The Pillar of Fire; or, Israel in Bondage

by J. H. Ingraham

LETTER XII.

PRINCE REMESES OF DAMASCUS TO KING SESOSTRIS.

Horeb in the Desert.

My dear Father:

I will now resume the subject which occupied the foregoing portion of my last letter, namely, the departure of the twelve armies of the Hebrews from the land of Egypt.

When the last division had passed the tower, after midnight, Moses and Aaron went forward and travelled all night, along the column of march, addressing the leaders of tribes, divisions, thousands, and hundreds, as they went, giving them words of courage, and commanding them to keep in view the Pillar of Fire.

This Divine Glory, which the whole people of the Hebrews, and even the Egyptian followers, were permitted to behold and gaze at with wonder, as if it were the moon or sun, moved onward, far in advance of the last division, and seemingly directly over the head of the column. When I reached, with Moses, the van of the mighty slowly-moving host, I perceived that a sort of sarcophagus on wheels was drawn by twelve oxen in front of all; and that over this, the "shekinah," as Aaron termed the presence of God in the cloud of light, was suspended. I had not seen this before, but knew that it must contain the embalmed body of Prince Joseph, which the children of Israel had jealously guarded and concealed from the Pharaohs of the present dynasty, waiting the time of the deliverance; for the venerable Joseph, on his death, had taken an oath from his brethren, the children of Israel, that they would carry up his bones out of Egypt, when God should send the deliverer to bring them forth.

Faithfully were this wonderful people now fulfilling the oath of their fathers to Joseph, after more than two hundred years had passed. Thus their going out of Egypt bore a resemblance to a national funeral. At the side of the sarcophagus Moses and Aaron walked, and thus the solemn march advanced towards the wilderness. All that night they journeyed from the plain of Raamses, and came to the verge of a rocky valley where the way was rough, compared with the fertile and level plains of Egypt. When the sun arose, the pillar of fire faded, as it were, into a columnar cloud which still advanced miraculously and wonderfully before us. When the heat of the day increased, the cloud descended and rested over a place called Succoth. Here Moses ordered the people to encamp, and bake their unleavened bread which they brought with them in their kneading-troughs from Egypt. The next night they travelled up the valley to a place called Etham, a short journey; and thence, after a rest, turning back a little, they traversed the valley between rocks eastward, and encamped at a well of water called Pi-hahiroth, where there were many palm-trees. Here they remained to rest, with the hills on either hand, wondering why God should not have let them pass into the desert at Etham, instead of bringing them into that defile, which seemed to have no outlet but at the shore of the sea. Passing Pi-hahiroth, with its castle and garrison, the latter of which fled at our advance, as also the garrison of the tower of Migdol, which guarded the way to Egypt from the Arabian Sea, and so up the cliffs of the valley-sides, Moses encamped between Migdol and the sea, which spread far away eastward in front, with the towers and fortified city of Baal-zephon visible on the opposite side. The Pillar of Cloud had indicated this place of encampment, by resting above it near the shore.

When I surveyed the place, I marvelled to know how Moses would move forward the next day; for the mountainous ridges of the rocky valley, along which we had come, continued close to the shore of the sea on the right hand, and on the left, and I could perceive, as I walked to the place, no room for a single man, much less an army, to go either south or north between the mountains and the water; for the sea broke with its waves against its perpendicular sides. I concluded, therefore, that on the morrow the whole host would have to retrace its steps, and enter the desert by the way of Etham, where it had before encamped, and so make a sweep around the head of the sea to the northward and eastward. But I did not express to any one my thoughts. The calm majesty and repose of Moses awed me. Upon his expansive brow was stamped confidence in his God, who, if need were, could make a road across the sea for His people, for whose deliverance He had done such wonders. I reflected, too, that the leader was God himself, and that He had gone before, and led them to the place where they were. I therefore waited the will of God, to see what in His wisdom He would do.

How little did I anticipate the end! How far was I from understanding that God had led His people into this defile, which had no outlet but that by which they entered, in order to display His glory, and present to the world the final exhibition of His power, and his judgments upon Pharaoh and the Egyptians!

The divinely inspired Moses seemed to understand my thoughts, when I returned to the camp.

"My son," he said, "this is done to try Pharaoh; for, when he heareth that we are in the valley of Pi-hahiroth, before Migdol, he will say, 'They are entangled in the land—the wilderness hath shut them in.' 'Then,' saith the Lord to me, 'Pharaoh will repent that he let you and my people go, and he will follow after you, and when he shall come after you, I will be honored upon Pharaoh and upon all his host; that the Egyptians may know that I am the Lord.' God will yet avenge Himself upon this wicked king, and reward him for all his wickedness that he hath done against Him and His people Israel! Wait, and thou shalt see the power of God, indeed!"

