5§° 
reckoned on a pofterity of two millions. 
The province, therefore, was not very 
extenfive, and the gift was generous 
enough if he looked forward only to a 
hundredth part of this multiplication. Now 
as the dwelling-place of the Hebrews 
could not coexpand with their numbers, 
each generation would be more and more 
comprefled, until their health came to be 
injured by the accumulation. A natural 
confequence was, great uncleannefs and 
contagious diftempers: and thus was 
fown the feed of a difeafe which down to 
our own times has been almoft peculiar 
to this nation, and which appears then 
to have raged with baleful fury. The 
moft difguiting plague of thofe climates, 
the leprofy, broke out amenz them, and 
generated an hereditary predifpofition. 
The univerfality of this foul difeafe may 
be eftimated by the numerous prefcrip- 
tions and precautions of their law-giver, 
and by the concurring teftimony of Dio- 
dorus, of Sicily, of Tacitus, of Lyfima- 
chus, of Strabo, and of others, who feem 
to know the Jewith nation chiefly by this 
endemical malady ; fo ftrong was the im- 
preffion it had left on the minds of the 
Egyptians. This misfortune became a 
new pretence for oppreffion. Men, who 
at firft were defpifed as fhepherds, and 
neglected as ftrangers, were at length 
fhunned as contagious and abominable. 
To the fear and ill-will with which they 
had always been furveyed in Egypt, was 
now fuperadded difguft and repulfive 
fcorn. ‘Toward men, whom the anger of 
the gods had fo offenfively branded, every 
breach of kindne{s was thought allowable, 
and they were deprived, without fcruple, 
ef the moft facred rights of humanity. 
No wonder that barbarity toward them 
augmented, as its confequences became 
more apparent, and that they were pu- 
nifhed by their oppreffors for the very re- 
fult of their ill-ufage. 
The ignorant policy of the Egyptians 
knew no remedy for one fault, but to 
commit a greater, Finding that all this 
oppreffion did not keep under the progres 
of population, they hit upon the no lefs 
inhuman, than miferable expedient, of or- 
dering the male children to be deftroyed 
by the midwives. But thanks to the 
better part of human nature, defpots are 
not always obeyed when they command 
inhumanities, ‘The midwives of Egypt 
heeded not this unnatural command; and 
the government could only effect its un- 
juft ends by violent means. Commiffioned 
murderers vilited, by royal order, the 
dweliings of the Heerews, and flew in 
On the Legation of Mofes. 
[Sur: 
the cradle all the males.* In this way the 
gyptian government muft finally have 
attained its end: and, shad no faviour 
ftarted up, muft, in a tew generations, 
have extinguifhed the Jewith people. 
Whence was this deliverer to proceed ? 
Improbably from among the Egyptians: 
how fhould one of thefe take part with a 
ftrange nation, whofe language he was 
unfit to comprehend, and unlikely to 
{tudy, and whom he was taught to con- 
fider as no lefs incapable than unworthy 
of a better condition. Improbably from 
among themfelves: for the yoke of the 
Egyptians had degraded the Hebrews into 
the rudeft and worft of nations, wildered 
by three hundred years of negleét, cowed 
by as long a {tervitude, irritated by 
abufe, degraded in their own eyes by a 
naufeous hereditary infamy, enervated 
and crippled to every heroic refolution, 
and, by a long continued torpor,’ almoft 
degenerated to brutality. From a race fo 
abandoned, how fhould one tree {pirit, 
one informed mind, a fingle hero, ora 
fingle ftatefman, originate? Where could 
the man be found amid them, able to in- 
{pire with confidence fo fubmiflive a horde, 
and te teach fo ignorant and rude a band 
the means of effectual refiftance to its re- 
fined and inftruéted oppreffors. Ass little 
could fuch a man be leoked for among the 
Hebrews of thofe days, as a brave heroic 
{pirit among the outcaft Parias of thz 
Hindoos now. 
But the mighty hand of Providence, 
which knows how te unravel the mott 
complex knot by the fimpleit means—not 
of that providence, which, by the violent 
weapon of miracles, interrupts the eco- 
nomy of nature, but of that providence 
which has prefcribed to nature an eco- | 
nomy that effets by an orderly procefs 
extraordinary things —was to interfere 
and to fave ; was to felect a Hebrew, that 
he might obtain the confidence of his 
countrymen; and to educate him among 
Egyptians, that he might acquire the 
courage and the wifdom effential to his 
fuccefs. 
A Hebrew mother, of the tribe of Le- 
vi, had for thiee months concealed her 
infant from the murderers: at leneth, in 
defpair of finding a further afylum, her 
inventive tendernels {uggefted a contriy- 
ance. Ina bex, or boat of papyrus, fe- 
cured by pitch from the penctration of 
* A parallel fa@ occursinthe hiftory of the 
Charaibs. See a pamphlet, entitled « r 
Account of the Black Gharaibs in ihe [land of St, 
Vincents.’ Sewell, 1795. Londen. 
the 
