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father, and Moses agreed to live with him. He employed himself in looking after the priest's sheep, and in the course of time, married Zipporah, one of his daughters.

ELLEN.

It must have been rather a disagreeable change to him, after having been brought up in the court of a king of Egypt, as the adopted son of a princess, to settle in an obscure place in the country, where nobody knew him, and to keep sheep.

ANNE.

I have before told you, that employment was not considered in the least degrading. Abraham, who was one of the richest men of his time, superintended his own flocks and herds, though he had so many, that he had servants to assist him in the care of them. But when the angels visited him, you know, he ran to the herd himself, and fetched a calf; and we must not understand him as descending to an office either menial or unbecoming his rank; since even at the present day, we find, in Shaw's Travels, that "the greatest prince of those countries is not

ashamed to fetch a lamb from his flock and kill it, whilst the princess is impatient till she has prepared her fire to dress it." Moses did no more for his father than the richest men of his time did for themselves. However, I grant that Moses' life must have been much more quiet and monotonous than it had formerly been at the court of Pharoah, but I have no doubt that the many hours he spent in silent meditation, while watching his sheep, had a very beneficial effect on his mind, and gradually prepared him to become a fit instrument of those miracles, for which God soon after chose him.

ELLEN.

Shall I go on reading?

ANNE.

Not just yet. Let us think a little more on what we have read already. You know we do not read the Bible merely to obtain a general idea of the historical parts of it, but to improve ourselves by attentively considering the good and bad qualities of every character it contains, and by making them examples or warnings to us, as the case may

be. Moses' hastiness of temper, though it led him to commit a crime, sprung from a good feeling. He felt for the oppression and misery of his countrymen, and was anxious to be of assistance to them; and in this state of mind, seeing an Egyptian striking one of his brethren, he immediately avenged the Hebrew, without reflecting on the permanent advantage or disadvantage his conduct was likely to be of to his people and himself. Perhaps God saw, that in spite of his present impetuosity, the love he had for his countrymen would, under the Divine influence, make him a fit leader for the Israelites, Nothing could have better prepared him for this end, than the solitary life he led in Midian as a shepherd, where his employment was not such as often to divert the chain of his thoughts, and he had full leisure to reflect on the consequences of his conduct, the condition of his people, and the best means of delivering them from the yoke of the Egyptians. Remember, however, that he could not have foreseen that good would come out of the evil he had done, and that when he entered the priest of Midian's family, the chance appeared

much greater, for his remaining an obscure shepherd all the rest of his days, than of his being elected to conduct the chosen people of God from the house of bondage. Let us be careful to avoid, I will not say a similar crime, because it is one which we have no temptation to commit, and which we are taught from childhood to look on with horror; but let us be careful to avoid those sins, to which our temper and situation in life particularly expose us; since though "there is joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth," the path of penitence is both narrow and painful, and we shall always find it easier to keep in the road to heaven, than to find it again when we have once gone astray.

ON THE CONDUCT OF THE DISCIPLES IN FORSAKING JESUS.

<< Weak and irresolute is man;

The purpose of to-day
Woven with pains into his plan,
To-morrow rends away.

'Tis here the folly of the wise,
Thro' all his art we view ;

And while his tongue the charge denies
His conscience owns it true."

COWPER.

LYDIA.

How quiet you both appear! I have just escaped from some morning visitors, and am come to sit with you and read. How tiresome it is when people call on a Sunday!

ANNE.

It is not always agreeable or convenient; but some of the few who do call on us on this day, are those who are so much engaged

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