With what expectation, and with what confidence in God I waited the result, my dear father, you may conceive. How wonderful is this God, and His ways how past finding out! "It was just four hundred and thirty years from the day Israel left Egypt," said Aaron to me, "to the day their father Abram left Chaldea for Canaan; and that, their books say, is the exact time prophesied for their deliverance. Their actual residence in Egypt from the Syrian Prince Jacob's coming to settle in Goshen, to the day they left, was two hundred and fifteen years. The existence of their bondage began at the death of Joseph, who died sixty-five years, not seventy, as you supposed, before the birth of Moses. This servant of God is now eighty years old; therefore, the number of years that they were in servitude is one hundred and forty-five, or equal to five generations. Thus, were the descendants of Abraham, and Abraham himself, wanderers without any country of their own for four hundred and thirty years, according to the word of the Lord to Abraham; not all this time in bondage, indeed, but under kings of another language. Now, at length behold them returning a mighty nation, to claim from the Canaanites and Philistines the land so long ago promised to their remote ancestor, Abram. God is not forgetful of His promise, as this vast multitude proclaims to the world, though He seems to wait; but His purposes must ripen, and with the Almighty a day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day."

Now behold, my dear father, a new manifestation of His glory and power, and the awful majesty of His judgments, before whom no man can stand and live! The next day, being the seventh, whereon a divine tradition ordains rest, but which in their bondage could not be regarded, Moses and Aaron commanded the whole host to repose. Thus time was given Pharaoh, not only to hear the report,—as he did by some Egyptians who, in dread of the wilderness, went back,—of their being shut in by the craggy mountains, with the sea before them,—but to arm and to pursue and destroy them or compel them to submit again to his yoke.

I have learned from an officer of Pharaoh, who, fearing God, escaped from the palace, and came and informed Moses of the king's purposes, that when the news reached the king, who had been three days bitterly repenting his compliance with the demands of Moses, he sprang from the table at which he sat, and, with a great oath by his gods, cried—

"They are entangled between Pi-hahiroth and the sea! They have played me false, and are not gone by Etham into the desert to sacrifice! Their God has bewildered them in the Valley of Rocks by the sea! Now, by the life of Osiris, I will up and pursue them!" He called all his lords and officers, and gave commands to send couriers to the army already assembled at Bubastis, and expecting to march against the king of Edom, who had long menaced Egypt. He ordered this army to hasten, by forced marches, to the plain before On. He then sent to the city, where he kept his six hundred chosen chariots of war, for them to be harnessed, and meet him the next day before Raamses. Couriers on fleet horses were sent to every garrison, and all the chariots in other cities, and in the three treasure-cities, to the number of four thousand charioteers, each with his armed soldier, gathered on the plain which the Israelites had left four days before. The forty-seven fortresses of the provinces sent forth their garrisons, of three and four hundred men each, to swell the Egyptian hosts.

All this intelligence reached Moses; but he remained immovable in his camp, the Pillar of Fire also standing in the air above the tent of Aaron, in which was the sarcophagus of Prince Joseph. Messenger after messenger, sometimes an Egyptian friendly to the Israelites, sometimes an Israelite who had been detained and did not leave Egypt with his brethren, came to Moses, and as they passed through the camp, gave up their news to the people.

One man said Pharaoh had left his palace, armed in full battle-armor, and at the head of his body-guard of six hundred chariots of gold and ivory, was driving to the plain of Raamses. A second messenger brought tidings, that the king's great army, from the vicinity of Bubastis and Pelusium, had passed On in full march,—seventy thousand foot, ten thousand horsemen, and two thousand chariots of iron! A third came, reporting that four thousand chariots had also assembled from all parts of Lower Egypt, and that every man was rallying to the standard of the king, to pursue the Hebrews and destroy them by the edge of the sword. By and by, a fourth came, an escaped Hebrew, who told that the king had marshalled his vast hosts of one hundred thousand foot, twenty thousand horsemen, nine thousand chariots of iron, besides his six hundred chosen chariots of his body-guard, and was in full pursuit of the Israelites by the way of Succoth.

These tidings filled the bosoms of the Hebrews with dismay. They were in no condition to do battle, there being among them all, one only who knew the use of arms, which one was Moses; who, with God on his side, was an army in himself.

