The Emancipation Of Massachusetts By Brooks Adams

THE EMANCIPATION OF MASSACHUSETTSTHE DREAM AND THE REALITY BYBROOKS ADAMS PREFATORY NOTE TO FIRST EDITION. I am under the deepest obligations to the Hon. Mellen Chamberlain and Mr. Charles Deane. The generosity of my friend Mr. Frank Hamilton Cushing in putting at my disposal the unpublished results of his researches among the Zuñis is in keeping with the originality and power of his mind. Without his aid my attempt would have been impossible. I have also to thank Prof. Henry C. Chapman, J. A. Gordon, M. D., Prof. William James, and Alpheus Hyatt, Esq., for the kindness with which they assisted me. I feel that any merit this volume may possess is due to these gentlemen; its faults are all my own. BROOKS ADAMS.QUINCY, September 17, 1886. CONTENTS. PREFACE CHAPTER I. THE COMMONWEALTH CHAPTER II. THE ANTINOMIANS CHAPTER III. THE CAMBRIDGE PLATFORM CHAPTER IV. THE ANABAPTISTS CHAPTER V. THE QUAKERS CHAPTER VI. THE SCIRE FACIAS CHAPTER VII. THE WITCHCRAFT CHAPTER VIII. BRATTLE CHURCH CHAPTER IX. HARVARD COLLEGE CHAPTER X. THE LAWYERS CHAPTER XL. THE REVOLUTION PREFACE TO NEW EDITION. CHAPTER I I wrote this little volume more than thirty years ago, since when I have hardly opened it. Therefore I now read it almost as if it were written by another man, and I find to my relief that, on the whole, I think rather better of it than I did when I published it. Indeed, as a criticism of what were then the accepted views of Massachusetts history, as expounded by her most authoritative historians, I see nothing in it to retract or even to modify. I do, however, somewhat regret the rather acrimonious tone which I occasionally adopted when speaking of the more conservative section of the clergy. Not that I think that the Mathers, for example, and their like, did not deserve all, or, indeed, more than all I ever said or thought of them, but because I conceive that equally effective strictures might have been conveyed in urbaner language; and, as I age, I shrink from anything akin to invective, even in what amounts to controversy. Therefore I have now nothing to alter in the Emancipation of Massachusetts, viewed as history, though I might soften its asperities somewhat, here and there; but when I come to consider it as philosophy, I am startled to observe the gap which separates the present epoch from my early middle life. The last generation was strongly Darwinian in the sense that it accepted, almost as a tenet of religious faith, the theory that human civilization is a progressive evolution, moving on the whole steadily toward perfection, from a lower to a higher intellectual plane, and, as a necessary part of its progress, developing a higher degree of mental vigor. I need hardly observe that all belief in democracy as a final solution of social ills, all confidence in education as a means to attaining to universal justice, and all hope of approximating to the rule of moral right in the administration of law, was held to hinge on this great fundamental dogma, which, it followed, it was almost impious to deny, or even to doubt. Thus, on the first page of my book, I observe, as if it were axiomatic, that, at a given moment, toward the opening of the sixteenth century, “Europe burst from her mediæval torpor into the splendor of the Renaissance,” and further on I assume, as an equally self- evident axiom, that freedom of thought was the one great permanent advance which western civilization made by all the agony and bloodshed of the Reformation. Apart altogether from the fact that I should doubt whether, in the year 1919, any intelligent and educated man would be inclined to maintain that the twelfth and thirteenth centuries were, as contrasted with the nineteenth, ages of intellectual torpor, what startles me in these paragraphs is the self-satisfied assumption of the finality of my conclusions. I posit, as a fact not to be controverted, that our universe is an expression of an universal law, which the nineteenth century had discovered and could formulate. During the past thirty years I have given this subject my best attention, and now I am so far from assenting to this proposition that my mind tends in the opposite direction. Each day I live I am less able to withstand the suspicion that the universe, far from being an expression of law originating in a single primary cause, is a chaos which admits of reaching no equilibrium, and with which man is doomed eternally and hopelessly to contend. For human society, to deserve the name of civilization, must be an embodiment of order, or must at least tend toward a social equilibrium. I take, as an illustration of my meaning, the development of the domestic relations of our race. I assume it to be generally admitted, that possibly man’s first and probably his greatest advance toward order–and, therefore, toward civilization–was the creation of the family as the social nucleus. As Napoleon said, when the lawyers were drafting his Civil Code, “Make the family responsible to its head, and the head to me, and I will keep order in France.” And yet although our dependence on the family system has been recognized in every age and in every land, there has been no restraint on personal liberty which has been more resented, by both men and women alike, than has been this bond which, when perfect, constrains one man and one woman to live a joint life until death shall them part, for the propagation, care, and defence of their children. The result is that no civilization has, as yet, ever succeeded, and none promises in the immediate future to succeed, in enforcing this primary obligation, and we are thus led to consider the cause, inherent in our complex nature, which makes it impossible for us to establish an equilibrium between mind and matter. A difficulty which never has been even partially overcome, which wrecked the Roman Empire and the Christian Church, which has wrecked all systems of law, and which has never been more lucidly defined than by Saint Paul, in the Epistle to the Romans, “For we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin. For that which I do, I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I…. Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me…. For the good that I would, I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do…. For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: … But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” [Footnote: Romans vii, 14-24.] And so it has been since a time transcending the limits of imagination. Here in a half-a-dozen sentences Saint Paul exposes the ceaseless conflict between mind and matter, whose union, though seemingly the essence of life, creates a condition which we cannot comprehend and to which we could not hope to conform, even if we could comprehend it. In short, which indicates chaos as being the probable core of an universe from which we must evolve order, if ever we are to cope with violence, fraud, crime, war, and general brutality. Wheresoever we turn the prospect is the same. If we gaze upon the heavens we discern immeasurable spaces sprinkled with globules of matter, to which our earth seems to be more or less akin, but all plunging, apparently, both furiously and aimlessly, from out of an infinite past to an equally immeasurable future. Whence this material mass comes, or what its wild flight portends, we neither know nor could we, probably, comprehend even were its secret divulged to us by a superior intelligence, always conceding that there be such an intelligence, or any secret to disclose. These latter speculations lie, however, beyond the scope of my present purpose. It suffices if science permits me to postulate (a concession by science which I much doubt if it could make) that matter, as we know it, has the semblance of being what we call a substance, charged with a something which we define as energy, but which at all events simulates a vital principle resembling heat, seeking to escape into space, where it cools. Thus the stars, having blazed until their vital principle is absorbed in space, sink into relative torpor, or, as the astronomers say, die. The trees and plants diffuse their energy in the infinite, and, at length, when nothing but a shell remains, rot. Lastly, our fleshly bodies, when the union between mind and matter is dissolved, crumble into dust. When the involuntary partnership between mind and