tised in this world is not the most dreadful thing that can befall a sinner; what is more terrible is to be forsaken of God, and to die a stranger to the Lord! For after this there is no more remedy. The miserable castaway is to be on the left hand of the Judge, with the devil and his angels; and all the consolations that our Lord Jesus Christ came into this world to purchase, with the price of his own precious blood, are lost to him whom God forsakes.

Oh, how this thought ought to induce us to listen to the word of God while it is preached to us! The Gadarenes besought the Lord Jesus to depart out of their coasts, and the punishment which he inflicted upon them was simply to grant their request.1 May God preserve each one of us from an infliction like this; and may he enable us to say to him, when he knocks at the door of our hearts, "Enter, O my God; come in; make me thy child at any cost."

There was during the last century, in England, a man named Whitefield, who preached with wonderful power. He was asked one day what was the thought which animated him when he ascended the pulpit. "It is," replied he, "that there is perhaps a soul among my audience who may be hearing the word of God for the last time." How much more might we profit by the teaching we receive if we were each one to reflect, “I am hearing the word of God perhaps for the last time; the minister who sees my face in the church, may see it there no more."

In returning to the history, we can but observe the goodness of the Lord to his servants and to his people. Moses was amazed and perhaps troubled at the ob

1 Mark v. 17.

stinacy of Pharaoh. He may have said to himself with anguish, "How will all this end?" But God, who spoke to him as a man speaketh to his friend, said to him, "Be not troubled; the hour of your deliverance is at last arrived. Yet will I bring one plague more upon Pharaoh, and upon Egypt; afterwards he will let you go hence: when he shall let you go, he shall surely thrust you out hence altogether.”1

Before concluding this chapter, an explanation may be given of the second and third verses of the eleventh chapter, at which the enemies of the Bible have cavilled, as if God had commanded his people to commit a crime. It was on the contrary simply an act of justice and equity. The Israelites were to depart on the following night they were to leave their fields, pastures, gardens, houses, and their furniture; all the property which they had acquired during two hundred years of hard work; it was therefore equitable and just that they should receive some compensation, and in order to this God told them to ask from their neighbours jewels of silver and jewels of gold. The word "borrow," as we understand it, is not the proper meaning of the original Hebrew, which means asked for or prayed for; and God gave the Israelites such favour in the sight of the Egyptians, probably among the great men and officers who pitied this unhappy people, who had suffered so much, that they readily granted the request, freely giving what was asked for, saying, "Depart; take the

2

1 Exod. xi. I.

2 The original does not in the least imply that the Israelites asked the Egyptians to lend them the jewels or vessels of gold and silver as promising to return them, but rather that they requested or rather required them, and the Lord engaged to dispose the Egyptians to comply with their requirement.-SCOTT's Commentary.

vessels and jewels of gold; take whatever you choose." We are even told that "the man Moses was very great in the land of Egypt, in the sight of Pharaoh's servants, and in the sight of the people." And if we have God on our side, all will go well with us. If it is needful for us to be hated of men, he will make even this good and useful to us. If, on the contrary, we have need of their favour and friendship, he will secure them to us. Sometimes the favour of man deprives us of the favour of God; but the favour of God always obtains for us that of men if it be necessary for us.

H

XXIV.

The Passover.

(EXODUS xii. 1—10.)

ISTORY, as well as prophecy, is always composed of two parts; what is taking place in the world, and what is taking place in the church; what relates to empires, and what relates to religious events. The Bible even tells us that God deals with empires for the benefit of his church.

We have seen in the present history that the Lord convulsed the powerful kingdom of Egypt by nine successive plagues, so that this great country was like a troubled sea. We have now to consider what God did for his own people; that is to say, for his church.

At the same time that Moses had a message to the court of Pharaoh, he had also a mission to fulfil in the

land of Goshen. He was to speak in the name of his God to all the people of Israel. God's command to Moses and Aaron was, "Speak ye unto all the congregation of Israel.”

It would seem that, during the sad events which we have considered in the preceding chapters, Moses and Aaron had taken care to assemble around the city of Rameses the multitude of the children of Israel from all the land throughout which they were dispersed, in order that they might be ready to depart as soon as permission to do so was given them.

So.

Moses went out from Pharaoh in a "great anger." After having announced to him that the last judgment of God was to fall upon him, the Lord said, "About midnight will I go out into the midst of Egypt, and all the firstborn in the land of Egypt shall die," and it was "And it came to pass at midnight the Lord smote all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh that sat on his throne, unto the firstborn of the captive that was in the dungeon; and all the firstborn of cattle. And Pharaoh rose up in the night, he, and all his servants, and all the Egyptians; and there was a great cry in Egypt; for there was not a house where there was not one dead. And he called for Moses and Aaron by night, and said, Rise up, and get you forth from among my people, both ye and the children of Israel; and go, serve the Lord, go, serve the Lord, as ye have said. Also take your flocks and your herds, as ye have said, and be gone; and bless me also. And the Egyptians were urgent upon the people, that they might send them out of the land in haste; for they said, We be all dead men."

This is the account of the events which were taking

place in the palace and among the people of Egypt; it is the history of the empire. Attend now to the history of the church during the same time. What was then taking place in the tents of the Israelites, among the chosen people of God?

A great event, the institution of the Passover. Let us consider it in its several particulars.

Probably during the plagues, but before the ninth, since it was before the tenth day of the month, the Lord spake unto Moses and Aaron saying, "This month shall be unto you the beginning of months."

Now, the sky is like a great clock: the large hand is the sun; the small hand is the moon, which marks the months. The sun marks the years, the seasons, the days, and the hours. Every day you will see him rise in the east, and set in the west; but perhaps you have not noticed that his course appears more or less high in the sky. In summer, at mid-day, he is very high above the horizon, in winter he is nearer the horizon. This is how the ancients marked the seasons. They planted a stick in the ground, and measured the shadow at mid-day. In the middle of summer, this shadow was very short; in the middle of winter, it was very long. The times when the shadows are longest and shortest, are called the solstices. When the shadow is midway between the shortest and the longest, it is then spring or autumn, and these periods of time are called the equinoxes. The ancients began the autumnal equinox in the month of September.

In the verses last quoted God commands his people in future to take as the first month of the year that of March, at the spring equinox, and then to celebrate a great religious feast, in order to remind them, and in