And to turn to the brighter side of the subject—if you have to share Jochebed's fears, may you not inherit her hopes also? It is no earthly princess, but the gracious Saviour Himself who has raised your child from his low estate, reversed his doom, adopted him as His own, and placed him as a little Christian in your arms, with the words, "Take this child away, and nurse it for Me, and I will give thee thy wages."
The destiny which may await your babe, is one which is more great, more glorious, than your imagination can conceive. Can the human mind grasp all that is contained in the titles, "Member of Christ, child of God, inheritor of the kingdom of Heaven?" You are tending an immortal being; a future seraph may be cradled in your arms! Those soft lips, pressed so closely to your own, may hereafter utter words that shall influence the destiny of souls through the countless ages of eternity; to that mind, which can scarcely yet hold even the sweet assurance of a parent's love, may be unfolded mysteries into which the angels desire to look. If care and anxiety press on your soul when you think of what your child is—feeble, helpless, born to trouble as the sparks fly upward—there is deep rapture in the thought of what that child may be. Oh! Dedicate him now to his God; ask for him not fame, power, or wealth, not the riches of Egypt, but ask for him grace to follow the Lord fully, to choose "the reproach of Christ;" ask for him the spirit of humility, faith, and love, which was given to Jochebed's favoured son. In view of the glorious destiny to which he is called, as well as of the perils which beset him, make him a little ark of your prayers.
An honoured woman was Jochebed, mother of Moses, Aaron, and Miriam, all peculiarly favoured by God; and thrice blessed is every Christian parent, whether her offspring live for usefulness below, or be early taken to bliss above, who at the last day shall appear with an unbroken family before the Heavenly King! "Thou whose blood hath redeemed me and mine, and whose grace has preserved us—lo! Here am I, and the children whom Thou hast given me!"
[IX.]
Pharaoh's Chariot.
IT is much more than three thousand years since the mighty wall of waters fell crashing and thundering on Pharaoh and his host; since over his chariots and his horsemen swept the huge billows of the sea. We will not, however, look on his chariot as drawn from the watery waste, where it lay perhaps imbedded in coral, with the dank sea-weeds wrapped around it, pierced by the ship-worm, with the finny inhabitants of the deep gliding under the decaying axle, or over the broken wheel. We will survey Pharaoh's chariot in all its pomp of colour and gilding; as it was when the tyrant mounted it to pursue after Israel, a chariot meet for one of the mightiest of monarchs, one of the proudest of men. We will look on it as it was when powerful and fiery horses bore it rapidly onward, under the guidance of the skilful charioteer, and armed multitudes followed on its track.
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!