matter ceases through death, it is possible, or at least conceivable, that the impalpable soul, admitting that such a thing exists, may survive in some medium where it may be free from material shackles, but, while life endures, the flesh has wants which must be gratified, and which, therefore, take precedence of the yearnings of the soul, just as Saint Paul points out was the case with himself; and herein lies the inexorable conflict between the moral law and the law of competition which favors the strong, and from whence comes all the abominations of selfishness, of violence, of cruelty and crime. Approached thus, perhaps no historical fragment is more suggestive than the exodus of the Jews from Egypt under Moses, who was the first great optimist, nor one which is seldomer read with an eye to the contrast which it discloses between Moses the law-giver, the idealist, the religious prophet, and the visionary; and Moses the political adventurer and the keen and unscrupulous man of the world. And yet it is here at the point at which mind and matter clashed, that Moses merits most attention. For Moses and the Mosaic civilization broke down at this point, which is, indeed, the chasm which has engulfed every progressive civilization since the dawn of time. And the value of the story as an illustration of scientific history is its familiarity, for no Christian child lives who has not been brought up on it. We have all forgotten when we first learned how the Jews came to migrate to Egypt during the years of the famine, when Joseph had become the minister of Pharaoh through his acuteness in reading dreams. Also how, after their settlement in the land of Goshen,–which is the Egyptian province lying at the end of the ancient caravan road, which Abraham travelled, leading from Palestine to the banks of the Nile, and which had been the trade route, or path of least resistance, between Asia and Africa, probably for ages before the earliest of human traditions,–they prospered exceedingly. But at length they fell into a species of bondage which lasted several centuries, during which they multiplied so rapidly that they finally raised in the Egyptian government a fear of their domination. Nor, considering subsequent events, was this apprehension unreasonable. At all events the Egyptian government is represented, as a measure of self-protection, as proposing to kill male Jewish babies in order to reduce the Jewish military strength; and it was precisely at this juncture that Moses was born, Moses, indeed, escaped the fate which menaced him, but only by a narrow chance, and he was nourished by his mother in an atmosphere of hate which tinged his whole life, causing him always to feel to the Egyptians as the slave feels to his master. After birth the mother hid the child as long as possible, but when she could conceal the infant no longer she platted a basket of reeds, smeared it with pitch, and set it adrift in the Nile, where it was likely to be found, leaving her eldest daughter, named Miriam, to watch over it. Presently Pharaoh’s daughter came, as was her habit, to the river to bathe, as Moses’s mother expected that she would, and there she noticed the “ark” floating among the bulrushes. She had it brought her, and, noticing Miriam, she caused the girl to engage her mother, whom Miriam pointed out to her, as a nurse. Taking pity on the baby the kind-hearted princess adopted it and brought it up as she would had it been her own, and, as the child grew, she came to love the boy, and had him educated with care, and this education must be kept in mind since the future of Moses as a man turned upon it. For Moses was most peculiarly a creation of his age and of his environment; if, indeed, he may not be considered as an incarnation of Jewish thought gradually shaped during many centuries of priestly development. According to tradition, Moses from childhood was of great personal beauty, so much so that passers by would turn to look at him, and this early promise was fulfilled as he grew to be a man. Tall and dignified, with long, shaggy hair and beard, of a reddish hue tinged with gray, he is described as “wise as beautiful.” Educated by his foster-mother as a priest at Heliopolis, he was taught the whole range of Chaldean and Assyrian literature, as well as the Egyptian, and thus became acquainted with all the traditions of oriental magic: which, just at that period, was in its fullest development. Consequently, Moses must have been familiar with the ancient doctrines of Zoroaster. Men who stood thus, and had such an education, were called Wise Men, Magi, or Magicians, and had great influence, not so much as priests of a God, as enchanters who dealt with the supernatural as a profession. Daniel, for example, belonged to this class. He was one of three captive Jews whom Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, gave in charge to the master of his eunuchs, to whom he should teach the learning and the tongue of the Chaldeans. Daniel, very shortly, by his natural ability, brought himself and his comrades into favor with the chief eunuch, who finally presented them to Nebuchadnezzar, who conversed with them and found them “ten times better than all the magicians and astrologers that were in all his realm.” The end of it was, of course, that Nebuchadnezzar dreamed a dream which he forgot when he awoke and he summoned “the magicians, and the astrologers, and the sorcerers, and the Chaldeans, for to shew the king his dreams,” but they could not unless he told it them. This vexed the king, who declared that unless they should tell him his dream with the interpretation thereof, they should be cut in pieces. So the decree went forth that all “the wise men” of Babylon should be slain, and they sought Daniel and his fellows to slay them. Therefore, it appears that together with its privileges and advantages the profession of magic was dangerous in those ages. Daniel, on this occasion, according to the tradition, succeeded in revealing and interpreting the dream; and, in return, Nebuchadnezzar made Daniel a great man, chief governor of the province of Babylon. Precisely a similar tale is told of Joseph, who, having been sold by his brethren to Midianitish merchantmen with camels, bearing spices and balm, journeying along the ancient caravan road toward Egypt, was in turn sold by them to Potiphar, the captain of Pharaoh’s guard. And Joseph rose in Potiphar’s service, and after many alternations of fortune was brought before Pharaoh, as Daniel had been before Nebuchadnezzar, and because he interpreted Pharaoh’s dream acceptably, he was made “ruler over all the land of Egypt” and so ultimately became the ancestor whom Moses most venerated and whose bones he took with him when he set out upon the exodus. It is true also that Josephus has preserved an idle tale that Moses was given command of an Egyptian army with which he made a successful campaign against the Ethiopians, but it is unworthy of credit and may be neglected. His bringing up was indeed the reverse of military. So much so that probably far the most important part of his education lay in acquiring those arts which conduce to the deception of others, such deceptions as jugglers have always practised in snake-charming and the like, or in gaining control of another’s senses by processes akin to hypnotism;– processes which have been used by the priestly class and their familiars from the dawn of time. In especial there was one miracle performed by the Magi, on which not only they, but Moses himself, appear to have set great store, and on which Moses seemed always inclined to fall back, when hard pressed to assert his authority. They pretended to make fire descend onto their altars by means of magical ceremonies. [Footnote: Lenormant, Chaldean Magic, 226.] Nevertheless, amidst all these ancient eastern civilizations, the strongest hold which the priests or sorcerers held over, and the greatest influence which they exercised upon, others, lay in their relations to disease, for there they were supposed to be potent. For example, in Chaldea, diseases were held to be the work of demons, to be feared in proportion as they were powerful and malignant, and to be restrained by incantations and exorcisms. Among these demons the one, perhaps most dreaded, was called Namtar, the genius of the plague. Moses was, of course, thoroughly familiar with all these branches of learning, for