habits, and giving them wise laws and kind treatment, they behaved to them with harshness and injustice. They despoiled them of their property-they took them away from the cultivation of their own fields and gardens, and made them labour upon the public works of the Egyptians. They compelled them to build cities for their oppressors, and to assist in the construction of those vast temples and pyramids, and other gigantic buildings, whose ruins are even to this day the wonder of all other nations. And when the suffering people complained of this cruel and unjust treatment, the men in authority under the king only answered by giving them yet harder tasks to perform, and by making their position still more intolerable. They hoped thereby to wear them out and destroy their strength, and bring among them those diseases which should gradually thin their numbers. But when they saw that, notwithstanding all this cruelty and hard usage, the people of Israel, as they were called, continued to increase in numbers, and multiply in every town and village where they were placed, the king took harsher measures still; and treating them like savage beasts, whom it was necessary to extirpate, he ordered that every male child born should be immediately destroyed and thrown into the river, and that only the female children should be allowed to live. This cruel command was everywhere obeyed, unless where the children were hidden from their destroyers, and the cry of mourning and lamentation, mingled with the curses of this despairing people, went up through all the northern portion of the land of Egypt.

Now it so happened that at this time there was, among the daughters of Israel, a woman of the tribe of Levi, who, not long after the promulgation of this cruel edict, had a son born to her. She was a brave, resolute woman-and, indeed, it was enough to be a woman, to do as she did-and she resolved that no Egyptian should have her child, and that if the God of Abraham would help her, she.would save him from the cruel persecutors of her people. She therefore took measures that no one should know that a child had been born within her dwelling, and she hid him carefully in the house for the space of about three months. She was favoured in her scheme by the situation of her cottage, for it was not placed in a village, where everybody would have known everything that went on everywhere-nor yet in one of the vast cities of the kingdom, where she would have been surrounded by Egyptians, and ever under the eye of her people's taskmasters-but her dwelling stood by itself, amid the fields and groves of the open country, and on the bank of one of the water courses of the Nile-that is, one of those great canals that conducted the water of the river into the inland

country, and spread it over the meadows or pastures or rice grounds, or supplied the wants of any other crop that needed this plentiful irrigation. She was therefore removed from observation, and it was only now and then, when an Egyptian overseer came to look over the progress of the crop, or the gathering of the harvest, that she was in much danger of discovery. But by the end of three months, any longer concealment became hazardous, and she hit upon this mode of eluding the vigilance of her enemies.

She made a basket

or cradle of wicker work, and covered it with a plaister of mud, so as to make it in some degree impervious to water, and not likely to catch the eye of a wandering stranger. Into this cradle, very early in the morning, before people were moving much about, she placed her darling child, covered it carefully so as to conceal it from sight, and also to protect it from the rays of the noonday sun, and then hoisting it on her shoulder, and throwing over it a rude mat, so that it might look like any ordinary burden, took her way towards the river side. Arrived there, she walked along for some distance down the stream, till she came to a retired place upon its bank, where a grove. of palm trees shut it out from the view of the inland country, and where, along the margin, and to some distance into the water, there grew a thick bed of bulrushes, flags, and other waterplants, which afforded cover to numbers of the wild fowl that frequented that part of the river. Here she stopped, and looking carefully round to see that no one was watching her, she took her precious burden from her shoulder, and with many a fond kiss and a mother's blessing, bade farewell to it till the evening. Then she placed it carefully among the bulrushes, as far from the bank as she could reach, and bent the great stalks and broad leaves over it, and marked well the spot, that she might find it in the twilight, and then, with a fervent prayer to the God of Abraham that He would have mercy on His people, and would watch over this little darling whom its own mother was compelled to abandon, and leave there alone through the long hours of the summer day, with no eye to watch over its slumbers, and no ear to listen to its cry, and no soft voice to soothe its little fears, ---with this prayer, breathed with many tears, and many an upward look, the poor mother wended her way back again to her solitary dwelling. She would gladly have watched on that river bank, and never wearied with guarding the refuge of her child, but she did not dare to do this. It might have awakened suspicions, and have led to the detection of her plan. She stationed her little daughter, however, at a distance, in such a way as not to attract notice, with directions that if anything should happen-good or bad-affecting the safety of her little charge, she should come home immediately to the cottage, and inform her mother.

And so, there, from the early morning till the shades of evening gathered round him, was this little helpless Israelite left all alone among the bulrushes and the wild fowl. No mother's face looked down upon him. No one took him up to nurse him ;-no kind voice cheered him with a song, when he was hungry and cried;no thing answered him but the scream of the water birds; and the only song he heard was the sighing of the wind, as it swept gently through the waving weeds. He did not know what were the green things that bent over his little bed, and those tall strange looking straight poles with great knobs upon the top of them, that stood up between him and the sky. He was too young to think or to ask about them, but he stared and looked, and then shut his eyes, and then opened them, and then cried for mother, and when mother did not come, he gradually dropped to sleep again. Thus the hours passed, till the red round sun went down behind the Lybian hills, and darkness fell again upon the quiet world;— but then the Hebrew mother would steal forth from her dwelling, and hasten to the river's brink, and to the bed of bulrushes; and listening, to be sure that all was still, and that no chance wanderer was straying near, she would call gently upon her child, and say, "Now my darling, my own boy, here's mother," and then a little cry would be heard from the dark thicket of water plants, and it was the cry dear to the mother's heart; and she would burst through the weeds that covered him, and snatch him up from his watery bed, and taking him out of his little cradle, would lay him on her bosom, and fold her arms round him, and call him by every fond name, and kiss his little cheek, and he would be to her like the treasured son who had been dead and was alive again, who had been lost and was found. And then, while her little daughter Miriam, relieved from her long watching, carried her brother's cradle, she would glide homewards by secret paths with her beloved burden, and feed, and warm, and cherish him with a mother's love;-that love so wonderful-so beautiful-so holy. That night her bosom was his bed-her arm his pillow-her half-sleepless eye, the kind Providence that watched over him. But when the first grey of the morning began to brighten the Eastern sky, again the mother rose, and after feeding her little one, she took him sleeping to his daily refuge, and left him, as before, to the care of the wild fowl and the bulrushes.

