"All the rods in these
Exodus chapters do such dreadful things! They become serpents,
and one of them swallows up all the others: and Moses smites the
waters with a rod and they become blood, and the people can't
drink the water and the fish die! Then they stretch a rod across
the streams and ponds and bring a plague of frogs over the land,
with swarms of flies and horrible insects."
"That was to show God's power to Pharaoh, and melt his hard heart
to obedience and reverence," explained Mrs. Boynton, who had
known the Bible from cover to cover in her youth and could still
give chapter and verse for hundreds of her favorite passages.
"It took an awful lot of melting, Pharaoh's heart!" exclaimed the
boy. "Pharaoh must have been worse than Deacon Baxter! I wonder
if they ever tried to make him good by being kind to him! I've
read and read, but I can't find they used anything on him but
plagues and famines and boils and pestilences and thunder and
hail and fire!--Have I got a middle name, Aunt Boynton, for I
don't like Rod very much?"
"I never heard that you had a middle name; you must ask Ivory,"
said his aunt abstractedly.
"Did my father name me Rod, or my mother?'
"I don't really know; perhaps it was your mother, but don't ask
questions, please.
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