the relations of Egypt were then and for many centuries had been, intimate with Mesopotamia. Whatever aspect the philosophy may have, which Moses taught after middle life touching the theory of the religion in which he believed, Moses had from early childhood been nurtured in these Mesopotamian beliefs and traditions, and to them–or, at least, toward them–he always tended to revert in moments of stress. Without bearing this fundamental premise in mind, Moses in active life can hardly be understood, for it was on this foundation that his theories of cause and effect were based. As M. Lenormant has justly and truly observed, go back as far as we will in Egyptian religion, we find there, as a foundation, or first cause, the idea of a divine unity,–a single God, who had no beginning and was to have no end of days,–the primary cause of all. [Footnote: Chaldean Magic, 79.] It is true that this idea of unity was early obscured by confounding the energy with its manifestations. Consequently a polytheism was engendered which embraced all nature. Gods and demons struggled for control and in turn were struggled with. In Egypt, in Media, in Chaldea, in Persia, there were wise men, sorcerers, and magicians who sought to put this science into practice, and among this fellowship Moses must always rank foremost. Before, however, entering upon the consideration of Moses, as a necromancer, as a scientist, as a statesman, as a priest, or as a commander, we should first glance at the authorities which tell his history. Scholars are now pretty well agreed that Moses and Aaron were men who actually lived and worked probably about the time attributed to them by tradition. That is to say, under the reign of Ramses II, of the Nineteenth Egyptian dynasty who reigned, as it is computed, from 1348 to 1281 B.C., and under whom the exodus occurred. Nevertheless, no very direct or conclusive evidence having as yet been discovered touching these events among Egyptian documents, we are obliged, in the main, to draw our information from the Hebrew record, which, for the most part, is contained in the Pentateuch, or the first five books of the Bible. Possibly no historical documents have ever been subjected to a severer or more minute criticism than have these books during the last two centuries. It is safe to say that no important passage and perhaps no paragraph has escaped the most searching and patient analysis by the acutest and most highly trained of minds; but as yet, so far as the science of history is concerned, the results have been disappointing. The order in which events occurred may have been successfully questioned and the sequence of the story rearranged hypothetically; but, in general, it has to be admitted that the weight of all the evidence obtained from the monuments of contemporary peoples has been to confirm the reliability of the Biblical narrative. For example, no one longer doubts that Joseph was actually a Hebrew, who rose, through merit, to the highest offices of state under an Egyptian monarch, and who conceived and successfully carried into execution a comprehensive agrarian policy which had the effect of transferring the landed estates of the great feudal aristocracy to the crown, and of completely changing Egyptian tenures. Nor does any one question, at this day, the reality of the power which the Biblical writers ascribed to the Empire of the Hittites. Under such conditions the course of the commentator is clear. He should treat the Jewish record as reliable, except where it frankly accepts the miracle as a demonstrated fact, and even then regard the miracle as an important and most suggestive part of the great Jewish epic, which always has had, and always must have, a capital influence on human thought. The Pentateuch has, indeed, been demonstrated to be a compilation of several chronicles arranged by different writers at different times, and blended into a unity under different degrees of pressure, but now, as the book stands, it is as authentic a record as could be wished of the workings of the Mosaic mind and of the minds of those of his followers who supported him in his pilgrimage, and who made so much of his task possible, as he in fact accomplished. Moses, himself, but for the irascibility of his temper, might have lived and died, contented and unknown, within the shadow of the Egyptian court. The princess who befriended him as a baby would probably have been true to him to the end, in which case he would have lived wealthy, contented, and happy and would have died overfed and unknown. Destiny, however, had planned it otherwise. The Hebrews were harshly treated after the death of Joseph, and fell into a quasi-bondage in which they were forced to labor, and this species of tyranny irritated Moses, who seems to have been brought up under his mother’s influence. At all events, one day Moses chanced to see an Egyptian beating a Jew, which must have been a common enough sight, but a sight which revolted him. Whereupon Moses, thinking himself alone, slew the Egyptian and hid his body in the sand. Moses, however, was not alone. A day or so later he again happened to see two men fighting, whereupon he again interfered, enjoining the one who was in the wrong to desist. Whereupon the man whom he checked turned fiercely on him and said, “Who made thee a prince and a judge over us? Intendest thou to kill me, as thou killedst the Egyptian?” When Moses perceived by this act of treachery on the part of a countryman, whom he had befriended, that nothing remained to him but flight, he started in the direction of southern Arabia, toward what was called the Land of Midian, and which, at the moment, seems to have lain beyond the limits of the Egyptian administrative system, although it had once been one of its most prized metallurgical regions. Just at that time it was occupied by a race called the Kenites, who were more or less closely related to the Amalekites, who were Bedouins and who relied for their living upon their flocks, as the Israelites had done in the time of Abraham. Although Arabia Patrea was then, in the main, a stony waste, as it is now, it was not quite a desert. It was crossed by trade routes in many directions along which merchants travelled to Egypt, as is described in the story of Joseph, whose brethren seized him in Dothan, and as they sat by the side of the pit in which they had thrown him, they saw a company of Ishmaelites who came from Gilead and who journeyed straight down from Damascus to Gilead and from thence to Hebron, along the old caravan road, toward Egypt, with camels bearing spices and myrrh, as had been their custom since long beyond human tradition, and which had been the road along which Abraham had travelled before them, and which was still watered by his wells. This was the famous track from Beersheba to Hebron, where Hagar was abandoned with her baby Ishmael, and if the experiences of Hagar do not prove that the wilderness of Shur was altogether impracticable for women and children it does at least show that for a mixed multitude without trustworthy guides or reliable sources of supply, the country was not one to be lightly attempted. It was into a region similar to this, only somewhat further to the south, that Moses penetrated after his homicide, travelling alone and as an unknown adventurer, dressed like an Egyptian, and having nothing of the nomad about him in his looks. As Moses approached Sinai, the country grew wilder and more lonely, and Moses one day sat himself down, by the side of a well whither shepherds were wont to drive their flocks to water. For shepherds came there, and also shepherdesses; among others were the seven daughters of Jethro, the priest of Midian, who came to water their father’s flocks. But the shepherds drove them away and took the water for themselves. Whereupon Moses defended the girls and drew water for them and watered their flocks. This naturally pleased the young women, and they took Moses home with them to their father’s tent, as Bedouins still would do. And when they came to their father, he asked how it chanced that they came home so early that day. “And they said, an Egyptian delivered us out of the hand of the shepherds, and also drew water enough for us, and watered the flock.” And Jethro said, “Where is he? Why is it that ye have left the man? Call him that he may eat bread.” “And Moses was content to dwell with” Jethro, who