The Egyptian army, marched all night, without rest to hoof or sandal. Before the sun was up, their approach was made known by the distant thunder of their chariot-wheels, and the tramp of their horses. At length, when the Pillar of Fire was fading into a white cloud, and the sun rose brilliantly over the Sea of Arabia, the van of the Egyptian army became visible, advancing down the inclosed valley. When the Israelites beheld its warlike front, and heard the clangor of war-trumpets and the deep roll of the drums, they fled with fear. The elders then hastened, and, pale with terror and anger, came before Moses, and cried to him—

"Because there were no graves in Egypt, hast thou taken us away to die here in the wilderness? Wherefore hast thou dealt thus with us to carry us forth out of Egypt? Did we not, at the first, tell thee in Egypt, 'Let us alone, that we may serve the Egyptians?' for it had been better for us to serve the Egyptians, than that we should die in the wilderness."

Then Moses answered their tumult, and said, without displeasure visible in his godlike countenance—

"Fear ye not! Stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord, which he will show you to-day! for the Egyptians whom ye have seen to-day, ye shall see them again no more forever! The Lord shall fight for you, and ye shall hold your peace. Wait to see what He will do."

Then Moses, with a troubled face, entered his tent, and his voice was heard by those near by, calling upon God.

And the Lord answered him from the cloud above the tent—

"Why criest thou unto me? Speak unto the children of Israel that they go forward! But lift thou up thy rod and stretch out thy hand over the sea, and divide it; and the children of Israel shall go on dry ground through the midst of the sea. And behold Pharaoh, (whom I withhold from nothing which he chooseth in his hard heart to do, leaving him to his own devices to reap the fruit of his own ways), he shall follow you with the Egyptians into the sea! and I will get me honor upon Pharaoh, and upon all his host, upon his chariots and upon his horsemen. And the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord!"

Then Moses came forth from the tent, whence the voice of the Lord had been heard by all, both near and afar off. Now, lo! the angel of God in the Pillar of Cloud, as soon as the armies of Israel began to move forward to the sea, removed from the front, and went to the rear of the Hebrew host, and stood behind them in the Pillar of Cloud! Thus, it stood between the camp of the Israelites and the camp of the Egyptians, so that when night came, the Israelites, lying encamped on the shore, had the full splendor of its light; while the Egyptians, to whom it presented a wall of impenetrable darkness, also encamped, fearing to go forward in the unnatural night which enveloped them. So the two hosts remained all night, neither moving—the Pillar of Fire and the Pillar of Cloud between them, creating day on one side of it, and tenfold night on the other.

Now, at the going down of the sun, on that day when the Egyptians encamped because of the cloud, Moses had stretched forth his hand over the sea by God's command, and lo! there arose a mighty wind upon the sea, rising from the south and east; and all that night we heard the sea and waves roaring, and the hearts of Israel sunk within them for fear. The Pillar of Fire cast upon the sea a radiance like moonlight, so that we could perceive that it was in a great commotion, and that God was doing some great wonder in the deep. It is said that the noise of the waves reached the ears of Pharaoh, and that he at first believed it was the sound of the tramping of the whole host of the Israelites, advancing with their God to give him battle in the darkness. He called his men to arms, and tried to show front of war; but the shadow of the cloud between him and the Hebrews, rendered it impossible for any man to move from one place to another, or to see his fellow.

