ation of over two millions of souls; so that the
reigning monarch, probably a son of the Sesostris of the Greeks,
bitterly exclaimed to his courtiers, "The children of Israel are more
and mightier than we!" And the consequence of this jealousy was a
persecution based on the elemental principle of all persecution,--that
of fear blended with envy, carried out with remorseless severity; for in
case of war (and the new dynasty scarcely felt secure on the throne) it
was feared the Hebrews might side with enemies. So the new Pharaoh
(Rameses II., as is thought by Rawlinson) attempted to crush their
spirit by hard toils and unjust exactions. And as they still continued
to multiply, there came forth the dreadful edict that every male child
of the Hebrews should be destroyed as soon as born.

It was then that Moses, descended from a family of the tribe of Levi,
was born,--1571 B.C., according to Usher. I need not relate in detail
the beautiful story of his concealment for three months by his mother
Jochebed, his exposure in a basket of papyrus on the banks of the Nile,
his rescue by the daughter of Pharaoh, at that time regent of the
kingdom in the absence of her father,--or, as Wilberforce thinks, the
wife of the king of Lower Egypt,--his adoption by this powerful
princess, his education in the royal household among those learned
priests to whose caste even the King belonged. Moses himself, a great
master of historical composition, has in six verses told that story,
with singular pathos and beauty; yet he directly relates nothing further
of his life until, at the age of forty, he killed an Egyptian overseer
who was smiting one of his oppressed brethren, and buried him in the
sands,--thereby showing that he was indignant at injustice, or clung in
his heart to his race of slaves. But what a history might have been
written of those forty years of luxury, study, power, and honor!--since
Josephus speaks of his successful and brilliant exploits as a conqueror
of the Ethiopians. What a career did the son of the Hebrew bondwoman
probably lead in the palaces of Memphis, sitting at the monarch's table,
feted as a conqueror, adopted as grandson and perhaps as heir, a
proficient in all the learning and arts of the most civilized nation of
the earth, enrolled in the college of priests, discoursing with the most
accomplished of his peers on the wonders of magical enchantment, the
hidden meaning of religious rites, and even the being and attri