made him his chief shepherd and gave him Zipporah, his daughter. And she bore him a son. Seemingly, time passed rapidly and happily in this peaceful, pastoral life, which, according to the tradition preserved by Saint Stephen, lasted forty years, but be the time long or short, it is clear that Moses loved and respected Jethro and was in return valued by him. Nor could anything have been more natural, for Moses was a man who made a deep impression at first sight–an impression which time strengthened. Intellectually he must have been at least as notable as in personal appearance, for his education at Heliopolis set him apart from men whom Jethro would have been apt to meet in his nomad life. But if Moses had strong attractions for Jethro, Jethro drew Moses toward himself at least as strongly in the position in which Moses then stood. Jethro, though a child of the desert, was the chief of a tribe or at least of a family, a man used to command, and to administer the nomad law; for Jethro was the head of the Kenites, who were akin to the Amalekites, with whom the Israelites were destined to wage mortal war. And for Moses this was a most important connection, for Moses after his exile never permitted his relations with his own people in Egypt to lapse. The possibility of a Jewish revolt, of which his own banishment was a precursor, was constantly in his mind. To Moses a Jewish exodus from Egypt was always imminent. For centuries it had been a dream of the Jews. Indeed it was an article of faith with them. Joseph, as he sank in death, had called his descendants about him and made them solemnly swear to “carry his bones hence.” And to that end Joseph had caused his body to be embalmed and put in a coffin that all might be ready when the day came. Moses knew the tradition and felt himself bound by the oath and waited in Midian with confidence until the moment of performance should come. Presently it did come. Very probably before he either expected or could have wished it, and actually, as almost his first act of leadership, Moses did carry the bones of Joseph with him when he crossed the Red Sea. Moses held the tradition to be a certainty. He never conceived it to be a matter of possible doubt, nor probably was it so. There was in no one’s mind a question touching Joseph’s promise nor about his expectation of its fulfilment. What Moses did is related in Exodus XIII, 19: “And Moses took the bones of Joseph with him; for he had straitly sworn the children of Israel, saying, God will surely visit you; and ye shall carry up my bones away hence with you.” In fine, Moses, in the solitude of the Arabian wilderness, in his wanderings as the shepherd of Jethro, came to believe that his destiny was linked with that of his countrymen in a revolution which was certain to occur before they could accomplish the promise of Joseph and escape from Egypt under the guidance of the god who had befriended and protected him. Moreover, Moses was by no means exclusively a religious enthusiast. He was also a scientific man, after the ideas of that age. Moses had a high degree of education and he was familiar with the Egyptian and Chaldean theory of a great and omnipotent prime motor, who had had no beginning and should have no end. He was also aware that this theory was obscured by the intrusion into men’s minds of a multitude of lesser causes, in the shape of gods and demons, who mixed themselves in earthly affairs and on whose sympathy or malevolence the weal or woe of human life hinged. Pondering deeply on these things as he roamed, he persuaded himself that he had solved the riddle of the universe, by identifying the great first cause of all with the deity who had been known to his ancestors, whose normal home was in the promised land of Canaan, and who, beside being all-powerful, was also a moral being whose service must tend toward the welfare of mankind. For Moses was by temperament a moralist in whom such abominations as those practised in the worship of Moloch created horror. He knew that the god of Abraham would tolerate no such wickedness as this, because of the fate of Sodom on much less provocation, and he believed that were he to lead the Israelites, as he might lead them, he could propitiate such a deity, could he but by an initial success induce his congregation to obey the commands of a god strong enough to reward them for leading a life which should be acceptable to him. All depended, therefore, should the opportunity of leadership come to him, on his being able, in the first place, to satisfy himself that the god who presented himself to him was verily the god of Abraham, who burned Sodom, and not some demon, whose object was to vex mankind: and, in the second place, assuming that he himself were convinced of the identity of the god, that he could convince his countrymen of the fact, and also of the absolute necessity of obedience to the moral law which he should declare, since without absolute obedience, they would certainly merit, and probably suffer, such a fate as befell the inhabitants of Sodom, under the very eyes of Abraham, and in spite of his prayers for mercy. There was one other apprehension which may have troubled, and probably did trouble, Moses. The god of the primitive man, and certainly of the Bedouin, is usually a local deity whose power and whose activity is limited to some particular region, as, for instance, a mountain or a plain. Thus the god of Abraham might have inhabited and absolutely ruled the plain of Mamre and been impotent elsewhere. But this, had Moses for a moment harbored such a notion, would have been dispelled when he thought of Joseph. Joseph, when his brethren threw him into the pit, must have been under the guardianship of the god of his fathers, and when he was drawn out, and sold in the ordinary course of the slave-trade, he was bought by Potiphar, the captain of the guard. “And the Lord was with Joseph and he was a prosperous man.” Thenceforward, Joseph had a wonderful career. He received in a dream a revelation of what the weather was to be for seven years to come. And by this dream he was able to formulate a policy for establishing public graineries like those which were maintained in Babylon, and by means of these graineries, ably administered, the crown was enabled to acquire the estates of the great feudatories, and thus the whole social system of Egypt was changed. And Joseph, from being a poor waif, cast away by his brethren in the wilderness, became the foremost man in Egypt and the means of settling his compatriots in the province of Gotham, where they still lived when Moses fled from Egypt. Such facts had made a profound impression upon the mind of Moses, who very reasonably looked upon Joseph as one of the most wonderful men who had ever lived, and one who could not have succeeded as he succeeded, without the divine interposition. But if the god who did these things could work such miracles in Egypt, his power was not confined by local boundaries, and his power could be trusted in the desert as safely as it could be on the plain of Mamre or elsewhere. The burning of Sodom was a miracle equally in point to prove the stern morality of the god. And that also, was a fact, as incontestable, to the mind of Moses, as was the rising of the sun upon the morning of each day. He knew, as we know of the battle of Great Meadows, that one day his ancestor Abraham, when sitting in the door of his tent toward noon, “in the plain of Mamre,” at a spot not far from Hebron and perfectly familiar to every traveller along the old caravan road hither, on looking up observed three men standing before him, one of whom he recognized as the “Lord.” Then it dawned on Abraham that the “Lord” had not come without a purpose, but had dropped in for dinner, and Abraham ran to meet them, “and bowed himself toward the ground.” And he said, “Let a little water be fetched, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree: And I will fetch a morsel of bread, and comfort ye your hearts; after that you shall pass on.” “And Abraham ran unto the herd, and fetcht a calf tender and good, and gave it unto a young man; and he hasted to dress it. And he took butter, and milk, and the calf which he had dressed, and set it before them; and he stood by them under the tree, and they did eat.” Meanwhile, Abraham asked no questions, but waited until the object of the visit should be disclosed. In due time