But God had not forgotten His great promise to Abraham that his children should live in the land of Canaan; and when the time that God had mentioned to Abraham drew near, He was preparing a great deliverance for them; to take them right out of Egypt back to their own land! You will now hear how God brought this to pass. His ways are most wonderful! The King of Egypt, called Pharaoh, was very surprised to find that in spite of all his unkindness, the children of Israel grew to be so many, that he feared they would fill up all the land of Egypt. So he sent out a cruel order that all the little baby boys should be killed as soon as they were born. Some of the Jews who loved and feared God would not obey the wicked order, and among these was a mother called Jochebed who had a very beautiful baby called Moses. The very best way when we want to do anything very difficult is to tell God about it, and ask Him to help us. So this Jewish mother did; and then she made a strong basket of bulrushes, over which she put pitch to keep out the water, and then laid her sweet baby in it, and laid the cradle in the bulrushes on the river bank, sending his little sister Miriam to watch him as well as she could. Think of the greedy crocodiles who might have come up from the river and have eaten little Moses up! [Illustration: THE FINDING OF MOSES.] But God's loving care was over him and he did not get any harm. By and by the daughter of Pharaoh came down to the river to bathe; and God sent her to the very spot where little Moses lay crying in his basket. [Illustration: THE DAUGHTER OF PHARAOH CAME DOWN TO THE RIVER TO BATHE.] The Princess felt very sorry for the little baby, and guessed it must belong to one of the poor Jews who were ordered to throw their boys into the river. So she told her maids to take up the babe; and just as they did so, little Miriam, who was not more than twelve years old, came up to see what would happen to her little brother. When she saw the Princess was so kind, she offered, like a wise little girl, to fetch a nurse for him; and when the princess gave her permission, Miriam ran to Moses, own dear mother; and she was allowed to take care of him, to bring him up for the princess, who loved him so much that she called him her son. We are told in the Epistle to the Hebrews, that it was "by faith" that Moses' parents saved his life! Because they trusted God to do for them what they could not do for themselves! XLI. The Rod of God Perhaps when you have thought of little Moses in the bulrushes, you have wondered what became of him when he grew up to be a man? Well, at first when he was in Pharaoh's Palace, he was given hard lessons to learn, like any of us. But he seems to have been very clever and very industrious, for soon he became learned in all the arts of the Egyptians, and was mighty in word and in deed.