L. Yes; I wondered that Moses should say that to Pharaoh. How did he know that he would not keep his word?

P. Very easily. I could have told that he would not. It was because when he repented he only obeyed his fears; he had before refused to obey his conscience.

Depend upon it, whenever you see such a repentance, that it is not a true one, and will not last. When men and children truly repent, it is because they obey their conscience, not their fears. When men hearken to their conscience, they love to do right; but when men listen to their fears, they are only afraid to do wrong.

GOD'S CARE FOR HIS CREATURES.

EACH creature, that has life and breath,
To God his being owes;

He guards them all, from birth till death,
And all their wants He knows.

Huge beasts, that in the forest roam,
On Him for food depend;

And those that make the seas their home
His bounteous care attend.

Each fly that spreads its painted wings,-
The meanest worms that crawl,—
Each bird that in the thicket sings,-
He feeds and clothes them all.

His love to man He thus displays,
For none were made in vain :
A blessing we, in different ways,
From every creature gain.

All, all are happy! He contrives
To fill with joy their span;
His tender love has blest their lives,
As well as that of man.

Then, since their lives, however short,

Are form'd by God for joy,

Oh! let us not, in wanton sport,

That happiness destroy.

THE PLAGUES OF EGYPT.

Ion. You told us last Sunday, papa, that Pharaoh had been punished seven times.

P. We shall hear to-day of his being punished again. Moses and Aaron stood before Pharaoh, ready to deliver the eighth message. The guilty king would try to look proudly in their faces; but he could not. He was a king, but he was not so honest as they; he had often broken his word.

Then Aaron spake, "Thus saith the Lord God of the Hebrews, How long wilt thou refuse to humble thyself before me? let my people go, that they may serve me. Else, if thou refuse to let my people go, behold, to-morrow will I bring the locusts into thy coast."

This message had a dreadful sound to the Egyptians. The hail, you may remember, had destroyed the barley, and they knew that if the locusts came, they would eat up all the wheat and rye, and, indeed, everything green which had not been destroyed by the hail. Thus the people would be starved.

W. What are locusts, papa?

P. You have, I dare say, seen a grasshopper; the locust is exactly like the grasshopper, except that it is very much larger. It is generally about two or three inches long.

So troubled were the Egyptians at the thought of their coming, that they ventured to speak to Pharaoh. They tried to persuade him to obey. "Knowest thou not that Egypt is destroyed?" they asked.

Ion. I do not wonder at their being anxious.

P. Nor do I. It is likely that all the Egyptians felt concerned, and the Israelites also. They would be so much excited that they would not go on with their work; both nations would watch the contest between Moses and Pharaoh, and they would wonder how it would end. The Egyptians would become more and more dismayed, and the Israelites would gain more courage. The land of Goshen was the only place of safety; and when they felt, "We owe our safety to God," they would gain confidence in Him, and in their leader, Moses.

When the king saw the fears of his people, he called for Moses again, and asked them, "Who are they that shall go?" Moses replied,

that all were to go-the men, their wives, their little ones, and their cattle. Pharaoh was highly provoked at the answer. He said that Moses at first had only asked for the men to go, and that he was willing to agree to that, but to nothing more. But Moses persisted in his demand, and Pharaoh was then so angry that he drove him from his presence.

The people of Egypt would be sorry to see this. They would say to one another, "It would be far better to get rid of these Israelites, than to be starved"-and they would look forward with dismal thoughts to the morrow.

On the morrow the locusts came. If you look at the map of the world, you may see how it happened.

Very few locusts had ever been seen in that country, because it is bounded on the east by the Red Sea; this sea the locusts must cross, and as locusts cannot cross seas or fly very long without resting, they seldom visited Egypt. But on the same evening that Moses was driven from Pharaoh, God said to him, "Stretch out thine hand over the land of Egypt for the locusts," and immediately there came a strong east wind. All night the wind blew fiercely from Asia, across the Red Sea. Loudly and strongly it blew, and it doubtless caused all men to wonder, for we read that the winds of Egypt blow "six months from the north, and six months from the south."

The morning light came, and with it the locusts. They had crossed the Red Sea! The strong wind had blown them over, and as they reached the coast, those which came first settled down in the nearest place; those which came afterwards were obliged to fly further; and as they came the crowds seemed to increase. Thus we read—“Very grievous were they; before them were no such locusts as they, neither after them shall be such. For they covered the face of the whole earth, so that the land was darkened; and they did eat every herb of the land, and all the fruit of the trees which the hail had left: and there remained not any green thing in the trees, or in the herbs of the field, through all the land of Egypt."

This was as the people had expected; with their crops of wheat and rye eaten up, they saw nothing before them but starvation. The king, too, was frightened, as usual. He confessed his fault, as he had done before, saying, "Forgive, I pray thee, my sin, only this once, and intreat the Lord your God, that he may take away from me this death only."