FIRST READING.
"There was not a house in which there was not one dead."—Exodus 12:30.
THIS is our own gladdest Sunday in all the year, and we read of the Israelites being glad too—glad upon the very Sunday that answered to this, thousands of years ago. On this Sunday, of all those thousands of years, there has been joy and gladness and thanking God. And why? It was because all the troubles in Egypt were over, and God brought the Israelites out safe.
There was one thing they had to do first, though; Moses bade them do it, as God commanded him. Every family was to take a lamb, and it was to be killed and roasted whole in the evening, and some of its blood was to be marked upon the door-post of the house, and then all the family were to stand round the table, all ready dressed for a journey, and eat it as fast as they could, late at night.
And while all the families, fathers and mothers and children, stood up eating the lamb in this strange way, there came a great shout and cry. God had sent His angel to punish the cruel Egyptians; and every house where there was no mark of blood on the door-post had some one dead in it, and that dead person was the eldest or first-born son.
DEATH OF THE FIRSTBORN OF EGYPT.—Ex. 12:29.
There was a great cry, for there was death everywhere, from the son of Pharaoh who sat on his throne down to the child of the poorest slave; and even the first-born cattle died too, because the Egyptians used to worship them; but wherever there was the blood on the door-post the angel passed over, and the eldest son was safe. Then cruel King Pharaoh was sorry and afraid at last, and said that the people who brought such trouble on him should go where they liked.
QUESTIONS.