Tyre, Phœnicia.
My dear sister:
I received your letter, written to me from Bubastis. I grieve to hear that King Mœris is increasing so heavily the burdens of our people, as to drive to the fields, and to the new lake to which he has given his name, all who were servants in houses. Unused to toil under the sun, they will suffer more than others. I read the copy of the edict you inclosed, forbidding the Egyptians to receive, as domestics, any of the Hebrew people, that so all might be driven to become toilers in the field. His motive is evident. He is alarmed at the increase of the Hebrews, and would oppress them, to death by thousands. My heart bleeds for those he has sent to the mines in the Thebaïd. This is a new feature in the Hebrew bondage. But there is a just God on high, O my sister Miriam, the Holy One, whom our fathers worshipped. He will not forget his people forever, but in due time will bring them out of their bondage. Has not Aaron, our learned brother, made known to you the words of tradition that are cherished among our people,—that they are to serve Pharaoh a certain number of years, forty-one of which are yet to come? He sent me the copy thereof, wherein I find it written, as the declaration of Abraham our father, that "his posterity should serve Pharaoh four hundred years." Aaron, who, since I left Egypt, has been giving all his time to collecting the traditions, and laws of our fathers, is confident that ere another generation shall have perished, God will raise up a deliverer for the sons of Jacob, and lead them forth to some new and wonderful land. If such a promise, O my sister, was given by the Almighty, He will redeem it; for He is not a man that He should lie! Let us therefore wait, and hope, and pray to this mighty God of our ancestors, to remember His promise, and descend from Heaven with a stretched-out arm for our deliverance. I rejoice to hear that my dear mother is well, also my father. Commend me to them with reverential affection. Aaron reads to you my letters, and you will have learned from them how I arrived at the knowledge of the true God, in whom, O Miriam, both you and he believed, while I, considering myself an Egyptian, was a worshipper of the false gods of Egypt! Yet, lo! by the goodness of the true God, I have been enabled, at the feet of the sage of Uz, to arrive at such clear conceptions of His glory, and majesty, and government of the universe, as to teach even you. I speak this not boastingly, but with gratitude to Him who has made me the instrument of illumining your mind, and of giving you greater confidence and trust in the God, who is the God of Abraham, and the God of the Prince of Uz.
I have now been five years absent from Egypt, and my heart yearns for my brethren in bondage. I feel that it is not becoming in me to remain here, at ease in the court of Sesostris; for he has now been two years king, since his royal mother's death, of which I wrote to my mother at the time. I pant to make known to the elders of the Hebrews, the clear and true knowledge of the God of our fathers, which has come down to them imperfectly, and mingled with superstitions, even when it is not corrupted by the idolatry of Egypt. I wish to learn the character and condition of my brethren in servitude, whom I formerly viewed from the proud height of an Egyptian prince. How I feel a desire to mingle among them to know them, and be one of them. All my Egyptian pride, dear sister, is long since gone, and I seek daily to cultivate that spirit of meekness, which better becomes one, who is of a race of bondmen. But, my sister, rather would I be a slave, chained at the chariot-wheel of Pharaoh-Mœris, with my present knowledge of the Holy and Almighty One,—compared with which all the wisdom of Egypt is foolishness,—than be that monarch himself with his ignorance of Him, and his worship of Osiris and Apis!
May the God of our fathers, by whose will we are in bonds, in His own time send us deliverance, to whom be glory and majesty, and dominion and power, in heaven and earth, to the end of ages.
Most affectionately, your younger brother,
Moses.
LETTER V.
REMESES TO HIS MOTHER.