rank " ( eh. xiii. 18). (3) We must add to these considerntions, the singubrly exalted state of the religious consciousnoss in the companies of the Israelites. Every thin" in their position combined to awe ancl solemnize them; to fill them with an 0 ;er- mastering consciousness of the Divine presence; to inspire them with boundless aud grateful joy, yet a joy tempered with the awful sense of death, as forced upon them by the destruction of the first-born, and the lamentations of the bereaved Egyptians. This also would exercise a powerful and steadying influence upon their thoughts and beha,- viour, and would o.id them in taking their measures with decision and speed. ll. PnooFs. 'fhose who pile up the difficulties of the Bible seldom do justice to the diffi- culties on the other side. We have to ask-1. Is it not absurd to say that so extra- ordinary an event as, in any case, this exodus of Israel from Egypt must Le admitted to have been, happened in the full light of the most powerful civilisation of ancient times, while yet the people who came out did not know, or could not remember, or could ever possibly forget ho'lll it happened? (Cf. ver. 42.) The Israelites themselves did not believe that they did not know. They had but one story to give of it-the story that rings down in their psalms to latest generations---the same story which, with minute circum- stantial detail, is embodied in these chapters. 2. If this is not how the children of Israel got out of Egypt, will the critic show us how they did get out? It is admitted on all hands that they were once in ; that they were in bondage ; that Egypt was at that time ruled by one or other of its most powerful monarchs ; that they came out ; yet did not come out by war, but peaceably. How then did they make their way out? If the whole history was different from that of which we have a record, how ea.me it that no echo of it was preserved in Israel, and that this sober and matter-of-fact relation has come to take its place? 3. There is the institution of the Passover-a contemporary memorial. We have already expressed our belief that this ordinance was of a kind which could not have been set up at a time later than the events professedly comme- morated by it. Glance at the alternative hypothesis. The basis of the institution, we are asked to believe, was an ancient spring festival, on which were grafted by degrees, as the tradition formed, the rites and ideas of a later age. This hypothesis, however, is not only unproved, but violates every law of historical probability. It must in. any case be admitted (1) that the exodus took place at the time of the alleged agricul- tural festival. (2) That the festival thereafter assumed a new character, and was observed, in addition to its agricultural reference, as a memorial of the escape from Egypt. (3) That the use of unleavened bread in connection with it had reference to the haste of the flight. (4) Further, that an essential part of this festival was the offer- ing of a sacrifice. (5) That, being at bottom a spring festival, it must have been observed, with but few interruptions, all down the later history of Israel. But if so much is admitted, we seem driven to admit more. For it is undeniable that the festival, as observed among. the Jews, was connected most especially of all with the fact of a great judgment, which was believed to have fallen on Egypt on the night of the exodus, and from which the Israelites had been mercifully delivered by the sprinkling of the lamb's blood upon the door-posts; a merp.orial of which was preserved in the name (Pass-over). "The relation to the natural year expressed,in the Passover, was less marked than that in Pentecost or Tabernacles, while its historical import is deeper and more pointed. That part of its ceremonies which has a direct agricultural reference-the offering of the omer-holds a very subordinate place." (Diet. of the Bible.) It is for the sceptic, therefore, to explain how that which enters into the inmost meaning and heart of the observance, could possibly have been engrafted on it as an accident at a later period-yet a period not later than accords with the ritual prescribed in these very ancient written laws: how, moreover, the people could n.ot only be persuaded to accept this new reading of an old familiar ordinance, but to believe that they had never known any other: that this had been the meaning and ritual of the ordinance from the beginning. 4. We have not as yet alluded to the Pentateuch, but of course the fact is not to be overlooked that the work before us claims to be historical; that it was probably written wholly or in large part by Moses himself; and that in style, circum- stantially, vividness of narration, and minute acc 11racy of reference, it bears all the marks of a true and contemporary history.--J. 0.
Ver, 38.-Tlte mixed multitude. The mass of this mixed multitude which left u 2 292 'l'HE BOOK OF EXODUS. [OH, XII, 20-42,