III.

MEMORABLE TIMES THAT STAND FOR WAYMARKS IN THE CHRISTIAN'S EXPERIENCE.

"It is a night to be much observed unto the Lord for bringing them out from the land of Egypt: this is that night of the Lord to be observed of all the children of Israel in their generations."-EXODUS xii. 42.

THE period here referred to-the night thus solemnly presented to the commemoration of the children of Israel— belongs to a very remarkable era in their history, and signalises a deliverance the most extraordinary of any recorded in the annals even of that people, "wonderful from their beginning hitherto." Their history, one of the first that wins our admiring attention in childhood, is replete with instruction for every stage of life and of Christian experience. And it presents us with such a singular and majestic display of the march of a controlling Providence,—with such a combination of what is marvellous in fact, with what is true in nature, and genuine in its accordance with the experience of man,with events probable though extraordinary, and affecting as they are unprecedented,—with characters as briefly and rapidly sketched as perfect and exquisite in their lineaments,—and, above all, with such a sovereign subordination of the whole of these to the declared purpose of preserving one people on

earth among whom the name of the true God should be known, and from whom the promised Saviour should arise, -that we are struck as with the voice of truth addressing us from heaven; we cease to wonder at that isolated and peculiar character, diverse from all the nations, which these circumstances combined to form; we are smitten with the genius of Israelitish patriotism, and deeply sympathise with that people in their attachment to institutions coeval with their existence as a nation, and in their reverential esteem of the minutest of those divinely directed incidents that furnish the most endeared and sacred charm of their national poetry, and were once inseparably interwoven with the whole texture of their civil and domestic relations. Ah, why are they so long aliens, ejected from that Church that still reveres them as its founders and patrons? why still destitute and unconscious of the happiness enjoyed in the fulfilment of those promises that sustained, through ages, the hopes of their fathers?

The era that night-which our text so solemnly commemorates, was that in which the prophecy appointing them a long term of bondage in a land of strangers, had received its accomplishment. That mysterious dispensation had now come to a close; and though human appearances had undergone no change in their favour, and though their deliverance seemed still suspended on the will of their inflamed and inexorable persecutor, that period had arrived beyond which no human powers, nor combination of powers, earthly and superhuman, could prolong their state of desolation-that period at which God assumed to himself the decision of their destiny, and appeared, once and finally, for their complete deliverance, and for the overwhelming and irreparable overthrow of their

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tyrant and his impious hosts. It belongs to prophecy to convey a full revelation only in its actual accomplishment, and to leave much room for the exercise of the faith, sagacity, and wisdom of man, in the progress of all those intermediate events that work out a fixed and irreversible consummation. Four hundred years, counting from the time when the revelation was made, had been foretold to Abraham respecting his posterity, previous to their attaining the final possession of the land of promise; but it is probable that it was secret to him, and to his immediate descendants, from what period this calamitous dispensation was to take its date, or by what instrument it was to receive its accomplishment. When the patriarch Jacob in his old age, following the guidance of a guardian Providence, forsook the land of Canaan, and, accompanied by his numerous and flourishing progeny, set out to re-embrace, and to close his days with his long-lost Joseph, it is probable that the remote consequences of that proceeding were not suggested to his mind. And though both he and Joseph saw far beyond these events into futurity, and died with full conviction and fervent attestations that the land in which they dwelt was not to be the ultimate residence of their posterity, or the scene of the fulfilment of the glorious promises so often renewed to them and to their fathers, yet it appears not that they were certainly aware how soon a reverse of fortune would follow their removal, nor how those prospects would be blasted that promised their descendants security and peace in the land that yielded them a temporary home.

The illustrious Joseph closed his eyes in peace, in a good old age, and all the men of that generation died; after which

there arose another king who knew not Joseph, and the prospects of the lately-planted colonists were at once reversed. There was everything to recommend the people of Israel to the esteem and consideration of the Egyptians, as well in the signal preservation that had attended the commencement of their connexion, and in the special Providence that made them its manifest care, blessing the land in which they dwelt for their sakes, as in their moral habits of industry, equity, and sobriety, so directly conducive to the welfare of states; yet the Egyptian monarch, instigated by a base and jealous policy, considered it the dictate of wisdom to treat them at once as enemies-the sure way to force on them that character. Instead of enriching his country, as a patriotic sovereign would have done, by attaching them to its interests as home-born allies, and securing for its population all the advantages that would accrue from a gradual and intimate amalgamation, he loses not a moment in plying every measure of irritation which the bigotry of selfishness and cowardice could suggest, and pursues them with a malignity which no submission, or consistency in the duties of faithful subjects, on their part, could appease. How depressing was their lot! There was no hope for them from better counsels, from changing interests, from secret influence, or open negotiation. They had no advocate at court; a whole mighty nation had combined against them: for bad princes find it easy to apologise for persecution and confiscation to those who are to become partakers in the spoil; nor are there ever wanting, in the vicinity of degenerate kings, those who are base enough to whet the weapons of tyranny, so they can turn their edge against some alien victim that can retort no

wound when vilified, proscribed, and crushed. How do we commiserate the anguish of that maternal affection that began its woes where those of others end-the agonies of those embraces, the first, the last, bestowed on interesting babes, the children of the promise, endeared by a muchhonoured ancestry, and by the most cherished expectations, ere they were torn from desiring eyes, to be consigned to the stifling waters, or to those more hated amphibious reptiles that frequent the Nile! How would our hearts rise against such martyrdom, were it not for that word-" of such is the kingdom of heaven!" Condemned thus to interminable slavery under masters who aimed at nothing less than their extermination, what power could have prevented this fatal issue, had not an unseen hand perpetually upheld them, reversing all the purposes and confounding all the devices of their enemies; so that, the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and grew?

Yet effectual relief was long delayed. More than one race of persecutors had passed away-more than one generation of sufferers had found quiet in the grave, ere the Lord commissioned Moses to visit His desponding people with assurances of a speedy and glorious deliverance. The plant of heavenly root was not to be extirpated. Divinely sustained, its stately stem retained yet all its strength, and its spreading branches their sap and vigour, unconsumed amid the ardent fire of adversity. We wonder not at the abject state of their hopes, at the prompt ascendancy of fear over spirits debased by slavery and embittered by hard bondage; nor need we wonder, judging by ourselves, at their ready relapses into despondency on each new alarm, or at their frequent diffi