It is blasphemy to deny the historical truth and perfect accuracy of the Biblical account of the miracles wrought by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt. It is very hard work to believe, but we must try, for it is clear that if we go to gaol for denying them, we shall not get out "till we have paid the uttermost farthing" demanded by law.
First, we must believe that "the Lord" kept on sending messages to Pharaoh, commanding him to let the people go, while at the same time "the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart, so that he would not let the children of Israel go" (Ex. x., 20). It is blasphemy to deny that god behaved in this horribly wicked manner, compelling Pharaoh to refuse, and then plaguing him and his people for the refusal; we deserve damnation if we do not agree with Paul, when he writes: "It is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy. For the Scripture saith unto Pharaoh, Even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might show my power in thee, and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth. Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth. Thou will say then unto me, Why doth he yet find fault, for who hath resisted his will? Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it: Why hast thou made me thus?" (Rom. ix., 16-20.) Yes, most certainly it should so say, if it be a living sentient thing, capable of enjoyment and of agony. No god has the right to create sentient beings, to harden them, and then to find fault with them and torture them for being hardened. The challenge, "Why doth he yet find fault?" is a very proper one, and Paul cannot answer it, so he falls back on god's power to do as he chooses; but the exercise of the power would be a crime, and if it be blasphemy to say that such unutterable wickedness is criminal, then I will blaspheme as long as I live, rather than turn flattering courtier to a monarch more cruel than Caligula, a despot more tyrannical than any Eastern potentate known to history.
After the duel about the water between Moses and the Egyptian magicians - in which the magicians certainly shewed the greater power and dexterity-Moses and Aaron covered the land of Egypt with frogs (Ex. viii., 6), and again the magicians proved quite as capable. Exit frogs. Enter lice. This was too much for the magicians; "all the dust of the land became lice" (viii., 17)-note this proof of spontaneous generation-so the material was lacking to the magicians, but as they had done so well in turning the water into blood after it had all become blood already, it is disappointing to find that they broke down at this critical period. Perhaps they were tired.
Exit lice. Enter flies. That was a very horrid plague. Blue-bottles everywhere. They filled the cream-jugs, they covered the joints, they fell into the jam, they stuck in the treacle. Fly-papers went up 100 per cent, and several gentlemen in the profession made fortunes during the rush. "A greater than" these, however, came to the rescue: "the Lord" himself "removed the swarms of flies," and joyful to relate, "there remained not one" (viii., 31). I should like to have spent the remainder of that summer in Egypt. As day after day went on, and not a solitary buzz was heard, how joyfully must the maids and matrons of Egypt have chanted in thankful chorus: "Fly not yet!"
Pharaoh's heart remaining petrified, an attack was made on the flocks and herds. "A very grievous murrain" was sent "upon thy cattle which is in the field, upon the horses, upon the asses, upon the camels, upon the oxen, and upon the sheep" (Ex. ix., 3). And they all died. Between the dead frogs and the dead cattle Egypt must have been.... well, let us say fragrant. While they were all lying there dead, god sent boils on them; the object of this is not clear, and it is a little difficult to understand how the boils flourished on cold corpses; still the Scriptures cannot lie, and thus it is written. With that appropriateness which shews real genius, Moses, at the Lord's command, sprinkled "handfuls of ashes of the furnace," and in "these ashes glowed their former fires," and they caused "a boil."
The next miracle is a very remarkable one. Forgetting that all the beasts were dead and boiled, the Lord said: "Send therefore now and gather thy cattle and all that thou hast in the field; for upon every man and beast which shall be found in the field and shall not be brought home, the hail shall come down upon them and they shall die" (ix., 19). Some made their dead "cattle flee into the houses," thus showing a skill and a miracle-working power which must have made Moses very jealous; others left theirs in the field, probably thinking that the boil-covered carcases were not worth the trouble of carriage. Down came the hail, and smote "all that was in the field, both man and beast" (ix., 25). Here indeed was an exemplification, so far as the cattle were concerned, of the second death.
Next came the locusts, to "eat the residue of that which is escaped, which remaineth unto you from the hail" (x., 5). As the hail "smote every herb of the field and brake every tree of the field" (ix., 25), there cannot have been much left for the locusts; however, they made a clean sweep of all the vegetable life in Egypt, "and there remained not any green thing in the trees or in the herbs of the fields" (x., 15). On the whole it was by a merciful dispensation of Providence that the cattle were all dead, and were not left to starve. As all the animals were dead and there were no plants left, the Lord had nearly come to the end of his plagues; so he sent "darkness which may be felt" for three days, while trying to invent some more. None of the Egyptians, we are told, rose "from his place for three days;" why nobody struck a light we are not told; now-a-days we often have plagues of darkness in London from the fogs, but we make shift with gas and the electric light until the sunlight returns.
The last miracle in Egypt was a very wonderful one; it was the killing for the third time of some-the first-born- cattle. The first-born of men were also slain; but that was only for the first time, and all men are mortal. This was too much for the Egyptians, and they rose up to drive out the Israelites, the latter picking up, as they went, "jewels of silver, jewels of gold, and raiment" (xii. 35), and so robbing their unlucky hosts of the little property they had left.
But poor Pharaoh was not yet safe: "The Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and he pursued after the children of Israel" (xiv. 8). He yoked into his chariots the twice-slain horses, and mounted his men on others of these re-revivified quadrupeds, and galloped after the flying robbers. God, to deliver his people, divided the sea before them, piling up the waters on each side as a wall. Down along this curious and unique path plunged the men and the horses, the latter probably thinking that one death, more or less, couldn't hurt them. A new difficulty arose. God pulled off their chariot-wheels, and so delayed them; and then suddenly down came the water-walls, and the poor Egyptians were all drowned. Like the flies and the locusts, "there remained not so much as one of them" (xiv. 28). The horses also were drowned, and let us hope they did not come to life again.
Thus endeth the story of the miracles of Egypt, which story is part of the Christian creed as defined by law, and which it is blasphemy to deny.