these judgments, began its Bible Societies, Missionary Societies, and Tract Societies. Whilst the nations on the continent of Europe were scourged and smitten most awfully, the people of this country only touched their harps with more joyous fingers, and sung a song of praise to that God who had shielded us, and been our refuge and defence.

We read that when Moses had finished his hymn, Miriam, that is the Hebrew rendering of the Greek word Mapia, and the English name "Mary," "the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took a timbrel," that is, a sort of small drum, "in her hand, and all the women went out after her, with timbrels and with dances." When the roll of the deep bass had ceased, the beautiful and more brilliant trebles began, "Sing ye to the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea."

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So," it is said, "Moses brought Israel from the Red Sea, and they went out into the wilderness of Shur." But, alas! alas! for your heart and mine, we no sooner get mercies, and thank God for them, than we forget them; and when a difficulty comes we did not anticipate, we fancy that the God who delivered us from the Red Sea is unable to give us a little fresh water to satisfy our thirst. These very children of Israel, so stupendously and magnificently delivered, and so thankful for it, three days afterwards, when they had crossed the sea, and gone into the desert, broke out in passionate recriminations against Moses, for what surely he was not to blame, for he showed that he had a Divine call to lead them forth, and forgot what God was able to do, and said, "What shall we drink?" Moses, the meek legislator and leader of his people, did not reply in recriminating language, but ever mindful that a soft answer best turneth away wrath, and not forgetting whose he was, and in whom was his help, "cried unto the Lord, and the Lord showed him a tree,

which, when he had cast into the waters, the waters were made sweet."

It is noticed in "Bartlett's Forty Days in the Desert," that there is a well still called the well of Moses, that may fairly be concluded, by the progress of the children of Israel each day, to be the very well that they came to. It is just about three days' quiet journey from the part of the Red Sea at which the Israelites must have landed when they crossed it. And he tasted the waters, and found that they were excessively offensive to the taste. Some portion of the water was analyzed by a chemist, and he stated that what he discovered chiefly in it was sulphate of lime. The waters are plentiful, but extremely bitter to the taste. He inquired of the natives of the desert whether there was any tree which, if cast into the water, would make it sweet; but they had no recollection of such a thing by tradition, nor did they know of any tree fitted to do it. The fact is, the use of the branch by Moses was not because there was any virtue in it, but because God always accompanies a miracle by a significant sign of it. The miracles of Jesus were always preceded by something very simple, not in itself having any virtue, but merely to show that it was his doing. He touched the ears of the deaf, the eyes of the blind, and the

tongues of the dumb, and they were healed.

So here, God

bade Moses cast a branch into the water merely to show the connection between God the cause, and the result, not because there was any virtue in the branch. And then he

makes the miracle the basis of a new lesson, "“If thou wilt diligently hearken to the voice of the Lord thy God, and wilt do that which is right in his sight, and wilt give ear to his commandments, and keep all his statutes, I will put none of these diseases upon thee which I have put upon the Egyptians: for I am the Lord that healeth all thy diseases, pardoneth all thy sins, reneweth thy youth like the eagle's, and crowneth thee with loving-kindness and tender mercy."

Let us, my dear friends, thank God for all our deliverances; let us never forget that his arm is not shortened that it cannot save; and that He who has delivered us in so many perils in the past, is able and willing to deliver us in all that may betide us in the future.

CHAPTER XVÍ.

MURMURING FOR BREAD. GOD'S MERCY AND GOODNESS. MEANPECULIARITIES IN THE MIRACLES. THE

ING OF MANNA.
SABBATH.

Ir appears after the chapter which we read last Lord's day morning, that when on their murmuring because of the bitterness of the water in the well they arrived at, they had no sooner got that want supplied in mercy, and not in judgment, than they began, like human nature still in all its phases, to murmur that they had not the enjoyment of all that was possible, as well as all that was desirable.

They arrived, it seems, at the wilderness of Zin, as it ought more properly to be called, the wilderness stretching north-east from the sea which they had crossed, on the 15th day of the second month after their exodus from the land of Egypt; and there we read, "the whole congregation of the children of Israel murmured against Moses and Aaron," upon this ground, that they had not a supply of the bread that they needed, or at least of the sort of food that was palatable to their taste; and they said in a most craven and criminal manner, "Would to God we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the fleshpots, and when we did eat bread to the full;" that is, they said they preferred the gratification of appetite, even in degradation, to the safety of the soul and the enjoyment of freedom. They would rather be without God, with plenty to eat, than be the friends and heirs of God, and suffer a

little temporary inconvenience. But how often is the same principle developed, fulfilled, and acted on, amongst us, and the solemn and impressive testimony forgotten, "What shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole world”. not only bread for a day, but the whole world -"and lose his own

soul?"

Now mark, after this, an instance of the great mercy and forbearance of God, when least deserved. They murmured, rebelled, remonstrated, regretted that they had taken a single step in what they knew to be the right direction; but God, instead of judging them as he might have done, and visiting them for their transgressions, as they most richly deserved, graciously said, "Behold I will rain bread from heaven for you." He pardoneth our sins. Where sin abounds, grace doth much more abound. He comes over the mountains of our transgressions, and shows himself gracious to us in spite of them.

Then Moses and Aaron said to them, "Why should you murmur against us? We are but the instruments; we have a duty to discharge, a mission to fulfil; we have done it to the letter; we are but the instruments in God's hands. Do not murmur against us as if we were the cause of this momentary inconvenience; but see if it be not the doing of that God who has done all so beneficently in the past, and who will never do any thing that will permanently injure you in the course of the future. Your murmuring is not against us, but against the Lord."

And immediately the Lord told Moses and Aaron to come near to him, and hear him; and the glory of the Lord that shone from the pillar as fire by night, and that appeared in the same pillar as a cloud by day, was that tabernacle or sanctuary, out of which God spake, and promised mercies and blessings to the children of Israel. Then it came to pass that there descended from heaven, first the dew of the morning, and after that dew had evaporated by the sun's