QUESTIONS.
1. What sort of place had the Israelites to go over? 2. How did they like it? 3. What did they do? 4. Why ought they not to have cried out? 5. Who had been taking care of them? 6. So how did God punish them? 7. What happened when the serpents bit them? 8. What were they sorry for? 9. So what was Moses to make? 10. Where did he put the brazen serpent? 11. What were they to do if they were bit? 12. What cured them? 13. Who hung upon the cross? 14. What does He cure our souls of?
THIRD READING.
"He humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna, which thou knewest not."—Deut. 8:3.
THIS morning you heard how God gave the children of Israel water to drink in the wilderness. Now you shall hear what He gave them to eat. The ground was all hard stones. There was grass which the cows and sheep could eat, and there were a few trees with long sharp thorns, but no fruit on them, and no corn to make bread; and soon the people were very hungry, and began to cry out that they did not know what would become of them.
But God was not going to forget them. When they rose up in the morning, the fresh dew lay on the grass, and all about in the dew were little white things that tasted like wafers made with honey. This was called manna, and God had sent it from heaven for them to eat.
Every morning on week days there it was, and they had all to come out and pick it up. But they must get up early to gather it, for when the sun was hot it would melt away. And they could not keep it—it grew bad and was not fit to use the next day; but there was always just enough for everybody to have all they wanted. There was only one day in each week that more came down, and that was the day before the Sabbath-day, which they had instead of Sunday. Then each one could get twice as much as could be eaten in one day, and it did not spoil so fast. For on the Sabbath-day God would have them rest, and so no manna was to be found anywhere, so that they might learn to keep the Fourth Commandment—Remember the Sabbath-day to keep it holy.
