Thus, at length, the word of the Most High, which He spake to the patriarch Abraham at least 400 years before, was fulfilled. The seed of the Patriarch had grown into a great nation; they had been strangers in a land that was not theirs; they had suffered cruel affliction and degradation; but the oppressing nation had been judged, and _with much substance_ the oppressed had come forth. The jewels of silver and gold and the festal apparel, which their late tyrants had forced upon them, well became this their national birthday. Once slaves, they were now free; once a degraded tribe, they were now an independent people. They had left behind them Egypt with its grinding tyranny, and its memories of years of suffering. They had been _baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea_ (1 Cor. x. 2), their faces were set towards a Promised Land, their hopes fastened on a glorious Future. CHAPTER IV. _THE JOURNEY FROM THE RED SEA TO REPHIDIM._ EXOD. XV.–XIX. B.C. 1491. AND now the ransomed people commenced their journey. Skirting the eastern shore of the Red Sea, they “entered” the wilderness of Shur (or Etham, Num. xxxiii. 8), on the western base of the high table-land which forms the northern portion of the peninsula of Sinai[68]. A three days’ march brought them to a well, probably _Ain Howâra_, plentifully supplied, indeed, with water, but so bitter that they could not drink of it, whence they called it Marah (“_bitterness_”). This was the first test of their faith in their Invisible Leader, and they proved unequal to it. They murmured against Moses, saying, _What shall we drink?_ In his distress Moses turned to the Lord, who bade him cast a tree into the waters, and they were straightway sweetened. Leaving Marah they reached ELIM (Wâdy _Ghurundel_, or Wâdy _Useit_), where were twelve wells of refreshing water, and three-score and ten palmtrees. Here they probably staid some days, and then passing between vast cliffs, probably at the mouth of the _Wâdy Tayibeh_, again came in sight of the deep blue waters of the Red Sea (Num. xxxiii. 10), where they encamped, and were able for the last time to discern the shadowy line of Egypt, the land of bondage. Leaving the sea-shore on the fifteenth day of the second month, they entered the shadeless desert of Sin (Ex. xvi. 1). By this time the supply of bread they had brought with them from Egypt was consumed, and the people burst forth into loud murmurings against Moses and Aaron. _Would God_, they cried, _we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the fleshpots, and did eat bread to the full_. Thereupon Moses was commissioned to assure them of speedy relief, and that very evening dense flocks of quails, immense numbers of which are found in Arabia Petræa and the adjoining countries, covered the ground around their encampment (Ex. xvi. 13). Moreover