becomes harder still. Moses and Aaron next join Pharaoh as he stands on the brink of that river, where in obedience to his own murderous commands, his minions had already drowned so many lovely babes-Aaron at God's bidding stretches out his rod-the waters become blood, the fishes die, and the river, full of putrefaction, stinks-but even this also fails to move Pharaoh's heart. After this the land is literally filled with frogs, and for a moment Pharaoh softens. He calls Moses and Aaron, begs them to ask God to remove the frogs, and then promises to let the Hebrews go. Moses prays, the frogs die, Pharaoh rues, and the Hebrews are still slaves. After this two other plagues are sent-Pharaoh again relents-Moses again pleads with God-the plagues are again removedPharaoh again breaks his promises, and God's people again suffer a disappointment of their hopes. We next find God destroying all the Egyptian cattle, and then afflicting all the Egyptians themselves with boils; but still Pharaoh refuses to let the Hebrews go. At this juncture, after having sent six out of the ten plagues, which came upon the land of Egypt, "The Lord said unto Moses, Rise up early in the morning, and stand before Pharaoh, and say unto him, Thus saith the Lord God of the Hebrews, Let my people go, that they may serve me. For I will at this time send all my plagues upon thine heart, and upon thy servants, and upon thy people; that thou mayest know that there is none like me in all the earth. For now I will stretch out my hand, that I may smite thee and thy people with pestilence, and thou shalt be cut off from the earth. And in very deed for this cause have I raised thee up, for to shew in thee my power; and that my name may be declared throughout all the earth.”

Such then is the connexion of our text, a text chosen not exactly for the purpose of exposition, but because it

brings before us suggestive facts, not inappropriate to the present time. Let us briefly consider some of them.

One of the thoughts which the reading of the text at once suggests is this :—

I.-GOD FROWNS ON TYRANTS AND IS THE AVENGER OF TYRANNY—“ THE LORD SAID UNTO MOSES, RISE UP EARLY," &c.

As already stated, the Hebrews after the death of Joseph, were reduced to the most abject slavery. This was an act of pure despotic power. The Hebrews had not invaded the land of Egypt, but had been welcomed by its king. They had concocted no conspiracies against Pharaoh's throne and government. Their only fault was this, God had prospered them, and because of this Pharaoh resolved to punish them. At his bidding they are converted into gangs of slaves. Driven from their homes, and from the fields where their cattle grazed, they go gathering stubble over all the land of Egypt. They toil beneath a despot's frown, and what is worse than even that, they see their children murdered in obedience to a despot's will. Fathers weep and mothers wail. Pharaoh has become their tyrant, and now God becomes their king.

Journey to mount Horeb. There you find a man keeping Jethro's sheep, born as the son of a Hebrew slave, but brought up as an Egyptian prince. Forty years of his past life have been spent in king Pharaoh's court, and other forty years in the plains of Midian, tending Jethro's flocks. There you find him still, when all at once a sight bursts upon his vision such as he has never seen before-a bush burns, but the bush is not consumed -it flames with fire, but the fire is not natural-it flashes with a God-lit glory, which thrills the shepherd and his sheep with reverence and fear. Yea, more than this-the fire is full of eloquence-the bush becomes an oracle.

The Urim and Thummim are circled in its sacred flames. God is there, literally revealed from heaven in flaming fire to take vengeance upon his enemies, and to redress the wrongs of his crushed and afflicted church. Moses is summoned from his flocks to the precincts of the bushthere he is strictly charged to take off his shoes, for the place upon which he stands is holy ground, and now God in the midst of fire addresses him.