he succeeded in his purpose. “And they said unto him, Where is Sarah thy wife? And he said, Behold, in the tent. And he [the Lord] said, … Sarah thy wife shall have a son…. Now Abraham and Sarah were old, and well stricken in age.” At this time Abraham was about one hundred years old, according to the tradition, and Sarah was proportionately amused, and “laughed within herself.” This mirth vexed “the Lord,” who did not treat his words as a joke, but asked, “Is anything too hard for the Lord?” Then Sarah took refuge in a lie, and denied that she had laughed. But the lie helped her not at all, for the Lord insisted, “Nay, but thou didst laugh.” And this incident broke up the party. The men rose and “looked toward Sodom”: and Abraham strolled with them, to show them the way. And then the “Lord” debated with himself whether to make a confidant of Abraham touching his resolution to destroy Sodom utterly. And finally he decided that he would, “because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great and because their sin is very grievous.” Whereupon Abraham intervened, and an argument ensued, and at length God admitted that he had been too hasty and promised to think the matter over. And finally, when “the Lord” had reduced the number of righteous for whom the city should be saved to ten, Abraham allowed him to go “his way … and Abraham returned to his place.” In the evening of the same day two angels came to Sodom, who met Lot at the gate, and Lot took them to his house and made them a feast and they did eat. Then it happened that the mob surrounded Lot’s house and demanded that the strangers should be delivered up to them. But Lot successfully defended them. And in the morning the angels warned Lot to escape, but Lot hesitated, though finally he did escape to Zoar. “Then the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven.” “And Abraham gat up early in the morning to the place where he stood before the Lord: “And he looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the land of the plain, and beheld, and, lo, the smoke of the country went up as the smoke of a furnace.” We must always remember, in trying to reconstruct the past, that these traditions were not matters of possible doubt to Moses, or indeed to any Israelite. They were as well established facts to them as would be the record of volcanic eruptions now. Therefore it would not have astonished Moses more that the Lord should meet him on the slope of Horeb, than that the Lord should have met his ancestor Abraham on the plain of Mamre. Moses’ doubts and perplexities lay in another direction. Moses did not question, as did his great ancestress, that his god could do all he promised, if he had the will. His anxiety lay in his doubt as to God’s steadiness of purpose supposing he promised; and this doubt was increased by his lack of confidence in his own countrymen. The god of Abraham was a requiring deity with a high moral standard, and the Hebrews were at least in part somewhat akin to a horde of semi-barbarous nomads, much more likely to fall into offences resembling those of Sodom than to render obedience to a code which would strictly conform to the requirements which alone would ensure Moses support, supposing he accepted a task which, after all, without divine aid, might prove to be impossible to perform. When the proposition which Moses seems, more or less confidently, to have expected to be made to him by the Lord, came, it came very suddenly and very emphatically. “Now Moses kept the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian: and he led the flock to the backside of the desert, and came to the mountain of God, even to Horeb. “And the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush: and he looked, and, behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed.” And Moses, not, apparently, very much excited, said, “I will now turn aside, and see this great sight.” But God called unto him out of the midst of the bush, and said, “Moses, Moses.” And he said, “Here am I.” Then the voice commanded him to put off his shoes from off his feet, for the place he stood on was holy ground. “Moreover,” said the voice, “I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” And Moses hid his face; for he was afraid to look upon God. And the Lord said, “I have surely seen the affliction of my people … and have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters; for I know their sorrows. “And I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land unto a good land and a large, unto a land flowing with milk and honey; unto the place of the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perizzites…. “Come now, therefore, and I will send thee unto Pharaoh, that thou mayest bring forth my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt. And Moses said unto God, “Who am I, that I should go unto Pharaoh, and that I should bring forth the children of Israel out of Egypt?…” And Moses said unto God, “Behold, when I am come unto the children of Israel, and shall say unto them, The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you; and they shall say to me, What is his name? what shall I say unto them?” And God said unto Moses, “I am That I Am;” and he said, “Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I Am hath sent me unto you.” “And God said, moreover, unto Moses, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, The Lord God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath sent me unto you: this is my name forever, and this is my memorial unto all generations.” Then the denizen of the bush renewed his instructions and his promises, assuring Moses that he would bring him and his following out of the land of affliction of Egypt and into the land of the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Amorites, and others, unto a land flowing with milk and honey. In a word to Palestine. And he insisted to Moses that he should gain an entrance to Pharaoh, and that he should tell him that “the Lord God of the Hebrews hath met with us: and now let us go, we beseech thee, three days’ journey into the wilderness, that we may sacrifice to the Lord our God.” Also God did not pretend to Moses that the King of Egypt would forthwith let them go; whereupon he would work his wonders in Egypt and after that Pharaoh would let them go. Moreover, he promised, as an inducement to their avarice, that they should not go empty away, for that the Lord God would give the Hebrews favor in the sight of the Egyptians, “so that every woman should borrow of her neighbor, and of her that sojourneth in her house, jewels of silver, jewels of gold, and raiment,” and that they should spoil the Egyptians. But all this time God did not disclose his name; so Moses tried another way about. If he would not tell his name he might at least enable Moses to work some wonder which should bring conviction to those who saw it, even if the god remained nameless. For Moses appreciated the difficulty of the mission suggested to him. How was he, a stranger in Egypt, to gain the confidence of that mixed and helpless multitude, whom he was trying to persuade to trust to his guidance in so apparently desperate an enterprise as crossing a broad and waterless waste, in the face of a well-armed and vigorous foe. Moses apprehended that there was but one way in which he could by possibility succeed. He might prevail by convincing the Israelites that he was commissioned by the one deity whom they knew, who was likely to have both the will and the power to aid them, and that was the god who had visited Abraham on the plain of Mamre, who had destroyed Sodom for its iniquity, and who had helped Joseph to become the ruler of Egypt. Joseph above all was the man who had made to his descendants that solemn promise on whose faith Moses was, at that very moment, basing his hopes of deliverance; for Joseph had assured the Israelites in the most solemn manner that the god who had aided him would surely visit them, and that they should carry his bones away with them to the land he promised. That land was the land to which Moses wished to guide them. Now Moses was fully determined to attempt no such project as this unless the being who spoke from the bush would first prove to him, Moses, that he was the god he purported to be, and should beside give Moses credentials which should be convincing, by which Moses could prove to the Jews in Egypt