AGENTS. Sangor, Maine-E. F. Duren & Co. Boston, Mass.-J. E. Hickman, 11 Providence, R. I.-O. Wilmarth, 4 Farmington, Ct.-Wm. Gay Troy, N. Y,―Merriam Moore & Co. Montreal, Canada-Benjamin Dawson PORTRAIT OF THE EDITOR. THE Publisher has the pleasure of announcing that he has made arrangements furnish to the subscribers of the Magazine for Mothers and Daughters an ngraved portrait of its Editor. It will be completed and issued early in the present year, and delivered to all who were subscribers the last year and who renew their subscriptions, and to all new subscribers. Those who would avail themselves of this offer must forward to us their orders, together with the subscription money, before the 1st of July next. HENRY M. WHITTELSEY, New York, Jan. 1, 1851. Publisher. SEE THIRD AND FOURTH PAGES OF THIS COVER. Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1851, by HENRY M. WHITTELSEY in the Office of the Clerk of the District Court of the United States, in and for the South ern District of New York. Original. THE MOTHERS OF THE BIBLE. THE MOTHERS OF ISRAEL IN EGYPT. "A thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is passed, and as a watch in the night." It often appears to us, as we study the sacred page, and as we contemplate the movements of the kingdom of grace in these latter days, that the work of God in the salvation of the race of man, makes slow and difficult progress, and we wonder at the tardiness and seeming want of success of any project which has God for its author and executor. But we forget that, although He is God all-sufficient, and can without doubt perform the whole good pleasure of his willthough all events are under his control, it nevertheless pleases Him to work by means and instrumentalities. Seldom does He "speak and it is done," as when the light first shone on earth. Ordinarily, if He will accomplish anything in the material world, He brings it about in the order of its natural development-if his dealings are with men as moral beings, He works according to the laws of mind which Himself ordained. It was now more than four hundred years since God called Abraham from Ur of the Chaldees, and made the covenant that through him and his descendants all the nations of the earth should be blessed, and since He first revealed his purpose of acquainting the world with his own glorious character and will. Abraham and Isaac and Jacob had long slept in the cave of Machpelah. Where were their descendants, and in what circumstances? Had the covenant been in any particular fulfilled? Was the gracious purpose fast being accomplished? Not to human view. The children of the patriarchs, far from dwelling in the land of Canaan, the blest and favored people of Jehovah, were a nation of slaves, debased by the most abject and cruel bondage-ignoVOL. II.-NO. XI.-21 326 THE MOTHERS OF THE BIBLE. rant of even the name of their father's God-though remembering him as the God of Abraham, yet comprehending nothing concerning him save the bare fact of his existence among many other deities; and having a vague uncertain belief in the traditionary promise of his appearance in their behalf, and their ultimate inheritance of the country of Canaan. Some, indeed, among them seem to have had clearer ideas, and a more intelligent faith, but the mass of the people were buried in the depths of ignorance and misery. Around them the Egyptians, and all the other dwellers upon earth, were given up to the grossest idolatry. What foothold had the kingdom of grace as yet gained in the world? What had the Almighty been doing to advance it during these rolling centuries? If we ask reverently, we ask well, and perhaps a satisfactory answer may be given. In commencing and carrying forward the scheme of man's redemption, a mighty work had first to be done, which we seldom think of, and little appreciate a work preliminary to the first revelation of Himself among the nations. It was not merely with man's ignorance of the only living, and true, and holy God which grace had to contend, but with a state of mind and heart so utterly debased as to be incapable of receiving or comprehending for a moment any idea of such a Being. A dense and almost impenetrable darkness brooded over the earth-but this was not all. The visual organs, long accustomed only to darkness, were weakened and destroyed. Before light could benefit, the blind must be healed. Before God could reveal Himself to men, their sunken, sensual souls must be elevated, and purified, and made capable of understanding the revelation. This was a slow and tedious process. For its furtherance He must first train and educate, from the commencement of their existence, a people who, being themselves thus elevated and enabled to receive the truths He would communi-. cate, should hold them up from generation to generation, before their benighted fellow-men, and win all at length to know and obey. This then, was the work which Jehovah accomplished |