University of Virginia Library

4. LETTER IV.
REMESES TO MIRIAM.

I received your letter, written to me from Bubastis.
I grieve to hear that King Mœris is increasing
so heavily the burdens of our people, as to drive to the
fields, and to the new lake to which he has given his
name, all who were servants in houses. Unused to toil
under the sun, they will suffer more than others. I
read the copy of the edict you inclosed, forbidding the
Egyptians to receive, as domestics, any of the Hebrew
people, that so all might be driven to become toilers
in the field. His motive is evident. He is alarmed at
the increase of the Hebrews, and would oppress them,
to death by thousands. My heart bleeds for those he
has sent to the mines in the Thebaïd. This is a new
feature in the Hebrew bondage. But there is a just
God on high, O my sister Miriam, the Holy One, whom
our fathers worshipped. He will not forget his people
forever, but in due time will bring them out of their
bondage. Has not Aaron, our learned brother, made
known to you the words of tradition that are cherished
among our people,—that they are to serve Pharaoh a

certain number of years, forty-one of which are yet to
come? He sent me the copy thereof, wherein I find it
written, as the declaration of Abraham our father, that
“his posterity should serve Pharaoh four hundred
years.” Aaron, who, since I left Egypt, has been giving
all his time to collecting the traditions and laws of
our fathers, is confident that ere another generation
shall have perished, God will raise up a deliverer for
the sons of Jacob, and lead them forth to some new and
wonderful land. If such a promise, O my sister, was
given by the Almighty, He will redeem it; for He is
not a man that He should lie! Let us therefore wait,
and hope, and pray to this mighty God of our ancestors,
to remember His promise, and descend from Heaven
with a stretched-out arm for our deliverance. I rejoice
to hear that my dear mother is well, also my father.
Commend me to them with reverential affection. Aaron
reads to you my letters, and you will have learned from
them how I arrived at the knowledge of the true God,
in whom, O Miriam, both you and he believed, while I,
considering myself an Egyptian, was a worshipper of
the false gods of Egypt! Yet, lo! by the goodness of
the true God, I have been enabled, at the feet of the
sage of Uz, to arrive at such clear conceptions of His
glory, and majesty, and government of the universe, as
to teach even you. I speak this not boastingly, but
with gratitude to Him who has made me the instrument
of illumining your mind, and of giving you greater confidence
and trust in the God, who is the God of Abraham,
and the God of the Prince of Uz.

I have now been five years absent from Egypt, and my
heart yearns for my brethren in bondage. I feel that it

is not becoming in me to remain here, at ease in the
court of Sesostris; for he has now been two years king,
since his royal mother's death, of which I wrote to my
mother at the time. I pant to make known to the
elders of the Hebrews, the clear and true knowledge of
the God of our fathers, which has come down to them
imperfectly, and mingled with superstitions, even when
it is not corrupted by the idolatry of Egypt. I wish to
learn the character and condition of my brethren in
servitude, whom I formerly viewed from the proud
height of an Egyptian prince. Now I feel a desire to
mingle among them, to know them, and be one of them.
All my Egyptian pride, dear sister, is long since gone,
and I seek daily to cultivate that spirit of meekness,
which better becomes one, who is of a race of bondmen.
But, my sister, rather would I be a slave, chained at
the chariot-wheel of Pharaoh-Mœris, with my present
knowledge of the Holy and Almighty One,—compared
with which all the wisdom of Egypt is foolishness,—than
be that monarch himself with his ignorance of Him, and
his worship of Osiris and Apis!

May the God of our fathers, by whose will we are in
bonds, in His own time send us deliverance, to whom
be glory and majesty, and dominion and power, in
heaven and earth, to the end of ages.