made the Egyptians,
from very ancient times, the best farmers of the world, the fathers
of agriculture. Meanwhile, when not in flood, the river water is of
the purest in the world; the most delightful to drink; and was
supposed in old times to be a cure for all manner of diseases.

To worship this sacred river, the pride of their land, to drink it,
to bathe in it, to catch the fish which abound in it, and which
formed then, and forms still, the staple food of the Egyptians, was
their delight. And now I have told you enough to show you why the
plagues which God sent on Egypt began first by striking the river.

The river, we read, was turned into blood. What that means--whether
it was actual animal blood--what means God employed to work the
miracle--are just the questions about which we need not trouble our
minds. We never shall know: and we need not know. The plain fact
is, that the sacred river, pure and life-giving, became a detestable
mass of rottenness--and with it all their streams and pools, and
drinking water in vessels of wood and stone--for all, remember, came
from the Nile, carried by canals and dykes over the whole land.
'And the fish that were in the river died, and the river stunk, and
there was blood through all the land of Egypt.'

The slightest thought will show us what horror, confusion, and
actual want and misery, the loss of the river water, even for a few
days or even hours, would cause.

But there is more still in this miracle. These plagues are a battle
between Jehovah, the one true and only God Almighty, and the false
gods of Egypt, to prove which of them is master.

Pharaoh answers: 'Who is Jehovah (the Lord) that I should let
Israel go?' I know not the Jehovah. I have my own god, whom I
worship. He is my father, and I his child, and he will protect me.
If I obey any one it will be him.

Be it so, says Moses in the name of God. Thou shalt know that the
idols of Egypt are nothing, that they cannot deliver thee nor thy
people.

Thus saith Jehovah, Thou shalt know which is master, I or they.
'Thou shalt know that I am the Lord.'

So the river was turned into blood. The sacred river was no god, as
they thought. Jehovah was the Lord and Master of the river on which
the very life of Egypt depended. He could turn it into blood. All
Egypt was at his mercy.

But Pharaoh would not believe that. 'The magicians did likewise
with their enchantments'--made, we may suppose, water see