But he replied, Who made you
a prince and a judge over us? Do you intend to kill me as you
killed the Egyptian? Then Moses was afraid and said, Surely the
thing is known. When, therefore, Pharaoh heard this thing, he
sought to him Moses. But Moses fled from the presence of Pharaoh
and took up his abode in the land of Midian.

And Jehovah said, I have surely seen the affliction of my people
that are in Egypt, and have heard their cry of anguish, because of
their taskmasters, for I know their sorrows; and I am come down to
deliver them out of the power of the Egyptians, and to bring them
up out of that land to a land, beautiful and broad, to a land
flowing with milk and honey; Go and gather the elders of Israel
together and say to them, Jehovah, the God of your fathers, the God
of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, hath appeared to me, saying, I have
surely visited you, and seen that which is done to you in Egypt,
and I have said I will bring you up out of the affliction of Egypt
to a land flowing with milk and honey. And they shall hearken to
thy voice; and thou shalt come, together with the elders of Israel,
to the king of Egypt, and ye shall say to him, "Jehovah, the God of
the Hebrews, hath appeared to us; and now let us go, we pray thee,
three days' journey into the wilderness, that we may sacrifice to
Jehovah our God."--_Hist. Bible_.

Hold on; hold fast: hold out--patience is genius.

Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith let us
dare to do our duty as we understand it.--_Lincoln_.

I.

THE EGYPTIAN BACKGROUND OF THE BONDAGE.

The one contemporary reference to Israel thus far found in the
Egyptian inscriptions comes from the reign of Merneptah the son of
Ramses II. It implies that at the time at least part of the
Hebrews were in the land of Palestine:

Plundered is Canaan with every evil;
Askalon is carried into captivity,
Gezer is taken;
Yenoam is annihilated,
Israel is desolated, her seed is not,
Palestine has become a widow for Egypt.
All lands are united, they are pacified.
Every one who is turbulent has been found by King Merneptah.

The testimony of the oldest Biblical narratives regarding the
sojourn of the Hebrews in Egypt is, also, in perfect accord with
the picture which the contemporary Egyptian inscriptions give of
the period. Furthermore, the Egyptian historians never
distinguished the different races in their midst, but rather
designated the foreig