A Nation in
Bondage

OSES was one of the very greatest of the world's leaders. He was the creator of the Hebrew nation. The family which went down into Egypt at the summons of Joseph was swallowed up in the night of bondage.

Moses delivered the people from slavery; but it was a panic-stricken, disorganized mob which fled in terror before the chariots of the Egyptians and witnessed the great deliverance on the shores of the Red Sea. It was a triumphant host which crossed the Jordan under Joshua, but it was ready for conquest, ready later for national consciousness, only because of the training and discipline of Moses in the wilderness. To take a company of slaves and set them on the high-road to freedom with the great consciousness of the presence of God in their hearts that is surely one of the greatest achievements in the history of mankind. Moses was emancipator, statesman, soldier, administrator, lawgiver, spiritual leader, prophet, the savior and father of his people.

HEAD OF RAMESES II
Photograph by courtesy of the British Museum

This bust is made of quartzite stone. Rameses II is supposed by many scholars to be the Pharaoh of the Oppression, though Amenhotep III has now been accepted by many. Nearly one half the great buildings and temples of

Egypt date from his reign.

A Nation in Bondage

Moses the Emancipator

THE STORY OF THE BABY WHO MADE A VOYAGE ON THE NILE

One of the stories which never grows old, which has a perennial charm, is the story of the baby found in a basket, the little ark afloat on the waters of the Nile. It interests us not only because of the romantic charm of the narrative, but because of the workings of Divine Providence, which it reveals. It was the cruel edict of Pharaoh which resulted in the introduction into his very court of one who should, in later days, shake the throne to its foundation and become the emancipator of an enslaved people. Moses became the adopted son of the princess, the favorite of the court, to all intents and purposes an Egyptian, trained in the arts of war and peace, and all to become finally the weapon in the hand of God to defeat the power which made him fit for the purpose.

ND there went a man of the house of Levi, and took to wife a daughter of Levi. And the woman bare a son: and when she saw him

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that he was a goodly child, she hid him three months. And when she could not longer hide him, she took for him an ark of bulrushes, and daubed it with slime and with pitch, and put the child therein; and she laid it in the flags by the river's brink. And his sister stood afar off, to wit what would be done to him.

And the daughter of Pharaoh came down to wash herself at the river; and her maidens walked along by the river's side; and when she saw the ark among the flags, she sent her maid to fetch it. And when she had opened it, she saw the child: and, behold, the

babe wept.

And she had compassion on him, and

said, "This is one of the Hebrews' children.'

Then said his sister to Pharaoh's daughter, "Shall I go and call to thee a nurse of the Hebrew women, that she may nurse the child for thee?"

And Pharaoh's daughter said to her, "Go." And the maid went and called the child's mother.

And Pharaoh's daughter said unto her, "Take this child away, and nurse it for me, and I will give thee thy wages. And the woman took the child, and nursed it.

And the child grew, and she brought him unto Pharaoh's daughter, and he became her son. And she called his name "Moses": and she said, "Because I drew him out of the water."

- Exodus 2:1-10.

THE UNHEROIC BEGINNING OF A GREAT CAREER

When Moses reached the age of manhood, there came a crisis in his life which caused him to throw his lot definitely with his own people. He saw an Egyptian taskmaster maltreat a Hebrew. Under an impulse of hot indignation, he killed the Egyptian and buried his body in the sand. The next day he attempted to interfere with a Hebrew, who was quarreling with his fellow, but was immediately repulsed and threatened with exposure. Finding that his rash act was known to Pharaoh, Moses, in a panic of fear, fled from the country. It was a most unheroic beginning for his career as an emancipator. He was not ready nor were the people ready for the final effort. Many great reforms have had discouraging beginnings of a similar nature.

And it came to pass in those days, when Moses was grown, that he went out unto his brethren, and looked on their burdens: and he spied an Egyptian smiting an Hebrew, one of his brethren. And he looked this way and that way, and when he saw that there was no man, he slew the Egyptian, and hid him in the sand. And when he went out the second day,