poverty 11nd helplessness-to the diffusion of intelligence among the masses. Hence, in slave-holding countries, the laws against teaching slaves to read, etc. The slave- holder cannot afford to encourage the spread of intelligence, of anything which wili enablo his slave to realise his manhood, But tyranny of this kind is self-condemned. 1. As unnatural, It requires the extinction and suppression of everything noble and good in human nature. 1t sets itself in opposition to intelligence, freedom, progress, religion, and all holy and spiritual aspirations, 2. As inhuman. ln consolidating its dominion, it stoops to perpetrate the grossest cruelties. Think of the work of the Inquisition I Think of the blood that has been shed on the shrine of civil liberty! Think of the George Harrises of slavery! "What business hacl his slave to be marching rowid the country, inventing machines, and holding up his head among gentlemen'? He'd soon put a stop to it. He'd take him back, and put· him to hoeing and digging, and see if he'd step about so smart?"(' Uncle Tom's Cabin.') See also, 3. Its weakness. 'l'yranny of this kind cannot endure. Under the influence of ideas from without, a mental and moral awakening is cert:1.in to come some day, and the tyrant's power is doomed. Ill. OF THE PITILESS CRUELTY OF WHICH MEN GET TO BE CAPABLE DI THE PuRSUIT OF INIQUITOUS ENDS: vers. 6-9. Pharaoh was determined to keep the Hebrews in slavery; and so, to suppress this new spirit of discontent which had broken out among them, he must heat their furnace sevenfold, and heap cruelty on cruelty. He may have urged the plea of state necessity, and justified himself by the reflection that less severe measures would not have served his purpose--that he was driven to cruelty by the logic of events. A vain plea in any case, and one which only a heart rendered callous by a long course of inhumanity could have brought itself to entertain. Yet Pharaoh was thus far right, that, once a career of inquity has been entered upon, events take the matter out of the sinner's hands, and leave him no alternative but either to abandon his evil courses, or be driven on from one cruelty to a worse. And, contem- poraneously with the movement of events, there is goi:ng on a hardening of the heart, which makes t'he cruelty possible. It is wonderful what pitiless deeds men get to be capable of, who have others in their power, and who acknowledge no higher law than their own interests. We have only to recall the iniquities of the slave-trade, connived at by many of our most respectable merchants; the inhumanities attendant on the em- ployment of women and young children'in mines and factories, as brought to light by Parliamentary Co=issions; the former semi-brutal condition of a..:,"l'icultural labourers; the underpaying of needle-women·; the horrors of the "sweating system ; " the instances of cruelty and rapacity exhibited in the emigration trade, which are described as "among the most atrocious that have ever disgraced human nature" (Chambers's 'Encyc.'); the reek.less disregard of the lives of sailors in their being sent to sea in heavily~laden and untrustworthy ships (Plimsoll)-to see how far, even in a civilised country, the thirst of gain will carry men, under circumstances where they can count upon impunity, and evade the oensure of public opinion. A Pharaoh could hardly do worse. "Small manufacturers, working with insufficient capital, and in times of depres- sion not having the wherewith to meet their engagements, are often obliged to become dependants on the wholesale houses with which they deal; and are then cruelly taken advantage of . , .. He (the manufacturer) is obliged to work at the wholesaler's terms, and ruin almost certainly follows . . . , As was said to us by one of the larger silk- hosiers, who had watched the destruction of many of his smaller brethren-' They may be spared for a while as a cat spares a mouse; but they are sure to be eaten up in the end .. , .' We read that in Bindostan, the ryots, when crops fall short, borrow from the Jews to buy seed, and once in their clutches are doomed. It seems that our commercial world can furnish parallels" (H. Spencer). Learn : 1. To avoid the beginning of a course of injustice. 2. To guard against tho hardening of the heart by cruelty. 3. To have an open ear to the cry of the oppressed, and a readiness to support every righteous measure for their protection and relief. 4. See in Pharaoh's tyranny an image of the pitiless tyranny of Satan. He; too, is absolutely merciless in the power he obtains over us. His service is one which grows increasingly more rigorous. He, too, would have us make bricks without straw, driving us on by our lusts and passions in pursuit of ends impossible (in his service) of att:i.i.n- ment. More acuto than Pharaoh, he gets the sinner himself to believe that it is " idle" 128 THE BOOK OF EXODUS. [t'H, V, 10-14,
to sacrifice to God, and by this means lures him to his service, ~here he soon binds him in chains more terrible and galling than any which earthly tyrant ever put upon hltt sla,es.---J. 0. Vers. 6-14.-The increase of trouble/or Go<l's people no proqf of the failure of hi, purpose. I. THE DEMANDS OF Gon PROVOKE THE WRATH OF THE UNGODLY, The mad persistence of Pharaoh in his injustice is marked-I. In his haste: his commands were issued "the same day." 2. In the severity of the decree: they should find their own straw, and yet deliver the same number of bricks. 3. In his determination to have his commands obeyed. lt is not meant to be an idle threat: the overseers are "straitly charged." When God's word is resisted the soul is inflamed to greater evil. The unregenerate spirit is the same everywhere. God's claim has only to be pressed home to be repelled in the same fashion. II. 'l'HE WAY TO DELIVERANCE SOMETIMES LIES THROUGH DEEPER TROUBLE. Israel's case was now harder than it was before (vers. 11-14), and solely because God had arisen to fight for them: but it was the last struggle of a doomed foe. It is thus- I. In the Church's struggle with the world of unbelief: God's message is met with scorn, repression, and opposition of science falsely so called. But these shall vanish away like smoke, and their utterances and deeds will at last be the monuments of their infamy. 2. In the contest with the dominion of sin in the soul. The might of sir is felt most when the Spirit's call is first heard; but God has said, "Let my people go," and the wrath of the enemy will soon be swallowed up in his destruction. 3. In the breaking of the yoke of death. When God's call is heard, " Come up higher," we wrestle in pain and mortal weakness with the dread adversary. He seems to triumph. But the last tie that bound us is broken, and we bid an eternal farewell to the bondage and the grief.-U.