[Sidenote: Years before Christ 1571.] Sixty-four years had elapsed from the death of Joseph, when the "_new_ king over Egypt," influenced by an ill-founded jealousy of the Israelites, adopted one of those measures to which weak and wicked princes are sometimes excited by an unhappy combination of bad counsel, and mean-spirited perverseness. Instead of regarding this people, who had been prodigiously multiplied by a series of unexampled prosperities, as the most valuable portion of his subjects, and the best security to his crown; this Pharaoh was jealous of their strength, and determined to weaken it by a course of systematic oppression. This he called "dealing _wisely_ with them;" whereas it would have been infinitely wiser, even upon principles of mere political prudence, to say nothing of justice and humanity, to have conciliated by kind treatment, rather than have exasperated by barbarous exactions, six hundred thousand of his subjects! His plan was, in the first place, to set over them taskmasters, to afflict them with extraordinary burdens; but, to his extreme mortification, "the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and grew." Still his obstinacy did not permit the least relaxation of that rigorous discipline he had imposed: although, while he imbittered their lives, he failed of promoting his own interest. Disappointment exasperated his malignity; and he issued orders to certain Hebrew women, of whom Shiphrah and Puah are named as the principal in their office, to destroy every male child that should be born. They ventured, however, to disobey this mandate; the fear of God not allowing them to commit murder, though enjoined to do so by royal authority. The king called them to an account for their disobedience, and "charged all his people, saying, Every son that is born ye shall cast into the river, and every daughter ye shall save alive." When we have such an awful display of the excess of human passions, that fearful band of banditti that is for ever disturbing the peace of society, it should inspire us with holy solicitude to suppress the first emotions of sin in our hearts, and to aspire after the dignity and the bliss of dominion over ourselves. Alas! how many who have been victorious over foreign powers, could never achieve this nobler conquest of internal depravity! The command of Pharaoh to his too tractable slaves, introduces us to the story of the birth and preservation of Moses. His mother--unenviable name in this sad season of calamity!--his weeping mother, by a thousand schemes, such as maternal fondness and ingenuity would naturally devise to save the little darling of her heart, contrived to conceal this "goodly child" for the space of three months; but finding it impossible to hide him any longer, she took him--and with what feelings, say, ye tender-hearted mothers!--to the river Nile.