health is given to every one who has got into this corrupt state of soul. The Word of God being used to purify the soul again and again, until it is healed as Naaman was. On the seventh time of his ascending out of Jordan, it is said, "his flesh became as the flesh of a little child." The servant of Elisha on the other hand, prostituted the position which he had near his master, and went afterwards to make money out of the prophet's powers, and to get Naaman to give him what his master had rejected. The result was, that, having thus prostituted and profaned his position, the prophet said to Gehazi, "Let the leprosy of Naaman cleave to thee for ever." Leprosy, then, in the Sacred Scriptures, is representative of the profanation of religion to selfish purposes. And when the hand of Moses was first of all put into his bosom, and then drawn out, and was seen to be leprous, it was to teach us, that, before regeneration, even our amiabilities and courtesies have selfishness in them. It is not from charity, but from the love of self, that we do things genial, generous, and noble. There is leprosy right through us, and out of the corrupt heart there comes hypocrisies which corrupt everything else.

The Almighty next said, "Put thine hand into thy bosom again," for now is represented the healing which comes from regeneration. Let religion, let faith, let obedience be thine, and thy leprosy will disappear. Put thy hand into thy bosom again. Be born again. Thou wilt find there is balm in Gilead; there is a physician there.

Lastly, it is said, "If they will not believe also these two signs." "Thou shalt take of the water of the river, and pour it upon the dry land, and the water which thou takest out of the river shall become blood." This water of the Nile has a very interesting signification. In the Word of God, water corresponds to truth, because truth is heavenly water, and does for the soul, that which earthly water does for the body, and for the earthly life. The river of Egypt is peculiar; the waters of other lands generally descend right from the sky, and refresh the countries upon which they fall. There are rain, dew, and snow, and all the various ways in which water is given to the earth. But in Egypt, although the whole of the country depends upon its river, it so seldom rains, that ordinarily speaking, it is said to be the land in which there is no rain. All its water is derived from rains which fall on the mountains and plains at an immense distance away, in the interior of Ethiopia and other parts of Africa.

The river of Egypt in the spiritual sense, is representative not of the direct teaching of the Most High, not of spiritual wisdom direct from heaven, but of that indirect teaching which we call

scientific truth, which is really obtained from the Lord, but remotely. Everything scientific comes from heaven, as well as every truth of the most spiritual and celestial character. It comes indirectly, through great minds which have been opened to the Lord, and have grasped spiritual things, and embodied them in beauty and in use.

There is a great river of science and art, around which the mental Egypt is formed. Art, literature, and science, make all the glories which compose THE WORLD. They are but the inner world brought out, the shell surrounding that which really lives. The last miracle of taking of the water of the river of Egypt, and pouring it upon the ground, and its becoming blood, was intended to teach, that, without regeneration, all our science is violated and darkened.

What is all science that is not leavened by religion? Ask those, who, possessing some of the mightiest of human endowments, have possessed unequalled scientific knowledge, have yet had such aching of heart, such pain from inner vanity, such voracity for vain applause, that life was no life to them, or but a bitter mockery, and even suicide itself is accepted. What is the worth of poetry, when the poet is unblest by religion? Ask Byron, who, in his last days, though still in early manhood, uttered the melancholy cry at the age of thirty-six,

"My days are in the yellow leaf
And all the life of Life is gone,
The worm, the canker and the grief,
Are mine alone."

He had poured the Nile's waters on the ground, and they had become blood. The Egyptians loathe to drink of the water. We must live for heaven, or life is an utter mockery. Science separated from heavenliness is violated, broken, withered, and dead. This is what the divine mercy teaches by the third sign: and when we understand this, can we not then go forth as it were from the presence of God, and say, I will live for heaven, I will dare to be good, I will dare to conquer all those impulses in me, which promote the reign and government of self and the world. "For what is a man profited, if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul." I will not let my staff become a serpent; I will not live so as to have a leprosy entering all I do; I will not turn water into blood; I will obey my God and Saviour, and go and say to the Pharoah of every sin that rules within me :- The Lord says, "let my people go.' I will march out of my Egypt, pass over my Red Sea, and advance onwards and upwards, until I come into that Canaan-like state, of which it is said, "The kingdom of God is within me."

"And, afterward, Moses and Aaron went in and told Pharaoh, Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, Let my people go, that they may hold a feast unto me in the wilderness."-Exodus v. 1.

The scene, the marvellous scene of the divine appearance to Moses, is represented as having taken place in the land of Midian, in the desert near the mount of God. This was a description, when spiritually understood, of that which always takes place in one form or another, when the soul is brought into contact with mighty and redeeming thoughts. But the scene upon which we are now about to enter is equally solemn, though very different.

