"I have surely seen the affliction of My people."--_Exodus 3:7._
YOU heard how Joseph brought his father and brothers and their children
to live in Egypt. Their children's children went on living there for
many years, till they had come to be a great people, and were called
the children of Israel; but then the King of Egypt grew cruel to them.
He made them work very hard to make bricks and build towns for him; and
what was still worse, he ordered that whenever a little boy was born to
the children of Israel, he should be thrown into the river and drowned.
One mother hid her little baby for three months, and when she could
not hide him any longer, she put him into a little cradle of bulrushes
covered over with pitch, to keep the water out, and let the cradle
float on the river, leaving the little boy's sister to watch him.
Presently a lady, no other than the daughter of the cruel king, came
down to bathe in the river. She saw the little cradle, and had it
brought to her. The little baby was crying, and the lady pitied him and
took him home, to bring up for her own child. She wanted a nurse for
him, and his sister fetched his own mother, and she became his nurse.
His name was Moses, and we hear about him in the Lesson to-day. He was
not living with the king's daughter now. The king had grown angry with
him because he cared for his own people, and he had had to flee away
and keep sheep in the wilderness.
[Illustration: MOSES AND THE TABLES OF THE LAW.]
And there he saw a great wonder. He saw a flame of fire in a bush,
and yet the bush was not burnt. And God's voice spoke to him out of
the fire that did not burn, and told him that the troubles of His
people, the children of Israel, were to come to an end. God would save
them from the cruel Egyptians; and Moses himself was to go and lead
them out, and bring them to the good land that God had promised that
Abraham's children should have for their own. Moses was to go and tell
the King of Egypt that it was God's will that they should go. Moses was
afraid at first, but God promised to help him.
[Illustration: PHARAOH'S DAUGHTER FINDING MOSES.--Ex. 2:5, 6.]