gers were rushing overboard to plunge into the sea, vainly hoping to escape, Paul said, "Except these persons abide in the ship, ye cannot be saved." Now, here is the seeming contradiction; he had an absolute promise that every one of them should be saved; and yet, so urgent, so essential, I may add, was the use of means, that he said, Except the means be used, and these men abide in the ship, ye cannot be saved. Here is the compatibility of an absolute promise of God with a dutiful attention to the means that are in our power.

In this spirit the mother of Moses acted. She arose with the promise still sounding in her heart, "This babe shall be saved, and be the deliverer of Israel; " but, in order to render possible that grand result, she constructed a boat of the frail papyrus, pitched it outside with bitumen to prevent the ingress of the water; a mother's fingers carefully, because inspired by deep affection, constructed it; a mother's keen eye, keen from the love that lightened it, watched every crevice, and laboriously filled it up; a mother's love - all affection to the babe, yet all confidence in the God that gave him inspired her heart to feel and her lips to breathe the prayer, as never mother prayed before, that God would shut the mouths of the savage crocodiles, restrain the winds, allay and keep down the wild waves, and spare the precious treasure she was constrained, in obedience to a high command, and out of a sense of duty, to trust to the mercy of the waters, and the wild beasts, more tender than the Pharaoh that sat upon the throne. That mother, however, not satisfied with this elaborate provision against every possible contingency, or at all tempted to relax her exertions, set Miriam, the sister of the babe, to watch, as an unwearied sentinel, while she-the mother went a little distance and watched the sentinel-sister, while the great God above stood the sentinel over all three; so that not a hair of the head of any one of them was injured, because they had faith and confidence in him. Soon

after this, we read, in the passage we have quoted from Exodus, Pharaoh's daughter went to offer her accustomed sacrifices, or to perform the religious ablutions usual in that country, on the banks of the river. One can well conceive what was the trembling of the poor Hebrew mother's heart when she saw draw near to her most precious treasure the daughter of the very tyrant from whom she was hiding that babe. The wave accidentally, the world would say lifted the ark a little higher than the level of the Nile; the playful wind laid the rushes that grew up and hid it. The eye of the princess detected the unusual little boat rocking on the rippling waves, and, no doubt, made inquiry what it was. She sent her maid to examine it. She approached it, removed the lid that a mother's fingers had so well fastened, and there was disclosed what must have unsealed all the springs of tenderness and love in a woman's heart, — heathen as she was, a babe in its lonely helplessness. Its bright face must have been thrilling eloquence; its very helplessness must have cried in piercing accents for protection; its big bright tears, as they coursed each other, must have been resistless appeals to pity. The heart of the daughter of Pharaoh was melted, and she resolved, under the inspiration of love and pity, to save the babe her father was ready and watching to destroy. Meanwhile, we may well ask, what must have been the mother's feelings when she saw the ark lifted from its place, and the daughter of Pharaoh inspecting its living contents? Surely her heart must have been ready to burst with agony, her faith in God's promise must have faltered, her expectation of Israel's exodus from Egypt must for a moment have been shaded and obscured; and in herself, and in her inmost soul, the poor mother surely said, "I thought God had given me a promise; I am mistaken. I thought Israel would be spared, and my child the great deliverer; I have misapprehended; God has forsaken me; my God has forgotten me."

But may I not ask, reader, of thee, Did you never doubt the safety of your soul? Did you never despair with a promise sounding in your ear? Have you had no suspicions of the faithlessness, no doubts about the truth, no fears of the love of God? Yet God's promise remains. Believer, that soul of yours, encompassed with frailty, doubting, trembling, often almost despairing, is just as secure, amid all its trials, its temptations, and its sorrows, as the babe of Jochebed in the little ark that was rocked by the waves. Heaven and earth may pass away, but that babe could not perish; your soul cannot be forsaken. A mother may forget the son of her womb, that she should not have compassion upon him, but "I will not forget thee; I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee."