that he was no impostor himself, nor had he been deceived by a demon. Therefore Moses went on objecting as strongly as at first: “And Moses answered and said, But behold they will not believe me, nor hearken to my voice; for they will say, the Lord hath not appeared unto thee.” Then the being in the bush proceeded to submit his method of proof, which was of a truth feeble, and which Moses rejected as feeble. A form of proof which never fully convinced him, and which, in his judgment could not be expected to convince others, especially men so educated and intelligent as the Egyptians. For the Lord had nothing better to suggest than the ancient trick of the snake-charmer, and even the possessor of the voice seems implicitly to have admitted that this could hardly be advanced as a convincing miracle. So the Lord proposed two other tests: the first was that Moses should have his hand smitten with leprous sores and restored immediately by hiding it from sight in “his bosom.” And in the event that this test left his audience still sceptical, he was to dip Nile water out of the river, and turn it into blood on land. Moses at all these three proposals remained cold as before. And with good reason, for Moses had been educated as a priest in Egypt, and he knew that Egyptian “wise men” could do as well, and even better, if it came to a magical competition before Pharaoh. And Moses had evidently no relish for a contest in the presence of his countrymen as to the relative quality of his magic. Therefore, he objected once more on another ground: “I am not eloquent, neither heretofore nor since thou hast spoken unto thy servant: but I am slow of speech, and of a slow tongue.” This continued hesitancy put the Lord out of patience; who retorted sharply, “Who hath made man’s mouth? or who maketh the dumb, or deaf, or the seeing, or the blind? Have not I the Lord? “Now therefore go, and I will be with thy mouth, and teach thee what thou shalt say.” Then Moses made his last effort. “0 my Lord, send, I pray thee, by the hand of him whom thou wilt send.” Which was another way of saying, Send whom you please, but leave me to tend Jethro’s flock in Midian. “And the anger of the Lord was kindled against Moses; and he said, Is not Aaron the Levite thy brother? I know that he can speak well. And also, behold, he cometh forth to meet thee; and when he seeth thee, he will be glad in his heart. “And he shall be, … to thee instead of a mouth, and thou shalt be to him instead of God.” Then Moses, not seeming to care very much what Aaron might think about the matter, went to Jethro, and related what had happened to him on the mountain, and asked for leave to go home to Egypt, and see how matters stood there. And Jethro listened, and seems to have thought the experiment worth trying, for he answered, “Go in peace.” “And the Lord said unto Moses,”–but where is not stated, probably in Midian,–“Go, return into Egypt,” which you may do safely, for all the men are dead which sought thy life. “And Moses took his wife and his sons, and set them upon an ass, and he returned to the land of Egypt. And Moses took the rod of God in his hand.” It was after this, apparently, that Aaron travelled to meet Moses in Midian, and Moses told Aaron what had occurred, and performed his tests, and, seemingly, convinced him; for then Moses and Aaron went together into Egypt and called the elders of the children of Israel together, “and did the signs in the sight of the people. And the people believed: and … bowed their heads and worshipped.” Meanwhile God had not, as yet, revealed his name. But as presently matters came to a crisis between Moses and Pharaoh, he did so. He said to Moses, “I am the Lord: “I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, by the name of God Almighty; but by my name Jehovah was I not known to them…. “Wherefore say unto the children of Israel, I am the Lord…. And I will bring you in unto the land, concerning the which I did swear to give it to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob; and I will give it you for an heritage: I am the Lord. “And Moses spake so unto the children of Israel: but they hearkened not unto Moses, for anguish of spirit, and for cruel bondage…. “And Moses spake before the Lord, saying, Behold the children of Israel have not hearkened unto me; how then shall Pharaoh hear me?” And from this form of complaint against his countrymen until his death Moses never ceased. Certain modern critics have persuaded themselves to reject this whole Biblical narrative as the product of a later age and of a maturer civilization, contending that it would be childish to attribute the reasoning of the Pentateuch to primitive Bedouins like the patriarchs or like the Jews who followed Moses into the desert. Setting aside at once the philological discussion as to whether the language of the Pentateuch could have been used by Moses, and admitting for the sake of argument that Moses did not either himself write, or dictate to another, any part of the documents in question, it would seem that the application of a little common sense would show pretty conclusively that Moses throughout his whole administrative life acted upon a single scientific theory of the application of a supreme energy to the affairs of life, and upon the belief that he had discovered what that energy was and understood how to control it. His syllogism amounted to this: Facts, which are admitted by all Hebrews, prove that the single dominant power in the world is the being who revealed himself to our ancestors, and who, in particular, guided Joseph into Egypt, protected him there, and raised him to an eminence never before or since reached by a Jew. It can also be proved, by incontrovertible facts, that this being is a moral being, who can be placated by obedience and by attaining to a certain moral standard in life, and by no other means. That this standard has been disclosed to me, I can prove to you by sundry miraculous signs. Therefore, be obedient and obey the law which I shall promulgate “that ye may prosper in all that ye do.” Indeed, the philosophy of Moses was of the sternly practical kind, resembling that of Benjamin Franklin. He did not promise his people, as did the Egyptians, felicity in a future life. He confined himself to prosperity in this world. And to succeed in his end he set an attainable standard. A standard no higher, certainly than that accepted by the Egyptians, as it is set forth in the 125th chapter of the Book of the Dead, a standard to which the soul of any dead man had to attain before he could be admitted into Paradise. Nor did Moses, as Dr. Budde among others assumes, have to deal with a tribe of fierce and barbarous Bedouins, like the Amalekites, to whom indeed the Hebrews were antagonistic and with whom they waged incessant war. The Jews, for the most part, differed widely from such barbarians. They had become sedentary at the time of the exodus, whatever they may have been when Abraham migrated from Babylon. They were accustomed in Egypt to living in houses, they cultivated and cooked the cereals, and they fed on vegetables and bread. They did not live on flesh and milk as do the Bedouins; and, indeed, the chief difficulty Moses encountered in the exodus was the ignorance of his followers of the habits of desert life, and their dislike of desert fare. They were forever pining for the delights of civilization. “Would to God we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we eat by the flesh-pots, and when we did eat bread to the full! for ye have brought us forth into this wilderness, to kill this whole assembly with hunger.” [Footnote: Ex. XVI, 3.] “We remember the fish, which we did eat in Egypt freely; the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlick.” These were the wants of sedentary and of civilized folk, not of barbarous nomads who are content with goat’s flesh and milk. And so it was with their morality and their conceptions of law. Moses was, indeed, a highly civilized and highly educated man. No one would probably pretend that Moses represented the average Jew of the exodus, but Moses understood his audience reasonably well, and would not have risked the success of his whole experiment by preaching to them a doctrine which was altogether beyond their understanding. If he told them that the favor of God could only be gained by obeying the laws he taught, it was because he thought