rs "the children of Israel did eat manna." But more than
once their gorge rose against it. Manna for breakfast, manna for lunch,
manna for dinner, manna for tea, and manna for supper, was a little more
than they could stand, The monotony of their diet became intolerable.
Accordingly, we read in the twenty-first chapter of _Numbers_, that
they complained of it and asked for a slight change in the bill of fare.
"There is no bread," said they, "neither is there any water; and our
soul loatheth this light food." This small request so incensed the Lord
that he sent a lot of fiery serpents among them, which bit them so
that "much people of Israel died." Like Oliver Twist, the Jews quickly
repented their presumption. They humbled themselves before Moses, and he
interceded with God for them. The prophet then made a brass serpent
and set it on a pole, and on looking at it all who had been bitten
recovered.

On another occasion, as we read in the eleventh of _Numbers_, they were
guilty of a similar offence. This time it was the more surprising, as
God had just burnt a lot of them up with raging fire for 'complaining.'
They remembered "the fish, which we did eat in Egypt freely; the
cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the
garlick." "Now," said they, "there is nothing at all, besides this
manna, before our eyes-Who shall give us flesh to eat?" The Egyptian
bill of fare was certainly enough to make their mouths water, and it
proves that if Pharaoh made them work hard he did not starve them, as
Jehovah very nearly succeeded in doing. They were so affected by their
recollection of the luscious victuals they enjoyed in Egypt, that they
actually cried with sorrow at their loss. Moses heard them weeping,
"every man in the door of his tent." This put the Lord in a very bad
temper; and Moses, who seems to have been much less irascible than
Jehovah, "also was displeased." God determined to give them a surfeit.
"Ye shall," said he, "not eat flesh one day, nor two days, nor five
days, neither ten days nor twenty days; but even a whole month, until
it come out at your nostrils, and be loathsome unto you." Thereupon
the Lord sent a wind which brought quails from the sea. They were so
plentiful that they fell in heaps two cubits high for about twenty miles
around the camp. That worthy commentator, the Rev. Alexander Cruden,
says that the miracle of this occurrence consisted, not in the great
number of quails, but in the