But let us read the narrative. The mother's fears were excited; the loss of her babe was suggested to her mind. But man's extremity is always God's opportunity. Very remarkable it is, when the church of Christ has been at its very lowest degradation, or rather distress, God has been preparing her emancipation and her victory. At this extremity, as we read, the sister of Moses, under a divine impulse, ran to the princess, exhibiting a self-possession and quiet in which woman ever excels man, and skilfully suggested, "As your highness has found a Hebrew babe, what can be more proper than for your royal highness to select for that babe some Hebrew nurse?" Here was ingenuity, and yet there was no equivocation, no evasion, no deceit. Here is a specimen of exquisite policy, and pervaded and sustained nevertheless by inner and thorough principle. Miriam had been taught not to lie; but her affection prompted, and divine communication guided, her to suggest anything, except the sacrifice of truth, to save her infant brother. The moment that she made the suggestion, it came home to the heart of the royal princess, and she said, "Go and fetch a Hebrew nurse." With what a bounding

footstep, with what a beating heart, must Miriam have reminded her mother alike of possible dangers that must have ruined all, of possible escape that might yet save all; and with what joy must the mother have seen the dawning vision of the safety of her beloved babe! Hope was rekindled from its smouldering ashes; the thought flashed across her mind, "Why should I have doubted the faithfulness of God?" and she learned that things may be brought to the very lowest ebb, as we know that the cause of truth may be at the very lowest pass, and yet God's promises shall not fail till they are lost in glorious performance; and that the least word that God speaks is stronger than the mightiest pillar that man can The mother, we are told in the interesting history in the second chapter of Exodus, received the foundling back to her bosom. Ten minutes before, she would have given all the world to save her babe; now she is not only permitted to clasp him in her bosom, but, in addition, she is unexpectedly paid to be a nurse to him. Faith in God led her to leave the babe to the everlasting providence of God, and that faith is honored by him replacing that babe in the bosom of the mother, and making her the paid nurse to the child. "Them that honor me," is as true in England as it was in Egypt, "I will honor."

erect.

"Trust in the Lord, forever trust,

And banish all your fears;
Strength in the Lord Jehovah dwells,
Eternal as his years."

The wages of a nurse and to a poor mother these were not unwelcome were added to the joy of a mother. And now, lest a knock at the door might make her suspect the approach of the murderer, lest the shadow that swept over the casement of her home might lead her to fear that the emissaries of Pharaoh were approaching, the babe is not only saved from the waves, but it is protected by the very royal authority

which was exercised against the rest; and she learned, what believers still learn, that, through faith in Jesus Christ, all elements that were against us are turned into our allies, and that all things work for good to them that love God, and are the called according to his purpose.

While noticing the feelings of the mother on her recovery of her babe, we cannot pass by the features displayed by a heathen princess on this interesting and touching occasion. It is doubtless true that man is fallen, perishing and corrupt; that he cannot think a thought that is perfectly pure, or conceive an act that is perfectly good, until the Spirit of God regenerate and inspire his heart; yet it is not true that even from the natural man every gleam of his pristine grandeur has passed away. Sometimes the worldly merchant on the exchange does things that put to shame the professing Christian at the communion-table. Many a time a lofty sense of honor has achieved what the grace of God in the heart has not yet enabled us to equal, still less to excel. There are traits in the natural man, many of them exquisitely beautiful; and all that we wish to teach is, not that these traits, which have so much of conscience in them, and are so beautiful in themselves, are bad, but that all, when woven and combined together, cannot either constitute a title to the regions of the blessed, or be a fitness in the heart for that rest which remaineth for the people of God. In the case of this heathen princess, we see tender natural affection, a susceptible heart, open to the impressions of the good and the beautiful as noonday itself; we witness in her conduct lofty courtesy, condescending kindness, as manifested in the reception she gave to the gratuitous, some would have called it the offensive, suggestion or remark of Miriam ; we find, in addition to all this, a high sense of honesty in paying wages to the Hebrew mother for nursing the Hebrew child. She might have said, if she had been mean-spirited, "It is enough that the child is spared;"