What stern and terrible emotions must have darkened the countenance of Pharaoh as he set his foot on that chariot, which was to bear him on, as he deemed, to his revenge! He was the tyrant from whom the captives were escaping; the lion from whom his prey had been torn; the bereaved father whose bitterness of anguish was turned into thirst for vengeance. To Pharaoh, every forward bound of his horses, every revolution of those massive wheels, seemed to brine him nearer to what he most eagerly desired: "The enemy said, I will pursue, I will overtake, I will divide the spoil; my lust shall be satisfied upon them; I will draw my sword, my hand shall destroy them!" The speed of the royal chariot would appear too slow for the impatience of the monarch within it. And yet to what goal was Pharaoh so eagerly rushing, to what was he pressing on with such fiery haste? Death and a watery grave! In a few hours he was to be a gasping, struggling, dying man in that chariot, or to be swept out of it like a whirling straw on a cataract by the power of the mighty waves! As was his chariot to Pharaoh, so is ambition to those whose all-absorbing object is to advance in the course of worldly distinction. There are many, not only in the higher but in the lower ranks of life, whose one great wish and aim might be expressed in the words "to get on in the world." Rapid advancement is their grand object; and they are not careful as to what they crush under their chariot wheels. If conscientious scruples come in their way, they pass over them; regard for the interests of others cannot stay them in their career; success is the goal towards which they eagerly drive, though that success with each individual may take a different shape. With one it may be an empire, with another a thriving business; the soldier's highest mark may be a marshal's baton, while the village girl's dream of distinction is to become one day a lady. With one the chariot of ambition is more richly gilded, more gorgeously emblazoned, than with another, but in some form it is mounted by all who seek worldly advancement in this life as their chief end and goal. Doubtless there is something exhilarating in the rapid motion; the feeling that every turn of the wheel brings the eager aspirant to rank, or power, or wealth, or fame, nearer to what he desires. This feeling is not confined to hardened sinners like Pharaoh. The world does not judge ambition severely, it rather admires the gilded chariot if it bear a man onward to success. But if any one of my readers should be tempted to mount it, let him first look forward calmly and thoughtfully to that point where, to all earthly ambition, it will be said, "hitherto shalt thou come, but no further."