At length morning came to us, but not to the Egyptians, whose night still continued. But what a spectacle of sublimity and power we beheld! Before us, an avenue, broad enough for two hundred men to march abreast, had been cut by the rod of God through the deep sea, the water of which stood as a wall on the one side and on the other, glittering like ice on the sides of the rocks of Libanus, when capped with his snows. At this sight, the Hebrew hosts raised a shout of joy to God, for they could see that the sacred avenue reached as far as the eye could extend across the sea; but so great was the distance, that its sides converged to a point far out from the shore, and seemed but a hair line. Then Moses, lifting up his voice, commanded the children of Israel to form into companies and columns of one hundred and eighty men abreast, and enter the sea by the way God had opened for them. First went Aaron and the twelve elders, being one of each tribe, who guarded the body of Prince Joseph. Then followed the sarcophagus, drawn by twelve oxen, one also furnished by each tribe. Then came a hundred Levites, carrying all the sacred things which the Hebrews had preserved in their generations. Now came Moses, leading the van of the people in column. I also walked near him. As we descended the shore and entered the crystalline road, I marvelled, yet had no fear, to see the walls of water, as if congealed to ice, rise thirty cubits above our heads, firm as if hewn from marble, with sharp edges at the top catching and reflecting the sunlight. The bed of the sea was hard and dry sand, smooth as the paved avenue from Memphis to the pyramids. All day the Israelites marched in, and when night came not half their vast column had left the land. All the while the Pillar of Cloud stood behind, in the defile between the Israelites and the Egyptians. At length, in the first watch of the night, it removed, and came and went before the Israelites, throwing its beams forward along our path in the sea. Its disappearance from the rear removed also the supernatural darkness that enveloped the Egyptians; and when, by the light of the skies, Pharaoh beheld the Israelites in motion, he pursued with all his host, leading with his chariots his eager army. It was just light enough for him to see that his enemy was escaping, but not enough so to see by what way; but, doubtless, he suspected that they were wading around the mountains; for great east winds have, from time to time, swept the sea here outward, so that the water has been shallow enough for persons to make a circuitous ford around the northern cliff, and come in again upon the same shore into the desert above. Pharaoh knew that the wind had been blowing heavily, which he at first mistook for the Israelites in motion, and there is no doubt that he pursued with the idea that the sea had been shoaled by the wind, and that they would come out a mile or two on the north side, and gain the desert by Etham, and so double the head of the sea into the peninsula of Horeb. There can be no other reason assigned for his pursuit into such a road of God's power, unless it was judicial madness,—a hardening of his heart by God, in punishment for his contumacy and opposition to His will. Doubtless this is one way in which God punishes men, by making their peculiar sin the instrument of their destruction.

Pharaoh and his chariots, and horsemen, and host pursued, and came close upon the rear-guard of the Israelites, against whom they pressed with shouts of battle. The sea was faintly lighted, and the king and the Egyptians did not see the walls of water which inclosed them, as they rushed madly and blindly after their prey, urged on by the loud voice of Pharaoh. At length, when they were in the midst of the sea, the Lord, in the Pillar of Cloud, suddenly turned and displayed its side of dazzling light towards the astonished Egyptians! By its sunlike splendor, Pharaoh and his captains perceived their peril, and the nature of the dreadful road in which they were entangled. The walls of water on each side of them, say the Israelites who were in the rear and saw, moved and swelled, and hung above them in stupendous scrolls of living water, upheld only by the word of God! The vivid light of the shekinah blinded their eyes, and bewildered their horses, and troubled the whole host. All the horrors of his situation were presented to the mind of the king. With frantic shouts to his charioteers to turn back, he gave wild orders for his army to retreat, saying—

"Let us flee from the face of Israel! for the Lord their God fighteth for them against us!"

Then followed a scene of the most horrible confusion. The steady gaze upon them of the Angel of the Lord, in the cloud of fire, discomfited them! They turned to fly! Their chariot-wheels sunk in the deep clay which the wagons of the Hebrews had cut up, and came off! The king leaped from his car, and, mounting a horse held by his armor-bearer, attempted to escape, when the Lord said unto Moses, who now stood upon the Arabian side of the sea—

"Stretch out thine hand over the sea, that the waters may come again upon the Egyptians, upon their chariots, and upon their horsemen."

Then Moses stretched forth his hand upon the sea, in the deep defile of which, cleaved by God for his own people, the Egyptian hosts, chariots, horse and foot, were struggling to retrace their course to the Egyptian shore, each man battling with his comrade for preference in advance. The whole scene, for several miles in the midst of the sea, was a spectacle of terror and despair such as no war, no battle, nothing under the skies, ever before presented. The shouts and cries of the Egyptians reached our ears upon the shore with appalling distinctness.

Now Moses stretched forth his hand over the sea, out of the path through which the last of the Israelites were coming forth, when the billows that had been cloven by the rod of God, and made to stand in two walls like adamant, began to swell and heave, and all at once both edges of this sea-wall fell over like two mighty cataracts plunging and meeting, roaring and rushing together each into the chasm wherein the whole host of Pharaoh—his captains, chariots, and horsemen—with their faces towards Egypt, were struggling to escape from the snare that God, in His just vengeance, had laid for them. The returning waters covered the whole host of them before our eyes, and, while we looked, the wild sea rolled its huge waves, laden with death, above the abyss; and then subsiding, the great sea once more flowed calmly over the spot, and Pharaoh, who had been erecting for years a majestic pyramid to receive his embalmed body, was buried by the God whom he defied, beneath the chariots and horses in which he trusted for victory over the sons of God.

