9. There must have been a great many thousand honest men and women in Egypt; and yet Jehovah is represented as killing the first-born of all Egyptian parents without any distinction of character, or any regard to their innocence; and even the first-born of beasts also. In the name of justice and mercy, what sin had the beasts committed that they had to be punished?
10. We are somewhat puzzled to see how the magicians could turn all the waters of Egypt into blood, when it was already blood, having been converted into blood a short time before by Moses and Jehovah.
11. And it seems strange that Pharaoh should have horses enough for six hundred "chosen chariots" (Exod. xiv. 7) after they had all been killed, three or four times by some of the plagues of Egypt.
12. It is not strange that Aaron's rod should swallow up the others as represented; for he had such a start in the business, and had made such a large serpent, he had probably used up most of the materials, and left nothing but scraps for making others.
13. The Christian who can lay down his Bible after reading such stories as this, and not feel his natural and instinctive love of honesty, justice, and morality weakened, must be wrongly fortified by nature against moral corruption.
CHAPTER XXIX.—CHARACTER OF ABRAHAM, MORAL DEFECTS OF.
A brief history of the father of the Jewish tribe will tend to illustrate and indicate the character of the whole nation, as children usually inherit the qualities of their parents.
1. We will first notice the great promise which Jehovah made to Abraham with respect to the boundless extent of his future dominion. His seed were to be as the dust of the earth or the sands of the sea for multitude (Gen. xiii. 16). And how has this promise been fulfilled? Why, after a faithful compliance with the command to "multiply and replenish the earth" for more than three thousand years, his whole tribe only numbers about six million souls, which is less than one in two hundred of the entire population of the globe. It would take but a few handfuls of dust to furnish the particles to represent the number, instead of all the dust of the earth as promised or predicted.