such an appeal would be effective with a majority of them. Dr. Budde, who is a good example of the modern hypercritical school, takes very nearly the opposite ground. His theory is that Moses was in search of a war god, and that he discovered such a god, in the god of the Bedouin tribe of the Kenites whose acquaintance he first made when dwelling with his father-in-law Jethro at Sinai. The morality of such a god he insists coincided with the morality which Moses may have at times countenanced, but which was quite foreign to the spirit of the decalogue. Doubtless this is, in a degree, true. The religion of the pure Bedouin was very often crude and shocking, not to say disgusting. But to argue thus is to ignore the fact that all Bedouins did not, in the age of Moses, stand on the same intellectual or moral level, and it is also to ignore the gap that separated Moses and his congregation intellectually and morally from such Bedouins as the Amalekites. Dr. Budde, in his Religion of Israel to the Exile, insists that the Kenite god, Jehovah, demanded “The sacred ban by which conquered cities with all their living beings were devoted to destruction, the slaughter of human beings at sacred spots, animal sacrifices at which the entire animal, wholly or half raw, was devoured, without leaving a remnant, between sunset and sunrise,–these phenomena and many others of the same kind harmonise but ill with an aspiring ethical religion.” He also goes on to say: “We are further referred to the legislation of Moses, … comprising civil and criminal, ceremonial and ecclesiastical, moral and social law in varying compass. This legislation, however, cannot have come from Moses…. Such legislation can only have arisen after Israel had lived a long time in the new home.” To take these arguments in order,–for they must be so dealt with to develop any reasonable theory of the Mosaic philosophy,–Moses, doubtless, was a ruthless conqueror, as his dealings with Sihon and Og sufficiently prove. “So the Lord our God delivered into our hands Og also, the king of Bashan, and all his people: and we smote him until none was left to him remaining…. “And we utterly destroyed them, as we did unto Sihon, king of Heshbon, utterly destroying the men, women, and children of every city.” [Footnote: Deut. III, 3-6.] There is nothing extraordinary, or essentially barbarous, in this attitude of Moses. The same theory of duty or convenience has been held in every age and in every land, by men of the ecclesiastical temperament, at the very moment at which the extremest doctrines of charity, mercy, and love were practised by their contemporaries, or even preached by themselves. For example: At the beginning of the thirteenth century the two great convents of Cluny and Citeau, together, formed the heart of monasticism, and Cluny and Citeau were two of the richest and most powerful corporations in the world, while the south of France had become, by reason of the eastern trade, the wealthiest and most intelligent district in Europe. It suffices to say here that, just about this time, the people of Languedoc had made up their minds, because of the failure of the Crusades, the cost of such magnificent establishments was not justified by their results, and accordingly Count Raymond of Toulouse, in sympathy with his subjects, did seriously contemplate secularization. To the abbots of these great convents, it was clear that if this movement spread across the Rhone into Burgundy, the Church would face losses which they could not contemplate with equanimity. At this period one Arnold was Abbot of Citeau, universally recognized as perhaps the ablest and certainly one of the most unscrupulous men in Europe. Hence the crusade against the Albigenses which Simon de Montfort commanded and Arnold conducted. Arnold’s first exploit was the sack of the undefended town of Béziers, where he slaughtered twenty thousand men, women, and children, without distinction of religious belief. When asked whether the orthodox might not at least be spared, he replied, “Kill them all; God knows his own.” This sack of Béziers occurred in 1209. Exactly contemporaneously Saint Francis of Assisi was organizing his order whose purpose was to realize Christ’s kingdom upon earth, by the renunciation of worldly wealth and by the practice of poverty, humility, and obedience. Soon after, Arnold was created Archbishop of Narbonne and became probably the greatest and richest prelate in France, or in the world. This was in 1225. In 1226 the first friars settled in England. They multiplied rapidly because of their rigorous discipline. Soon there were to be found among them some of the most eminent men in England. Their chief house stood in London in a spot called Stinking Lane, near the Shambles in Newgate, and there, amidst poverty, hunger, cold, and filth, these men passed their lives in nursing horrible lepers, so loathsome that they were rejected by all but themselves, while Arnold lived in magnificence in his palace, upon the spoil of those whom he had immolated to his greed. In the case of Moses the contrast between precept and practice in the race for wealth and fortune was not nearly so violent. Moses, it is true, according to Leviticus, declared it to be the will of the Lord that the Israelites should love their neighbors as themselves, [Footnote: Lev. XIX, 18.] while on the other hand in Deuteronomy he insisted that obedience was the chief end of life, and that if the Israelites were to thoroughly obey the Lord’s behests, they were to “consume all the people which the Lord thy God shall deliver thee; thine eye shall have no pity upon them: neither” should thou serve their gods, “for the Lord thy God is a jealous God.” [Footnote: Deut. VII, 16.] And the penalty for slackness was “lest the anger of the Lord thy God be kindled against thee, and destroy thee from off the face of the earth.” [Footnote: Deut. VI, 15.] There is, nevertheless, this much to be said in favor of the morality of Moses as contrasted with that of thirteenth-century orthodox Christians like Arnold; Moses led a crusade against a foreign and hostile people, while Arnold slaughtered the Albigenses, who were his own flock, sheep to whom he was the shepherd, communicants in his own church, and worshippers of the God whom he served. What concerns us, however, is that the same stimulant animated Moses and Arnold alike. The stimulant, pure and simple, of greed. On these points Moses was as outspokenly, one may say as brutally, frank as was Arnold. In the desert Moses commanded his followers to exterminate the inhabitants of the kingdom of Bashan in order that they might appropriate their possessions, which he enumerated, and Moses had no other argument to urge but the profitableness of it by which to secure obedience to his moral law. Arnold stood on precisely the same platform. He did not accuse Count Raymond of heresy or any other crime, nor did Pope Innocent III consider Raymond as morally guilty of a criminal offence, or worthy of punishment. Indeed, the pope would have protected the Count had it been possible, and summoned him before the Fourth Lateran Council for that purpose. But Arnold told his audience that were Raymond allowed to escape there would be an end of the Catholic faith in France. Or, in other words, monastic property would be secularized. Perhaps he was right. At all events, this argument prevailed, and Raymond and his family and people were sacrificed. Moses promised his congregation that, if they would spare nothing they should enjoy abundance of good things, without working for them. He was much more pitiless than such a man as King David thought it necessary to be, but Moses was not a soldier like David. He could not promise to win victories himself, he could but promise what he had in hand, and that was the spoil of those they massacred. Moses never had but one appeal to make for obedience, one incentive to offer to obey. In this he was perfectly honest and perfectly logical. His congregation and he, finding Egypt untenable, were engaged in a common land speculation to improve their condition; a speculation in which Moses believed, but which could only be brought to a successful end by obtaining control of the dominant energy of the world. This energy, he held, could be handled by no one but himself, and then only in case those who acted with him were absolutely obedient to his commands, which, taken