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152
The Beginning of the End
Miriam, seeing that the child was being received tenderly, dared
to go closer, and at last said, “Shall I go and call a nurse for you
from the Hebrew women, that she may nurse the child for you?”
Permission was given.
The sister hurried to her mother with the happy news and quickly
returned with her to Pharaoh’s daughter. “Take this child away and
nurse him for me, and I will give you your wages,” said the princess.
Twelve Short Years
God had heard the mother’s prayer. With deep gratitude she took
up her now safe and happy task of educating her child for God. She
knew that she must soon give him up to his royal “mother,” to be
surrounded with influences that would tend to lead him away from
God. She worked to instill in his mind the fear of God and the love
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of truth and justice. She showed him the foolishness and sin of
idolatry and taught him from his early childhood to bow down and
pray to the living God, who alone could hear him and help him in
every emergency.
She kept the boy as long as she could but had to give him up
when he was about twelve years old. From his humble cabin home
he was taken to the royal palace, to the daughter of Pharaoh, “and
he became her son.” Yet even here he could not forget the lessons
learned at his mother’s side. They kept him from the pride, the
unbelief, and the vice that flourished in the splendor of the court.
The whole future life of Moses, the great mission that he fulfilled
as the leader of Israel, testifies to the importance of a mother’s work.
No other work can equal this. The mother is dealing with developing
minds and characters, working not just for time but for eternity. She
is sowing seed that will spring up and bear fruit, either for good or
for evil. Her work is not to paint a figure of beauty on canvas or to
chisel it from marble, but to impress upon a human soul the image of
the divine. The impressions made on developing minds will remain
all through life. Children are placed in our care to be trained, not as
heirs to the throne of an earthly empire, but as kings and queens to
God, to reign through unending ages.
In the judgment day it will be found that many crimes have
resulted from the ignorance and neglect of those whose duty it was