There he stands by the side of the very mount where God at an after period spoke to him in earthquakes, lightnings, smoke, and thunder. I say there he stands, and there with a hidden face he listens to an outburst of heaven's own indignant eloquence-an outburst of that pure philanthropy which has always yearned at the sight of sorrow; but which in avenging the wrongs of the injured and the crushed will sooner or later shatter the thrones of despots, and shiver the manacles of slaves, until not a despot lives, nor a slave is left to groan. "I have seen the affliction of my people; I have heard their cry, I know their sorrows. Come now, I will send thee unto Pharaoh, that thou mayest bring them forth." And after this, there goes Moses, a God-commissioned man, invested with a God-imparted power, to smash the tyrant's sceptre, and to set his captives free. His errand is a dangerous one-an errand from which he naturally shrinks; but then it is imposed by Him who has a right to rule, and whose prerogative and pleasure it has always been to "execute righteousness and judgment for all that are oppressed."

Brethren, with such a history as this before us, have we not sufficient evidence that God frowns on tyrants, and is the avenger of tyranny. Suffering in all its forms, and especially suffering arising from the neglect of those who ought to afford relief, or from the cruelties inflicted by those whose power is employed not to comfort others, but

to aggrandise themselves, is sure to excite the sympathy of God, and ultimately call down his ire.

Now if this be true, what are we to say of the groans of neglected widows and the cries of disregarded orphans in our own distinguished land at the present day? What of the ignorance, wretchedness, and starvation of thousands crowded in cellars and huddled in the most filthy dens? What shall we say of those who seem to regard the poor as mere humanized machines, and who care for their continued animation chiefly in order to keep the vast apparatus of their immense manufactories in play? What shall we say of those who with hollow cheeks and sunken eyes, are left sitting in the dust, clad in rags, without bread to eat, without strength to work, and without hardihood to beg? There are groans in England which go up to heaven, and which while they excite heaven's sympathy, also endanger England's happiness.

Passing to other lands, and looking at them in the light cast upon them by our text, what shall we say of the intolerance and tyranny irreligiously baptized in the name of Christ and found in the Christian church? What shall we say of reason robbed of its most sacred rights, and a God-given conscience moulded and thereby marred in the crusty crucible of antiquated but designing priests? What of a system which in a religious guise forbids the people the heaven-granted privilege to read God's own word, and threatens them with all the horrors of an endless damnation if they venture to think differently from bishops, cardinals, and popes? What of those who after having bundled together all the religious follies, and monkish nonsense of the last eighteen hundred years, have had the hardihood to call these the creed of the church of Christ, and with the most fearful pains and penalties have enforced their acceptance as the rule of conscience, and

the unerring guide of the human race? What shall we say of Popery, the friend of bigotry, drunk with the blood of saints, and uttering its blasphemy in the name of a holy God-of Popery, with its array of dungeons, racks, fires, and faggots-its curses, excommunications, and purgatorial punishments-of Popery, which chains the soul, sears the conscience, stunts the intellect, and degrades the man-of Popery, whose yoke is ignorance, whose course is vice, and whose track is stained with blood-of Popery, holding at the present hour millions of immortal minds in the most abject slavery-and crushing them beneath all the errors, curses, penances, and superstitions concocted and raked together by the deep and well-trained priestly craft of ages and generations past? I ask what shall we say of this? Is despotism sacred because it stalks in surplices; or is it innocent in the sight of God because it wears a cowl?

Take another view. What shall we say of Africa, steeped with the tears of kidnapped slaves, and saturated with the blood of broken and bleeding hearts? And what shall we say of those, who, though bearing the name of Christ, take upon themselves to deprive thousands of Christ's immortal and redeemed creatures of human freedom and of human rights—who dare to hold their faculties and limbs, their souls and bodies, yea, their wives and children as goods and chattels belonging to themselveswho make them move in a circle drawn by the lash of a monster's whip, and who prescribe as their highest and only task to submit to brutish degradation, in order to furnish Christian luxuries? What shall we say of those who sell a man as you would sell a beast-a man, the property of God-redeemed by the blood of Christ,-and made to know, love, adore, and serve his Maker? To find such an evil sanctioned, practised and contended for