Jew, are as far from us as from them--that when free, we too are noble, honorable, and spiritual to an extent that, if we adhere to our blessed law, only Israelites can be --and prejudice must pass away, and Israel be acknowledged the witnesses of the Lord.

It is this noble, this spiritual feeling of independence we would beseech every Hebrew mother to instil into her boy; and which we now humbly, yet earnestly, prayerfully, and heartfully conjure every Hebrew father to aid and to confirm. Let not the ears of the infant Israelite be polluted by reference to earthly gain and worldly rivalship, but let him hear often from his father's lips those sweet lessons of heaven and God-of selfdenial and its blessed reward-of those purer pleasures of intellect and heart, which, if not infused into his infancy, can never find entrance and dominion in after years. Ably and delightfully would such paternal lessons assist the mother's task, and lighten the blessed yet exquisitely anxious labour of teaching their offspring their proper station in the sight of God and man, and so ennoble, purify, and spiritualise heart and mind, as to render them fit descendants of the princes, priests, and prophets from whom they spring.

And let not such parents fear for their sons' earthly welfare. Such training will not unfit them for the necessary cares and toils of life.

It will but render

them less engrossing, less worldly, and annihilate every feeling which they would blush to acknowledge before God and man. It will take from life its dross, its stagnating care, teaching them that their duty indeed is to work and persevere, alike for their families and themselves, but that in the hand of the Lord is their portion,

and that He will order their daily lot as will be most fitted for their eternal welfare. It will remove every temptation to turn aside, for lucre or ambition, from their fathers' faith. It will open heart and hand towards the suffering and the poor, and, removing every selfish feeling and grovelling thought, prepare them for that day when the Lord again shall call them His, and bid them resume that kingly station in the sight of the nations, of which for a "little moment" only they are deprived.

The suffering Israelites, under the terrible oppression of Pharaoh, imagined not the rank to which they would be called by the word of the Lord. While groaning under their heavy burdens, toiling day and night, with neither relief nor relaxation, could they have imagined that, in their persecuted offspring, princes should arise ;that, in a brief interval, Chiefs of their tribes, Heads of families, Captains of well-appointed squadrons-Priests, sacred in the sight of all the people, and acknowledged by the Eternal-Workers in every elegant art, which was needed in the building and embellishment of the Tabernacle-Warriors, dauntless in bravery, and skilful in the art of war-Judges, gifted to decide causes, award sentences, and keep civil peace and order amid a disorderly multitude-Princes, of such wealth and consequence as to make the splendid offerings enumerated in the seventh chapter of Numbers-could they have imagined that such would be? Yet such was, and such WILL BE. We know not when, we know not how-we only know that the word of God has said it, and that He is a God of truth. Shall we not remember this in the education of our sons, and infuse such feelings as

will render them indeed but sojourners in the land of the captivity, watchers, as it were, on the frontiers, prepared to arise, and fall into their appointed stations, the moment the Lord shall call? Let us welcome in them the inclination for the liberal professions, all that will enlarge the mind and ennoble the heart, and bid them prove, in the sight of the whole Gentile world, that where the Hebrew is FREE, he is brave, enterprising, self-denying, gifted, wise, magnanimous, as the noblest of the nations around him. Let the Hebrew mother give her boy the solid foundation of his glorious faith, and he may go forth in the Nazarene world unharmed; and in other professions, other lines than that of merchant, in which alone till now the Jew has been known, he will honor the name of Israelite.

And if such be the fruit of nursing her child for God, O will not every Hebrew mother feel, that she has indeed received "her wages"?

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CHAPTER II.

THE EXODUS.--LAWS FOR THE MOTHERS OF ISRAEL.

We

We have seen quoted in a Jewish periodical, that “it was for the sake of the righteous women the Lord delivered our ancestors from Egypt." Scriptural authority for this assertion we certainly cannot find, as it is expressly said, "the Lord remembered the promises which He had made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob." only quote it as a proof that the ancient fathers, from whom we believe it taken, could not have had the low idea of women with which they are charged, to have put such an opinion forth, even in suggestion; but must have imagined the righteousness of women of no little importance towards the well-doing of the state. That so, in fact, it is, we have direct scriptural authority to believe; as not only a review of the law will make manifest, but the consequences of the sins of the women in a more distant period. Were not woman an equally responsible agent in the sight of God--were He not in His infinite mercy tenderly careful of her innocence, her honor, her well-doing, her protection by man-no laws for her in particular need have been issued, nor such especial care taken to cleanse her from impurity and guilt, to free her from false charges and an unjust husband, to permit and sanctify her singular vow, and give her every incentive for a chaste, virtuous, and modest life. This need not have been would not have been-if the Eternal had not, in His compassionating love, regarded His frailer, weaker children with

even more tenderness than He looked on man, and resolved on fixing her station and her privileges, and so bringing her forward as an object at once of tenderness and respect of cherishing, as a wife and daughterof the deepest veneration as a mother-the especial object of national as well as individual love and protection, as widowed and fatherless-and of the kindest, most fatherly care and gentleness, as the maid-servant. Nay, even the female captive was marked out for fostering and healing kindness, and allowed time for mourning, instead of, as in the case of other nations, aye, even those in later days who called themselves followers of Jesus, being hurried to the bed of the brutal conqueror, who was often still reeking with the blood of her relations. How then can it be said, that in every other religion save that of the Nazarene, woman's station is degraded, even as the heathen and the slave?

With a mighty arm the Lord had brought forth Israel from the land of bondage, enriched by the spoil, which they did not borrow from the Egyptians, as the usual translation renders it, but had demanded, as their right from weary years of unpaid labour, and which, terrified at the awful plagues which had befallen them, were granted them at once. "The Lord gave the people favour in the sight of the Egyptians," are words twice repeated, thus doing away at once all idea of the Eternal having favoured fraud, even against His enemies and the enemies of His people. They demanded the long arrears of payment, and they were given, in jewels of silver, and jewels of gold; and so, not by deceit, but in justice, they, to use the Bible language, "spoiled the Egyptians."