Now, it so happened, that not far from this spot, there stood a country palace belonging to Pharaoh, the king of Egypt. Here he would come, or sometimes his family without him, to escape from the heat, noise, and close air of the city, and enjoy the calm,

sweet nights of that Southern clime, and the quiet sounds of the river's solitude. Here, at this very time, the daughter of the king was staying; and one morning, before the heat of the day drove all living things to seek the shade of groves, or caves, or the innermost chambers of human dwellings, this royal lady walked out, attended by her maidens, along the margin of the great river. There, before them, rolled its mighty waters, now sparkling and flashing in the sun-light, and flowing for ever and for ever onwards towards the Northern Sea. The lady pursued her way along the margin of the stream, and dazzled by the glare of the sun's rays and their reflection on the moving waters, her eye turned to the green fields, where the young rice plants were just shewing their fresh young leaves above the water, on to the margin of the river where the thick growing reeds hid the broad expanse of the stream from sight, and waved gently to and fro in the cool morning breeze. While thus wandering onwards, her eye caught sight of something among the weeds that grew along the brink, which did not look as if it too had sprung up from the oozy river's bed, and looking more attentively, it seemed like a little child's boat that floated in a safe harbour among this forest of river weeds. She desired one of her maidens to bring it to her. The maiden did so. The lady opened the little ark, and behold there was a child—a living child therein. It had been asleep, as usual, in its now accustomed home among the reeds--for the voices of the water-fowl had become like the voices of brothers and sisters, and the sighing of the river wind like the song of a watching, protecting spirit ;---so it had been sleeping :but now the movement and the voices awakened it, and when the daughter of the king looked down into its little face, it stretched out its tiny arms, and cried.—And its cry went to the heart of the good lady, for when did a woman listen to the supplicating cry of a forsaken infant, and not open wide the doors of her heart to the little one? She took it in her arms, and warmed it against her bosom, and tried to soothe its cries, and make it forget that it was forsaken. She had heard the cruel edict of her father respecting the children of the Hebrews, and she had no doubt that this poor infant was one of that oppressed people. But henceforth she said it should be her's, and she would be its mother. In the meantime the little watcher, Miriam, had seen the lady with her attendants gathering together near the spot where her brother lay, and she ventured to draw near the group, as they stood there clustered together by the water side, and she saw the little one in the arms of the royal princess, and heard her say that she would be a mother to him. So she knew that no evil was intended him, and she so placed herself near them that the

lady might see her, and perhaps ask her something about the child. The eye of the princess presently fell upon the little girl, and perceiving, probably from her dress, that she too was a child of the people, she asked her if it was so, and finding that she was right in her conjecture, inquired farther if she knew of any woman among her people who would nurse this little child for her, that she had just found here hidden among the bulrushes.-"Oh yes," replied the little Miriam, "I can soon find a nurse for you, lady-only wait here till I come back again.' Away she flew towards home, over rock and stone, and splashing through the rice grounds, as fleet and active as a young antelope, and rushing into the cottage with joy upon her face, and almost too breathless to speak her message, she cried out, "Oh mother, there is a lady by the river where our brother lies, and she has found him, and she says he shall be her child, and she wants you to come and nurse him for her. She sent me; come quickly." Hardly waiting to take in completely this joyful news, her mother hastened to put on her best attire, and hurried with Miriam towards the spot where the princess still waited with her attendant maidens. She made deep obeisance when she drew near the royal presence, for she knew immediately who this lady was, and her heart beat with joyful thanksgiving, as the princess, asking if she would nurse the babe for her, gave her own child into her arms, and he sank at once, as if he had found his home, into his mother's breast. Gladly, gratefully, rapturously did she fold the treasure to her heart, and receiving the directions of the princess to bring him now and then to see her at the palace, she took her way homewards, like the glad husbandman, bearing her sheaves with her. Now she no longer feared that it should be known a man-child was brought up in her Hebrew dwelling, for that child was the son of Pharaoh's daughter, and was henceforth safe from the persecutions of Pharoah's people.

(To be continued.)

JOHN BETHUNE, A FIFESHIRE FORESTER:

A TRUE STORY OF HUMBLE LIFE.

I intend to give some account of a young man who endured much trouble, and who was not, like Mr. Budgett, a fortunate man; but who was possessed of talent and virtue, which all the good must respect. His brother, a labourer like himself, published the simple memoir from which I obtain these records, and expressed his hope that his unadorned story may perhaps be of some use in assisting to form habits of self-denial, industry, perseverance, and