This spectacle of God's power and judgment filled all Israel with awe. Those who had murmured against Moses sought his presence, and prostrated themselves before him, acknowledging their fault, and asking him to entreat God to pardon their iniquity, declaring that henceforth they would receive the voice of Moses as the voice of God.

That day the Israelites encamped on the shore; and all night the waves cast upon the coast the dead bodies of Pharaoh's host, and chariots innumerable, with their stores of quivers of arrows, lances, swords, and spears; so that the men of Israel, to the number of one hundred thousand chosen out of each tribe, save that of Aaron were armed from the spoils of the dead soldiers and chariots. Was not this, also, the finger of God, O my father! The impression made upon the minds of the children of Israel, by this wonderful exhibition of the power of God,—of His goodness to them and His vengeance upon Pharaoh,—was such that they believed God, and feared Him, and professed themselves ready henceforth to be obedient to His voice.

When Moses and the children of Israel saw that their enemies were dead, they chanted a sublime hymn of praise and triumph to God upon the shore. Then came Miriam, the sister of Aaron, the aged prophetess of God, bearing a timbrel in her hand, and followed by an innumerable company of maidens and daughters of Israel, each with her timbrel in her hand, and singing songs of joy and triumph, while the virgins danced before the Lord.

Now, my dear father, I have brought my letters nearly to a close. I have recorded the most wonderful events earth ever saw, and displays of Divine power which man has never before witnessed. In contemplating these wonders, you will be impressed with the terrible majesty of God, and overwhelmed by His greatness. You will be struck with His unwavering devotion and care for His people whom He hath chosen, and with His unceasing vengeance upon His enemies, and such as oppress those whom He protects. You will be awed and humbled with a sublime perception of his limitless power in the heavens, on earth, and in the sea; and feel deeply your own insignificance as a mere worm of the dust in His sight; and you will cry with me, as I beheld all these manifestations of His glorious power—

"What is man that thou art mindful of him, O God, who fillest the heavens with the immensity of Thy presence, and in Thine own fulness art all in all?"

From the Sea of Arabia, Moses led the armies of Israel, for three encampments, into the wilderness towards Horeb. Here was no water but that which was bitter; and the people murmuring, Moses pacified them by a miracle. Thence they came to Elim, where were twelve wells of water and seventy palm-trees, and here we encamped for some days. After certain further wanderings, we came to a wilderness, just one month after departing from Egypt, God, in all that time, taking not away the Pillar of Cloud by day nor the Pillar of Fire by night from before the people. Indeed, the whole journey was a miracle, and attended by miracles; for in this wilderness, Sinn, their provisions failed, and the people (who are a perverse and stiff-necked people, forgetful of favors past, and rebellious—as is perhaps natural to those who have been so long in bondage, and find themselves now free), murmured, and again blamed Moses for bringing them from their fare of flesh and bread in Egypt, to die of hunger in the wilderness. God, instead of raining fire upon them, mercifully and graciously rained bread from heaven to feed them, returning their want of faith in Him with loving-kindness and pardon. And not only did God send bread from heaven—which continues to fall every morning—but sent quails upon the camp; so that they covered the whole plain. The taste of this heavenly bread is like coriander-seed in wafers made with honey. It is white, is called by the people manna, and is in quantities sufficient for the whole of them. The camp thence moved forward and came into the vale of Horeb, where I had first beheld Moses standing by his flock. Here there was no water, and the people murmured in their thirst, and again blamed Moses for bringing them out of Egypt into that wilderness, not remembering the mighty deliverance at the Sea of Arabia, nor the manna, nor the quails. At the first obstacle or privation, they would ever cry out against Moses, who, one day, exclaimed to his God, in his perplexity—

"What shall I do to this people? They are almost ready to stone me!"

Then the Lord commanded him to take his rod and strike the rock in Horeb. He did so, and the water gushed forth in a mighty torrent, cool and clear, and ran like a river, winding through all the camp.

