intellectual and moral attainments and guided and watched
each step of his course from his infancy.

Deep and inscrutable must have seemed the designs of Jehovah, as, when
all was brightest, the dark clouds gathered around this favoured son of
the Hebrews, and all the promise and purpose of his saved life seemed
defeated. The hour of trial came--probably, as it generally comes,
suddenly and unexpectedly. It was the hour which was to test his
principles and prove his faith. The hour in which all the allurements of
sense, the gratification of ambition, and (it may have seemed) the
claims of grateful affection, were brought into conflict with the stern
claims of duty and principle, and in this hour he did not fail. He chose
rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the
pleasures of sin for a season. He refused to be called the son of
Pharaoh's daughter. His choice was made. He abjured the throne and left
the court. What disappointment must have fallen upon hearts who had
looked to his exaltation as a pledge of good for his race, and who saw
in his downfall the prolonged dominion of tyranny and persecution!

Yet Moses was not permitted to remain in peace, although he had sunk
into obscurity. He who was to lead the hosts of Israel through the great
and terrible wilderness--who was to endure toil, labours, and privation,
needed the nerve, the hardihood, the physical training, which could not
be gained in the luxurious courts of the Pharaohs, or in the quiet, and,
doubtless, comfortable and abundant homes of the husbandmen of Goshen.
Amid the enjoyments of home, the pleasures of study, he need not have
regretted the loss of a throne.

For many years he, who had been trained in luxury and elegance, led the
flocks of Jethro, and knew all the privations and the endurances of the
shepherd in the desert. And while his frame was thus hardened and
invigorated, while he learned to forego pleasure and endure bodily
toil, his soul was nourished by solitary meditation and high communion
with God. The philosopher can find instruction and interest in the works
of creation, but only he who adds the adoration of the worshipper to the
wisdom of the philosopher is prepared to study the works of Jehovah
aright.

What deep thought, what high imaginings, what profound reverence must
have filled the soul of the Hebrew shepherd as he watched the stars in
the silence and loneliness of the desert. As he sat, a solitary and