Before Moses was admitted to the schools of Egyptian learning, before he was exposed to the snares and the splendours of a court, before he was called to a throne, he had learned lessons of the deepest wisdom from the lips of his parents. One higher than the royal of earth spoke through the princess, when she said, "Take this child and nurse it for me, and I will give thee wages." And faithfully did the mother fulfil her charge. She strove to imbue the soul of her child with living faith, while upon that infant heart she impressed the maxims of eternal truth—she imparted those lessons of trust and confidence, and inculcated that deep conviction of the power of truth, which led the man, by the grace of God, in the prime and flush of life, to refuse to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season.
Had that mother been unfaithful to her high trust, had she infused into that infant heart lessons of ambition and worldliness, he had perhaps failed in the hour of trial, and another had led the tribes of Israel to the chosen land. A little band guarded Moses; the princess of Egypt, the mother of Moses, and his sister Miriam. Each one exerted her peculiar influence upon his character, while his future destiny attested the varied power of these influences and their relative value.
As the saviour of the young Hebrew, as his protectress and adopted mother, the daughter of Pharaoh had a large claim upon him, and to her he was indebted for many of those high attainments which fitted him for his office. The slight incidental notices of the daughter of Pharaoh give us a delightful impression of her character.
There is something higher and nobler than a princess. She was a true woman, filled with all the quiet sympathies and kind affections of her sex, and possessing an energy and a persevering constancy which led her to fulfil her generous purposes, and made her impulses bear the fruits of benevolent action.
Such women show what women should be, and such women in all ages make the influence of their characters to be felt. To her fostering care Moses owed life and advancement, education, honour, the standing of a prince, the polish and the refinement of the court. She proved her appreciation of knowledge, and we may well infer her own cultivated intelligence from the care with which she provided for the instruction of her charge. She showed that she could feel and that she cherished all the sympathies of domestic love, by providing for their indulgence, by allowing their continuance, and yielding to their claims, even though she was a princess of Egypt, the daughter of the haughty Pharaoh, and her adopted child belonged to a race studiously oppressed, degraded, and exposed to all contumely, and while, doubtless, she was no stranger to the prejudices which led her countrymen to look upon the sons of Israel as an outcast and despicable race. Still the bonds of national affection, of kindred and brotherhood, were all respected. The whole narrative shows that Moses was never alienated from his family, never taught to forget that he was a Hebrew. His patroness felt that there were holy ties never to be disregarded nor trampled upon.
And while the princess of Egypt surrounded her infant charge with right influences, while she provided wisely for his intellectual culture, she likewise brought the influence of her own personal character to bear upon him. The influence of a pure woman, who unites refinement to intelligence, and adds to them the polish of the court without its corruption, would be as powerful as it would be salutary, and when to the higher qualities, mental and moral, the polished refinement and graceful attention to all the proprieties of life are imparted, a high finish is given to the character. Nor was that acquired grace and courtly manner a thing of frivolous import. It exerted an important influence upon the future destiny of the individual. The successful leaders of great multitudes have often owed almost as much to that high bearing and dignified demeanour which should be the distinct badge of those who are numbered with the great, as to their skill and discernment; and while treated in the court of Pharaoh as a scion of royalty, the young Hebrew acquired that air of conscious authority to which inferior minds always defer. He gained there that knowledge of courtly splendour and gayety which forced in him the conviction of their perfect insufficiency for the high demands of the spiritual nature, and that knowledge of the heart of man and its depraved qualities most needful to one who was at once to lead and control a multitude, and who was to stand before kings as the envoy of Jehovah.
The Israelites never seem to have entered the Egyptian armies. It would have been contrary to the policy of the kings either to have encouraged a martial spirit or to have placed arms in the hands of this multitude; yet as one of the family of Pharaoh, Moses led the armies of Egypt. And needful it was that the future leader of Israel should be well instructed in all the tactics of war—should understand all the providing for, the ordering, and the encamping of vast hosts. It was perhaps only by arduous military service that he could have developed that capacity indicated by the vast skill with which an army of six hundred thousand men, encumbered with their wives and little ones, could be encamped in regular order, whether marching or resting. Ever desiring peace and acting on the defensive, yet ready to repel aggression, for forty years the nation of Israel were encamped as the hosts of an army. Each tribe with its own banner, marching and countermarching, taking down and putting up their tents, with all the skill and regularity of a disciplined army, and often engaged in actual warfare. He who could thus order and regulate such a host must have possessed the skill and science of the general. While the habits of long command, added to the consciousness of authority and Divine reliance, enabled him to prevent or control turbulent outbreaks.
While the legislator of Israel owed so much to the fostering care of the daughter of Pharaoh in preparing him for his high destination, we cannot but feel a deep interest in her who so unconsciously contributed toward an influence and prepared an instrumentality quite adverse to the apparent interests of her people. We cannot but hope that, while she thus hastened the accomplishment of promise and prediction, she was herself led to the knowledge and worship of Israel's God.
Might not one who thus adopted the brother, encircle in her affection the sister whose affectionate entreaty gave the babe a mother for its nurse? The fraternal affection which marks the family seems to indicate more than occasional intercourse. Between Miriam and her brother there was that sympathy which always results from an intimate association. The princess of Egypt may have imparted to Miriam many of the accomplishments of the courtly circle, for we find that she was skilled in music, that she led the dance; while, in return, Miriam may have imparted that higher knowledge and those deep truths of which her people were the appointed conservators, and the daughter of Pharaoh may have tasted the blessings which were held in trust for future ages.
Miriam was the only sister of Moses, and she first appears as watching the fate of that child in whose destiny all the ages and all the nations of earth were to have an interest. The tender care which watched the cradle on the Nile continued through life, and from the day Moses was saved, down to the day when Miriam died in the wilderness, she seems ever associated with her brothers in all their efforts and designs. The influence of the sister is peculiarly her own. It is felt in early life in its softening, refining, and purifying tendency—in diverting opening manhood from rude sports or gross pursuits to the enjoyments of a more elevated and pure nature, and shedding a charm around the pleasures of home; while, if no other ties intervene, the bonds of affection grow stronger with each successive year.