We are now encamped before Horeb. From this mountain God has given, amid thunders, and lightnings, and earthquakes, His laws to His people, by which they are to walk in order to please Him. They are ten in number: four relating to their duty to Him, and the remaining six to their duty to one another. It would be impossible, my dear father, for me to describe to you the awful aspect of Horeb, when God came down upon it, hidden from the eye of Israel in a thick cloud, with the thunders, and lightnings, and the voice of the trumpet of God exceeding loud, so that all the camp trembled for dread and fear. Nor could I give you any idea of the aspect of the Mount of God, from which went up a smoke, as the smoke of a furnace, for seven days and nights, and how the voice of the trumpet waxed louder and louder, sounding long and with awful grandeur along the skies, calling Moses to come up into the mount to receive His laws, while the light of the glory of the Lord was like devouring fire. In obedience to the terrible voice, Moses left Israel in the plain and ascended the mount. Aaron and others of the elders accompanied him so near, that they saw the pavement on which the God of Israel stood. It was, under His feet, as a sapphire stone, and as it were the body of heaven in its clearness.[2] He was absent forty days. When twenty days were passed and they saw him not, nor knew what had happened to him, the whole people murmured, became alarmed, believed that they would never see him again, and resolved to return to Egypt if they could find a leader. Aaron refused to go back with them; but at length they compelled him to consent, if in seven days Moses returned not. At the end of this period they called Aaron and shouted:

"Up! Choose us a captain to lead us back to Egypt."

But Aaron answered that he would not hearken to them, and bade them wait for Moses.

Then came a company of a thousand men, all armed, and said:

"Up! make us gods which shall go before us! As for this Moses, we wot not has become of him."

At length Aaron, no longer able to refuse, said—

"What god will ye have to lead you?"

"Apis! the god of Pharaoh and the Egyptians, whom we and our fathers worshipped in Egypt."

Then Aaron received from them the jewels of gold they had taken from the Egyptians, and cast them into a furnace, and made an image of the calf Serapis, and said, in grief, irony, and anger—

"This, and like this, is thy god, O Israel, that brought thee up out of the land of Egypt!"

And erecting an altar before this image, these Israelites, not yet weaned from Egyptian idolatry, burned incense and sacrificed before it, and made a feast to the god, with music and dancing, as the Egyptians do. At length Moses reappeared, sent down from the mount by an indignant God, who beheld this extraordinary return to idolatry. When the holy prophet saw what was done, he sternly rebuked Aaron, who excused himself by pleading that he was compelled to yield, and that he did so to show them the folly of trusting to such an idol, after they had the knowledge of the true God. Moses took the calf they had made, and made Aaron burn it in the fire, and he ground it to powder, and made the idolatrous children of Israel drink of the bitter and nauseous draught. Again he rebuked Aaron, and called for all who were on the Lord's side, when several hundreds of the young men came and stood by him. He commanded them to slay all who had bowed the knee or danced before the calf; and in one hour three thousand men were slain by the sword, in expiation of their sin against God.

Now, my dear father, my last letter must be brought to a close. Moses informs me that the Lord, in punishment of this sin of Israel, will cause them to wander many years in the wilderness ere He bring them to the land promised to their fathers, and will subject them to be harassed by enemies on all sides, some of whom have already attacked them, but were discomfited by the courage of a Hebrew youth, called Joshua, who promises to become a mighty warrior and leader in Israel, and whom Moses loves as an own son.

In view, therefore, of this long abode of the children of Israel in the desert, I shall to-morrow join a caravan which will then pass to the northward, on its way into Syria from Egypt. It will be with profound regret that I shall bid adieu to Moses, to Aaron, to Miriam, and all the friends I have found among this wonderful people. Will not the world watch from afar the progress of this army of God, which has beheld the wonders by which He brought them out of Egypt? Doubtless, ere this you have heard, by ships of Egypt, of some of the mighty miracles which have devastated her cities and plains; and you will hear, ere this letter reaches you, of the destruction of the whole army of Egypt, with their king Pharaoh-Thothmeses, in the Arabian Sea.

Farewell, my dear father; in a few weeks I shall embrace you. We will then talk of the majesty, and power, and glory of the God of Israel, and learn to fear Him; to love, obey, and serve Him,—remembering His judgments upon Pharaoh, and also upon His chosen people Israel when they forgot Him; and, that as He dealt with nations, so will He deal with individuals! Obedience, with unquestioned submission in awe and love to this great and holy God, our august Creator, is the only path of peace and happiness for kings or subjects; and the only security for admission, after death, into His divine heaven above, "whither," saith His holy servant Moses, "all men will ultimately ascend, who faithfully serve Him on earth; while those who, like Pharaoh-Thothmeses, despise Him and His power, will be banished forever from His celestial presence into the shades below, doomed there to endure woes that know no termination, through the cycles of the everlasting ages."

Farewell, my dear father; may the Pillar of Cloud be our guide by day, and the Pillar of Fire by night, in the wilderness of this world! With prayer to God to bring me in safety to you, and to guard you in health until I see your face again,

I am your ever affectionate son,

Remeses, Prince of Damascus.

[2] Exodus, xxiv. 10.

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