tion.

THE TEN PLAGUES;

Or, HOW MOSES HARRIED EGYPT.

BIBLE ROMANCES.--5.

By G. W. FOOTE.

If a man who had never read the Bible before wished to amuse himself
during a spare hour among its pages, we should recommend him to try the
first fourteen chapters of Exodus. A more entertaining narrative was
never penned. Even the fascinating Arabian Nights affords nothing
better, provided we read it with the eyes of common sense, and without
that prejudice which so often blinds us to the absurdities of "God's
Word." At the end of the fourteenth chapter aforesaid, let the book be
closed, and then let the reader ask himself whether he ever met with a
more comical story. We have no doubt as to his answer; and we feel
assured that he will agree with the poet Cowper in thinking that God
_does_ "move in a mysterious way his wonders to perform." Two hundred
and fifteen years after the arrival of Israel in Egypt, God's chosen
people had fallen into slavery. Yet they were exceedingly prolific, so
that "the land was filled with them." Afraid of their growing numbers,
Pharaoh "spake to the Hebrew midwives" and told them to kill all their
male children at birth and leave only the daughters alive. This
injunction the midwives very, properly disobeyed, excusing themselves on
the ground that "the Hebrew women were lively and were delivered ere the
midwives came in unto them." Had they obeyed Pharaoh, the Jewish race
would have been extinguished, and Judaism and Christianity been never
heard of.

But the comical fact as to these midwives is that there were only two
of them, Shiphrah and Puah. What a busy pair they must have been! What
patterns of ubiquitous industry! When the Jews quitted Egypt soon after
they mustered six hundred thousand men, besides women and children. Now,
supposing all these were collected together in one city, its size would
equal that of London. How could two midwives possibly attend to all
the confinements among such a population? And how much more difficult
would their task be if the population were scattered over a wide area,
as was undoubtedly the case with the Jews! Words fail us to praise
the miraculous activity of these two ladies. Like the peace of God, it
passes all understanding.

One of the male children born under the iron rule of Pharaoh was Moses,
the son of Amram and Jochebed. The incidents of his eventful life will
be fully recorded in our series of "Bible Heroes." Suffice it here to