236 PLAGUES. 



that swept the land of Egypt, and view the destructive operations of na- 

 ture working with unwonted violence, 



"Pregnant witli plagues and shedriing seeds of death," 

 we are not less awed to find it stayed by that bound which Deity 

 set to Goshen, than if new elements had sprung to action, led by the 

 creative hand in their career of destruction. 



"If God, like man, his purpose could renew. 



His laws could vary, or his plans undo ; 



Desponding faith would droop its cheerless wing. 



Religion deaden to a lifeless thing ! 



Where could we, rational, repose our trust, 



But in a power immutable as just?" 

 The plagues, which have at divers times ravaged the earth, demon- 

 strate in their histories, that the phenomena attending the plagues of 

 Egypt, have in highly distempered seasons been repeated in kind, if not 

 in degree. We may here remark that in this is furnished an incidental 

 proof tending to establish the authenticity and accuracy of the Bible in 

 the truthfulness of its delineations. At that period of the world's his- 

 tory, long antecedent to any record of mere human production, the in- 

 spired historian narrates as truth, a series of circumstances pertaining to 

 locality and phenomena of nature, the accuracy of which subsequent 

 centuries have proved by the recurrence of the same phenomena. The 

 history of Egypt, in the particulars of Moses' description, seems, ages 

 long after the exodus, to declare that the Almighty did lay his hand upon 

 the land, and it will forever bear its testimony in vindication of the truth 

 of inspiration. 



We have no idea of allcmpting any philosophical explanation of the 

 plagues, but think it not uninteresting to glance cursorily at similar 

 events, which have occurred in other ages of the world. 



The variety observed in the character of pestilence, by which man- 

 kind is afflicted, appeared to be produced by different causes. We see it 

 at one lime apparently the ofl'spring of essential alterations in the pro- 

 perties of the elements, spreading with a steady march over extensive 

 countries, and raging, despite the change of season or climate, with equal 

 intensity in the elevated temperature of the South as amid the frosts of 

 northern winter. At other times, apparently the production of exces- 

 sively intemperate seasons, it maintains its deadly power, only until the 

 succession of seasons has deprived it of its virulence and terminated its 

 existence. The latter is almost always local and limited to a particular 

 city or country. 



Another circumstance attending the great plagues in different centu- 

 ries is, that the human race does not limit the operation of the pefatilen- 



