Thirty-second. It is very hard to believe that three millions of people
left a country and marched twenty or thirty miles all in one day. To
notify so many people would require a long time, and then the sick, the
halt, and the old would be apt to impede the march. It seems impossible
that such a vast number--six hundred thousand men, besides women and
children--could have been cared for, could have been fed and clothed,
and the sick nursed, especially when we take into consideration that
"they were thrust out of Egypt, and could not tarry, neither had they
prepared for themselves any victual." 1
Thirty-third. It seems cruel to punish a man forever for denying that
God went before the Jews by day "in a pillar of a cloud to lead' them
the way, and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light to go by
day and night," or for denying that Pharaoh pursued the Jews with six
hundred chosen chariots, and all the chariots of Egypt, and that the six
hundred thousand men of war of the Jews were sore afraid when they saw
the pursuing hosts. It does seems strange that after all the water in a
country had been turned to blood--after it had been overrun with frogs
and devoured with flies; after all the cattle had died with the murrain,
and the rest had been killed by the fire and hail and the remainder had
suffered with boils, and the firstborn of all that were left had died;
that after locusts had devoured every herb and eaten up every tree of
the field, and the firstborn had died, from the firstborn of the king
on the throne to the firstborn of the captive in the dungeon; that after
three millions of people had left, carrying with them the jewels of
silver and gold and the raiment of their oppressors, the Egyptians still
had enough soldiers and chariots and horses left to pursue and destroy
an army of six hundred thousand men, if God had not interfered.