In this festival we celebrate a great national deliverance, but, yet more, we celebrate the birth of Judaism, we give a solemn welcome to the faith that three thousand years ago, upon this eventful night, struggled into existence, an active life-giving existence.

Armed by the power of a glorious revelation, nerved by the inspiration of divine truths, Moses undertook the greatest mission that man has ever performed. The meek and gentle man, who had been leading so peaceful a life in his pastoral home, amid home-cherished ties, grew strong and heroic, and returned to Egypt to battle with oppression and tyranny, to contend with the weakness of an enslaved people, to whose deliverance he devoted his life. After a long and arduous struggle, the sublime faith within him achieved a mighty conquest over the pride of despotism and over the degradation of slavery.

The monarch, subdued by a greater power than his own, consented at last to the departure of the oppressed race from the land where they had laboured in slavery, where they had shed tears of bitter misery, but to which they still clung as to their native soil.