Meanwhile the Israelites were commanded to take a lamb without blemish, according to the size of their households, and to keep it until the evening before this terrible plague should fall upon the Egyptians, when they were to kill and eat it in haste, with bitter herbs and unleavened bread, with their loins girded, their shoes on their feet, and each man with his staff in his hand, ready to depart. They were told to dip a bunch of hyssop in its blood, and sprinkle their door-posts with it. This slain lamb was a type of Christ our Passover, sacrificed for us! For, said Moses, "The Lord will pass through to smite the Egyptians, and when he seeth the blood upon the lintel and on the two side-posts, the Lord will pass over the door, and will not suffer the destroyer to come in unto your houses to smite you. And ye shall observe this night for an ordinance to thee and to thy sons for ever." And when asked by their children in time to come, "What mean ye by this service?" they were to say, "It is the sacrifice of the Lord's Passover, who passed over the houses of the children of Israel in Egypt, when he smote the Egyptians, and delivered our houses."

On the tenth day of this month, which from this time was to be unto them the first month of the year, they were to take a spotless lamb, and keep it until the fourteenth day of the same month, when they were to slay it in the evening, and observe the appointed feast, at once a memorial of past deliverance, and a type of future blessing.

All was done as Moses commanded. And lo! whilst the Israelites were engaged in these observances, the great cry arose at midnight for

there was not an Egyptian home in which there was not one dead. "The Lord smote all the

first-born in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh that sat on his throne, unto the first-born of the captive that was in the dungeon."

Then Pharaoh rose up in haste, and called for Moses and Aaron, and told them to be gone! they and all that was theirs. And the Egyptians were urgent for their departure, "for they said, We be all dead men." These poor Hebrew slaves had become objects of terror, and their masters were now ready to propitiate them with gifts, to lend them anything they might ask for, if they would only depart. So each Israelitish man borrowed of his Egyptian neighbour, and each woman of her neighbour, jewels of silver, and jewels of gold, and the Lord gave them great favour in the sight of the Egyptians, "and they spoiled the Egyptians," and so were, "with great substance," and with all their flocks and herds, brought out of the house of bondage, and led forth into the wilderness "six hundred thousand on foot that were men, besides children," under Moses and Aaron, after sojourning in the land of Egypt, for somewhat over two hundred years.

They might have reached the land of Canaan in a few weeks, had it been God's will that they should do so, by journeying northward toward the Mediterranean Sea. But "God led them not that way, though it was near," because it was inhabited by the Philistines; "for God said, Lest peradventure the people repent when they see war, and they return to Egypt." He

chose to lead them round about "through the way of the wilderness of the Red Sea."

Their first march was to Succoth; and we must remember how unlike it was to the march of a regular army, encumbered as they were with their women and children and cattle. The only food they had, was cakes made from the unleavened dough which they had hastily brought out of Egypt, they had not "prepared for themselves any other victual." Of this they ate, and were commanded to do so for seven days, year by year, when they should have arrived at their journey's end, as a memorial of their hasty departure. At Succoth all their firstborn were solemnly dedicated to the service of God, in memory of their deliverance from the destroying angel.

From Succoth they went to Etham, on the edge of the wilderness;" here they encamped at the extreme point of the Red Sea. Thus far they had been led in a pretty direct track to Canaan; but suddenly their course was altered; they were bid to turn southward to Pihahiroth; supposed by some to stand in the entrance of a mountainous pass leading down to the Red Sea. Here they encamped near the shore, with the desert behind them. All this while, "the Lord went before them by day in a pillar of a cloud, to lead them the way; and by night in a pillar of fire, to give them light." Day and night their guide left them not.

By this time the king of Egypt was sorry that he had suffered them to go, so he took "six hundred chosen chariots, and all the chariots of Egypt," and captains and horsemen, and pursued

after them, and came up with them, where they lay along the sea-shore. When the Israelites saw them, " they were sore afraid." There, hemmed in between the army of Egypt and the deep sea, they reproached Moses with having led them out to die, saying, “Because there were no graves in Egypt, hast thou taken us away to die in the wilderness."

Then Moses cried unto the Lord, and he was heard! The angel of God, who until now had gone before the camp, removed and went behind them; and standing between them and their adversaries, was as a cloud and darkness to the Egyptians, but gave light to Israel. So they came not near each other through the night. And again Moses uplifted the wonder-working rod; and "the Lord caused the sea to go back by a strong east wind all that night, and made the sea dry land," through which all the people passed in safety. Pharaoh and his host rushed after them into the dry middle of the sea; again Moses stretched forth his hand, "and the sea returned to his strength when the morning appeared." "And the waters returned and covered the chariots, and the horsemen, and all the host of Pharaoh; there remained not so much as one of them." "The depths covered them-they sank to the bottom as a stone !"

Then sang Moses and the children of Israel a song of thanksgiving unto the Lord who had made them to triumph gloriously. With fresh confidence they followed the cloud by day, and the pillar of fire by night, through the wilderness of Shur, until, exhausted by three days' travel, they came to some water which proved unfit to drink. They murmured, and called the place " Marah,"

which means bitterness; but God told Moses how to make the water good. He also renewed his promises to them, that if they would diligently hearken unto him, and do that which was right, he would bless them, and would put none of those diseases upon them which he had brought upon the Egyptians.

And they came to Elim, where were twelve wells of water, and threescore and ten palm trees; and they encamped there by the waters.

If we follow their course on the map, we shall see, that instead of turning their faces northward toward the land of Canaan, the Israelites are travelling southward along the shores of the Red Sea.

They had now been more than a month on their way. They had a long, dangerous, and weary journey before them; their food was all eaten, and they had the prospect of passing through a dreary desert, where neither meat nor drink would be found for so large a multitude. They began to long for the good things of Egypt, and to murmur at their scanty provision. Moses promised them a supply of food, and quails fell in abundance around the camp in the evening; and, in the morning, "when the dew that lay was gone up, behold, upon the face of the wilderness, there lay a sinall round thing, as small as the hoar frost on the ground." Not knowing what it was, they said "Manna," which has been interpreted to mean "What is this?" And Moses said, "This is the bread which the Lord hath given you to eat." "And they gathered it every morning, every man according to his eating; and when the sun waxed hot it melted." This for forty years was their daily