You will understand, I think, the meaning of the ten plagues of
Egypt better, if I explain to you in a few words what kind of a
country Egypt is, what kind of people the Egyptians were. Some of
you, doubtless, know as well as I, but some here may not: it is for
them I speak.

Egypt is one of the strangest countries in the world; and yet one
which can be most simply described. One long straight strip of rich
flat land, many hundred miles long, but only a very few miles broad.
On either side of it, barren rocks and deserts of sand, and running
through it from end to end, the great river Nile--'The River' of
which the Bible speaks. This river the Egyptians looked on as
divine: they worshipped it as a god; for on it depended the whole
wealth of Egypt. Every year it overflows the whole country, leaving
behind it a rich coat of mud, which makes Egypt the most
inexhaustibly fertile land in the world; and made the Egyptians,
from very ancient times, the best farmers of the world, the fathers
of agriculture. Meanwhile, when not in flood, the river water is of
the purest in the world; the most delightful to drink; and was
supposed in old times to be a cure for all manner of diseases.

To worship this sacred river, the pride of their land, to drink it,
to bathe in it, to catch the fish which abound in it, and which
formed then, and forms still, the staple food of the Egyptians, was
their delight. And now I have told you enough to show you why the
plagues which God sent on Egypt began first by striking the river.

The river, we read, was turned into blood. What that means--whether
it was actual animal blood--what means God employed to work the
miracle--are just the questions about which we need not trouble our