The condition of Israel in Egypt must necessarily have undergone considerable mitigation after the adoption of Moses by Pharaoh's daughter. The silence of the inspired historian implies this fact, which appears still more clearly in the constant murmurings of the entire body of the people while in the wilderness after the Exodus, and the frequent conspiracies among them to displace Moses and return to Egypt under the leadership of the heads of the tribes. Had the cruelties and horrors which marked the commencement and termination of the captivity, been in no way mitigated in the interval of the century for which it lasted, surely the remnant of so unparalleled a persecution would never have conspired against their liberator, to return to the lash of the taskmaster and the house of bondage!

The fact thus strongly implied in the history of Israel, we now find to be rendered probable by the monumental history of Egypt. The government of the Delta seems at this time to have been a viceroyalty, administered from the throne of the kings who had known Joseph, and by a princess who had shown by her adoption of Moses, her sympathy with the sentiments of her predecessors. The immediate author of the captivity had left the Delta to her sole regency. So that, not only did the infanticidal edict fall into utter disuse, (we never hear of it again in the inspired narrative) but the circumstances of the Israelites would be similar to their condition under the Xoite kings, with the exception that they were now strangers in Egypt, and that their forced services were in constant requisition at the quarries, the temples, and other public works which were in progress in every city throughout the land of Egypt.

The date of the death of Ramses is the only particular

concerning it, preserved in the history of Egypt, traditive or monumental. His successor was named Amenemnes, or Amenephthis, in the lists. The monuments declare him to have been his thirteenth son. He wrote his name

as king of Egypt thus.

The monumental history of this monarch is very scanty. His traditive history is confined to a single fact. He reigned in Egypt for five years only. There is no evidence that the death of Ramses exercised any particular influence on the Delta, or that Amenephthis interfered at all with the vice royalty of his sister. At his death, however, many changes took place, which brought the period now under review to its termination in the fortysecond year of the age of Moses, which corresponds with the "full forty years old" of the inspired narrative.

CHAPTER VI.

MOSES IN MIDIAN.

"AND it came to pass in those days when Moses was grown, that he went out unto his brethren and looked on their burdens." Exod. ii. 11.

"And when [Moses] was cast out, Pharaoh's daughter took him up and nourished him for her own son. And Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and was mighty in words and in deeds. And when he was full forty years old it came into his heart to visit his brethren the children of Israel." Acts vii. 21-23.

"By faith Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter; choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season. Esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt, for he had respect unto the recompence of the reward." Heb. xi. 24-26.

This is the whole of the direct inspired history, and of the traditions which have had the subsequent sanction of inspiration regarding the life of Moses, at the epoch at which we have now arrived. These inspired writers throw, at the least, as much light on the cotemporary monumental history of Egypt, as they receive illustration

from it. We do not hesitate to give it as a marvellous coincidence, that the death of Amenephthis took place when Moses was forty-two years old; and that on this event the aged and childless princess, his foster-mother, became Queen of all Egypt. So that the history of Egypt at this epoch-faintly traced upon its cotemporary monuments-renders not only possible, but highly probable, that which the Bible states to have been the fact. When Thouoris became queen of all Egypt, she proposed to inaugurate Moses her foster-son as her successor and co-regent with her husband on her demise. But Moses refused to "be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter," and thereby to be afterwards Pharaoh himself. We now

understand at what a sacrifice of all the noblest and most exalting ties and ambitions of human nature, Moses chose the "reproach of Christ;" and perceive the extent to which his refusal illustrates the power of the faith, which was his motive in doing so.

"And he [Moses] spied an Egyptian smiting an Hebrew, one of his brethren. And he looked this way and that way, and when he saw no man, he slew the Egyptian, and hid him in the sand. And when he went out the second day, behold two men of the Hebrews strove together; and he said to him that did the wrong, Why smitest thou thy fellow? And he said, Who made thee a prince and a judge over us? Intendest thou to kill me as thou killedst the Egyptian? And Moses feared and said, Surely this thing is known. Now when Pharaoh heard this thing, he sought to slay Moses. But Moses fled from the face of Pharaoh." Exodus ii. 11-15.

The events in the history of Egypt which have taken place since we last considered it, are required to harmonize this narrative with that which precedes it. It is,

as we have explained, only by the aid of the facts contained in the inspired narrative that the history of Egypt at this time can be written.

W

Thouoris seems from the first to have married the infant heir to the throne of the Xoites, on the condition that on the father's death she should succeed to the throne of all Egypt. As, however, was too often the case, she, together with a host of her brothers and sisters, were passed by, by her father in his extreme old age; and his thirteenth son Amenephthis, a very young man, was named his successor. On the death of this young king, after a short and monumentally inglorious reign of five years, Thouoris was called to the throne; probably by the states of Egypt, to redress the wrong which her father's appointment had done her. It would seem from the coincidence of dates, that her first act on her accession was prompted by her affection for her foster-son. His refusal to be named her successor, would not fail to be a deep mortification and grief to her, however fully she might enter into and appreciate the purity of his motives. She seems from the monuments to have left to her husband, now Pharaoh Siphtha, the administration of the affairs of Lower Egypt, and to have retired to Thebes; when she not only appointed for her successor the infant son of Amenephthes, but directed that the government should be carried on in his name; constituting Siphtha, her husband, his tutor, and co-regent during life. Queen Thouoris seems thenceforward to have led a religious life at Thebes; interfering but little with affairs of state, and occupying herself in the decoration of the tomb for herself and her husband, which is more tastefully and elaborately furnished than any other in the valley of the kings, and in other works of a devotional