And with firm set will the hero
Led the perilous advance.
And he led them through the desert
As a shepherd leads his flock,
Breaking spears with cursed Amalek,
Striking water from the rock.
And he led them to Mount Sinai's
High-embattled rock; and there,
'Mid thick clouds of smoke and thunder,
Like trumpet clave the air.
To the topmost peak he mounted,
And with reverent awe unshod,
As a man with men discourseth,
So he there communed with God.
Not in wild ecstatic plunges,
Not in visions of the night,
Not in flashes of quick fancy,
Darkness sown with gleams of light.
But in calm untroubled survey,
As a builder knows his plan,
Face to face he knew Jehovah
And His wondrous ways with man.
Ways of gentleness and mercy,
Ways of vengeance strong to smite,
Ways of large unchartered giving,
Ever tending to the right.
In the presence of the Glory
What no mortal sees he saw,
And from hand that no man touches
Brings the tables of the Law.
Law that bound them with observance
Lest untutored wit might stray,
Each man where his private fancy
Led him in a wanton way.
Law that from the life redeemed them
Of loose Arabs wandering wild,
And to fruitful acres brought them
Where ancestral virtue toiled.
Law that dowered the chosen people
With a creed divinely true,
Which the subtle Greek and lordly Roman
Stooped to borrow from the Jew.
JOHN STUART BLACKIE.
On the Picture of the Finding of Moses by
Pharaoh's Daughter
THIS picture does the story express
Of Moses in the bulrushes,
How lively the painter's hand
By colors makes us understand.
Moses that little infant is,
This figure is his sister. This
Fine stately lady is no less
A personage than a princess,
Daughter of Pharaoh, Egypt's king
Whom Providence did hither bring
This little Hebrew child to save.
See how near the perilous wave
He lies exposed in the ark,
His rushy cradle, his frail bark!
Pharaoh, King of Egypt land,
In his greatness gave command
To his slaves they should destroy
Every new-born Hebrew boy.
This Moses was a Hebrew's son;
When he was born, his birth to none
His mother told, to none revealed
But kept her goodly child concealed.
Three months she hid him; then she wrought
With bulrushes this ark, and brought
Him in it to this river's side,
Carefully looking far and wide
To see that no Egyptian eye
Her ark-hid treasure should espy.
Among the river-flags she lays
The child. Near him his sister stays.
We may imagine her affright
When the King's daughter is in sight.
Soon the princess will perceive
The ark among the flags and give
Command to her attendant maid
That its contents shall be displayed.
Within the ark the child is found,
And now he utters mournful sound.
Behold he weeps as if he were
Afraid of Egypt's cruel heir!
She speaks, she says, "This little one
I will protect though he the son
Be of an Hebrew." Every word
She speaks is by the sister heard.
And now observe, this is the part
The painter chose to show his art.
Look at the sister's eager eye,
As here she seems advancing nigh.
Lowly she bends, says "Shall I go
And call a nurse for thee? I know
A Hebrew woman liveth near.
Great lady, shall I bring her here?"
See! Pharaoh's daughter answers "Go."..
No more the painter's art can show.
He cannot make his figures move.
On the light wings of swiftest love
The girl will fly to bring the mother
To be the nurse. She'll bring no other.
To her will Pharaoh's daughter say,
"Take this from me away,
For wages nurse him."
To my home
At proper age this child may come.
When to our palace he is brought,
Wise masters shall for him be sought
To train him up befitting one,
I would protect as my own son.
And Moses be a name unto him,
Because I from the waters drew him.
Moses in the Desert
O where a foot hath never trod,
Through unfrequented forests flee;
The wilderness is full of God,
His presence dwells in every tree.
To Israel and to Egypt dead,
Moses the fugitive appears,
Unknown he lived, till o'er his head.
Had fallen the snow of fourscore years.
But God the wandering found
In his appointed time and place,
The desert sand grew holy ground,
And Horeb's rock a throne of grace.
The lonely bush a tree became,
A tree of beauty and of light,
Involved with unconsuming flame
That made the moon around it night.
Then came the Eternal voice that spake
Salvation to the chosen seed,
Thence went the Almighty arm that brake
Proud Pharaoh's yoke, and Israel freed.
By Moses, old and slow of speech,
These mighty miracles were shown;
Jehovah's messenger! to teach
That power belongs to God alone.
JAMES MONTGOMERY.
And a mild look of sacred pity cast
Down on the sinful land where he was sent
To inflict the tardy punishment.
"Ah! yet," said he, "Yet, stubborn king, repent,
Whilst thus armed I stand
Ere the keen sword of God fill my commanded hand.
Suffer but thyself and thine to live
Who would alas! believe
That it for man,” said he
"So hard to be forgiven should be,
And yet for God so easy to forgive!"
Through Egypt's wicked land his march he took,
And as he marched, the sacred first-born strook
Of every womb; none did he spare,
None, from the meanest beast to Pharaoh's purple heir. Whilst health and strength and gladness doth possess The festal Hebrew.cottages;
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