Deut. i. 11. The Lord God of your fathers make you a thou- sand times so many more as ye are, and bless you, as he hath promised you !
TO decline any measure of exertion in behalf of persons committed to our care, may appear to argue a want of love to them. But there are certain bounds beyond which a man cannot go : his physical strength will fail ; and his attempts to persevere beyond his capacity of performance will defeat the very object he has in view, and prove an injury to the persons whose welfare he is labouring to consult. The care of all the people of Israel, two millions in number, had devolved on Moses : and he endeavoured, as their chief magistrate, to dispense justice to them all, by hearing and determining every subject of litigation that was brought before him. This occupied him from morning to night, and was obviously impairing his bodily health : the labour was too great for him ; and he would soon have sunk under it. By the ad- vice of Jethro, his father-in-law, he appointed persons, chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, to hear all the causes which were of inferior moment, and reserved to himself the determination of those only which were of a more difficult nature, and which required a more especial reference to God himself. He was now arrived at the borders of Jordan, and at the last month of his life : and was directed of God to record, and leave behind him in writing, a brief memorial of the principal events which had taken place, and the principal laws which had been promulgated, during their sojourning in the wilderness: that so the