An Adroit Maiden
Now Miriam, the sister, incognito, no one suspecting her relation to the child, leaps from the bank and rushes down and offers to get a nurse to pacify the child. Consent is given, she brings Jochebed, the baby’s mother, incognito, not sure of the court knowing that she was the mother, and when Jochebed arrived the child stopped crying, for its fright was calmed and its hunger appeased. You may admire Jochebed, the mother, and all the ages may admire Moses, but I clap my hands in applause at the behavior of Miriam, the faithful, brilliant, and strategic sister!
“Go home,” someone might have said to Miriam. “Why risk yourself out there alone on the banks of the Nile, breathing the miasma and in danger of being attacked of wild beast or ruffian; go home!” No; Miriam, the sister, most lovingly watched and bravely defended Moses, the brother. Is he worthy her care and courage? Oh, yes; the sixty centuries of the world’s history have never had so much involved in the arrival of any ship at any port as in the landing of that papyrus boat calked with bitumen. Its one passenger was to be a non-such in history. Lawyer, statesman, politician, legislator, organizer, conqueror, deliverer.