We have Moses; after his doubts, his hesitations, the objections which he saw, or fancied he saw in his mission have been removed; after the distance between the desert, far off in Midian, and the abode of Pharaoh in Egypt, has been traversed by him; and the difficulty that he felt in not being a good speaker, was removed by the Divine Providence associating his brother with him in the mission; the same Divine Providence directed Aaron to meet him; and while the one brother was coming up from Midian, the other was traversing the desert from Egypt. They met on the mount of God, and they kissed one another; and then Moses told his brother, from whom he had been parted forty years, the wonderful things which had happened. Aaron was delighted at finding that some way for the redemption of his people was being opened by the Almighty Being, whom they both worshipped. And then they returned together to enter upon their eventful work.

First of all, they went to the elders of the children of Israel to deliver their message, and obtain from them their acquiescence. They all adored the God of Heaven: and, after this, Moses and Aaron went into the palace of the Pharaohs'. It is their presence in this palace, the objects which they sought to

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accomplish, and the special truths that come out of the discourse, which occurred between them and the king of Egypt, that we wish to make the subjects of our present remarks. And, in the first place, just think what a solemn and eventful scene it must have been for both brothers. The palace of the Pharaohs' was the very abode of magnificence; even now, the world has seen no grandeur more magnificent, no splendour of architecture surpassing that, which, at the time of this interview, embellished Memphis. Here were these two lowly men, daring to confront the mightiest monarch of the earth at that time, and one whose insolence and whose cruelty had made it no slight task to deliver their hateful demands. But Moses was no coward now. He never more quailed. He was filled with holy courage. The two delivered their simple message, "The Lord God of Israel says, Let my people go, that they may hold a feast unto me in the wilderness." The scene is full of splendour.

The circumstance of these simple-hearted men, taking their lives in their hands as it were, and confronting the most powerful monarch of the earth at that time, has a grandeur about it that requires a little reflection even to master, but, a grandeur that teaches us this, that, if we have the truth, if we feel we are in harmony with the God of heaven, if our hearts have made acquaintance with the law of righteousness of the King of kings, neither powers nor potentates of the earth should hinder our statement of the truth, or our adherence to its dictates. It is one of the mistakes least sanctioned in the Bible, yet too often made, and that the mere votaries of wealth and dignity are constantly making; that our principles and habits should be determined by numbers, age, rank, or fashion; these imagine we should follow in the wake of power, and obey parliaments, popes, or councils, rather than the dictates of truth to the conscience, rather than the Word of the Almighty. Not so with Moses! Not so with the Prophets! The pomp of the Pharaohs', the splendour of their priesthood, the antiquity of their nation, the magnificence of the monuments amongst which he stood were nothing to Israel's leader. He had heard the voice of God. He trod the path of duty.

The request of the leaders was, that the people should go three days' journey in the wilderness and sacrifice to the Lord their God. The manner in which Moses words it, is interesting; it contains a very beautiful shade of idea, and one which is full of important truth. He said, "That we may go and hold a feast unto the Lord our God;" and this is the true idea of worship. Real religion is not a yoke to shackle us, a something to

destroy our real comfort or joy; religion is to be a feast to us. The Lord our God has commanded us to say "Let my people go that they may hold a feast unto me in the wilderness."

Oh! how strangely have they mistaken the God of heaven and the laws of religion, who have supposed that piety comes to take away the innocent enjoyments of the world, who imagine that it is irreligious to be happy, and suppose that God is extremely pleased with a gloomy visage and demeanour, ever miserable, and mournfully sad; as if the Lord we worship had not placed a grand sun in the centre of the solar system to shed light, life, and beauty over the whole world. Why! if those mischievous professors of religion had had the making of the universe, the sun would have been black and scowling; the flowers would have been sad; the birds would not have sung hymns of joy, but screamed out doleful notes; and all this beautiful world, instead of being what it is, would have been shrouded over with a dark pall, doleful as the world below. Oh no! it is not so. Religion is not a gloomy thing; it comes to take away every cause of gloom. "I come not to take away your joy," the Lord says, "but that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.'

All things teach us, if we will but learn the lesson, that the ways of religion are ways of pleasantness; and all her paths are peace. "Blessed are the people that know the joyful sound, and walk in the light of His countenance," (Ps. LXXXIX. 15.) who is goodness itself, wisdom itself, beauty itself, and happiness itself. The true tone of each member of the human race is to say in the language of the Psalmist, "I will sing unto the Lord as long as I live; I will sing praise to my God while I have my being, my meditation of Him shall be sweet; I will be glad in the Lord.". It is in harmony with this then; that, when the people are spoken of by Moses as called by the Lord to go and worship Him, it was to go to have a feast,-it was to go and be made happier than ever they had been,-to go and leave their sorrows, their oppressed condition, and their miseries behind them, and to enter upon a new course of freedom, light, and love. "Let us go and make a feast unto the Lord our God."

But what were they doing then? They were under the yoke of Pharaoh; and Pharaoh replied insolently to the message, and said, "Who is the Lord, that I should obey His voice and let Israel go? I know not the Lord, neither will I let Israel go."

In considering the spiritual lesson in the divine account before us, as well as in the whole history of the Israelites, we must reject the notion, dreamed two hundred years ago, and which men called philosophy, that the soul is an atom, a monad,