together, were equivalent to a magical exorcism or spell. Then only could they hope that the Lord of Abraham and Isaac would give them “great and goodly cities, which thou buildedst not, And houses full of all good things, which thou filledst not, and wells digged, which thou diggedst not, vineyards and olive trees, which thou plantedst not.” [Footnote: Deut. VI, 10, 11.] Very obviously, if the theory which Moses propounded were sound the assets which he offered as an inducement for docility could be obtained, at so cheap a rate, in no other way. All Moses’ moral teaching amounted, therefore, to this–“It pays to be obedient and good.” No argument could have been better adapted to Babylonish society, and it seems to have answered nearly as well with the Israelites, which proves that they stood on nearly the same intellectual plane. The chief difficulty with which Moses had to contend was that his countrymen did not thoroughly believe in him, nor in the efficacy of his motor. They always were tempted to try experiments with other motors which were operated by other prophets and by other peoples who were, apparently, as prosperous as they, or even more so. His trouble was not that his followers were nomads unprepared for a sedentary life or a moral law like his, or unable to appreciate the value of the property of a people further advanced in civilization than they were. The Amalekites would have responded to no such system of bribery as Moses offered the Israelites, who did respond with intelligence, if not always with enthusiasm. The same is true of the Mosaic legislation which Dr. Budde curtly dismisses as impossible to have come from Moses, [Footnote: Religion of Israel to the Exile, 31.] as presupposing a knowledge of a settled agricultural life, which “Israel did not reach until after Moses’ death.” All this is an assumption of fact unsupported by evidence; but quite the contrary, as we can see by an examination of the law in question. Whatever may have been the date of the establishment of the cities of refuge, I suppose that it will not be seriously denied that the law of the covenant as laid down in Exodus XX, 1, Numbers XXXV, 6, is at least as old as the age of Moses, in principle, if not in words; and this legal principle is quite inconsistent with, if not directly antagonistic to, all the prejudices and regulations, moral, religious, or civil, of a pure nomadic society, since it presupposes a social condition which, if adopted, would be fatal to a nomad society. The true nomad knows no criminal law save the law of the blood feud, which is the law of revenge, and which prevailed among the Hebrews much earlier. In the early Saxon law it was expressed by the apothegm “Factum reputabitur pro volunte.” The act implies the intent. That is to say, the tribe is an enlarged family who, since they have no collective system of sovereignty which gives them common protection by an organized police, and courts with power to enforce process, have no option but to protect each other. Therefore, it is incumbent on each member of the tribe or family to avenge an injury to any other member, whether the injury be accidental or otherwise; and to be himself the judge of what amounts to an injury. Such a condition prevailed among the Hebrews at a very early period; “And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them: … at the hand of every man’s brother will I require the life of man. Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed.” [Footnote: Gen. IX, 1, 5, 6.] These customs and the type of thought which sustain them are very tenacious and change slowly. Moses could not have altered the nomadic customs of thought and of blood revenge, had he tried, more than could Canute. It would have been impossible. The advent of a civilized conception of the law is the work of centuries as the history of England proves. We know not how long ago it was that the law of the blood feud was fully recognized in England, but it had already been shaken at the conquest, and its death-blow was given it by the Church, which had begun to tire of the responsibility entailed by the trial by ordeal or miracle, and the obloquy which it involved, at a relatively early date. For the purposes of the Church and the uses of confession it was more convenient to regard crime or tort, as did the Romans; as a mental condition, dependent altogether upon the state of the mind or “animus.” Malice in the eye of the Church was the virus which poisoned the otherwise innocent act, and made the thought alone punishable. Indeed, this conception is one which has not yet been completely established even in the modern law. The first signs of such a revolution in jurisprudence only began to appear in England some seven centuries ago. As Mr. Maitland has observed in his History of English Law, [Footnote: Vol. II, 476.] “We receive a shock of surprise when we meet with a maxim which has troubled our modern lawyers, namely, Reum nonfacit nisi mens rea, in the middle of the Leges Henrici.” That is to say somewhere about the year 1118 A.D. This maxim was taken bodily out of a sermon of Saint Augustine, which accounts for it, but at that time the Church had another process to suggest by which she asserted her authority. She threw the responsibility for detecting guilt, in cases of doubt, upon God. By the ordeal, if a homicide, for example, were committed, and the accused denied his guilt, he was summoned to appear, and then, after a solemn reference to God by the ecclesiastics in charge, he was caused either to carry a red-hot iron bar a certain distance or to plunge his arms in boiling water. If he were found, after a certain length of time, during which his arms were bandaged, to have been injured, he was held to have been guilty. If he had escaped unhurt he was innocent. Gradually, however, the ordeal began to fall into ridicule. William Rufus gibed at it, for of fifty men sent to the ordeal of iron, under the sacred charge of the clerks, all escaped, which certainly, as Mr. Maitland intimates, looks as if the officiating ecclesiastics had an interest in the result. [Footnote: History of English Law, II, 599, note 2.] At length, by the Lateran Council of 1215, the Church put an end to the institution, but long afterward it found its upholders. For example, the Mirror, written in the reign of Edward I (circa 1285) complained, “It is an abuse that proofs and compurgations be not by the miracle of God where other proof faileth.” Nor was the principle that “attempts” to commit indictable offences are crimes, established as law, until at least the time of the Star Chamber, before its abolition in the seventeenth century. Though doubtless it is the law to-day. [Footnote: Stephen, Digest of the Criminal Law, 192.] And this, although the means used may have been impossible. Moreover, the doctrine is still in process of enlargement. Very convincing conclusions may be drawn from these facts. The subject is obscure and difficult, but if the inception of the process of breaking down the right of enforcing the blood feud be fixed provisionally toward the middle of the tenth century,–and this date is early enough,–the movement of thought cannot be said to have attained anything like ultimate results before at least the year 1321 when a case is cited wherein a man was held guilty because he had attempted to kill his master, and the “volunias in isto casu reputabitur pro facto.” Measuring by this standard five hundred years is a short enough period to estimate the time necessary for a community to pass from the stage when the blood feud is recognized as unquestioned law, to the status involved in the administration of the cities of refuge, for in these cities not only the mental condition is provided for as a legitimate defence, but the defence of negligence is made admissible in a secular court. “These six cities shall be a refuge, both for the children of Israel, and for the stranger, and for the sojourner among them; that every one that killeth any person unawares may flee thither…. “If he thrust him of hatred, or hurl at him by laying of wait that he die; “Or in enmity smite him with his hand, that he die: he that smote him shall surely be put to death; for he is a murderer: the revenger of blood shall slay the murderer, when he meeteth him. “But if he thrust him suddenly without enmity, or have cast upon him anything without laying of wait, “Or with any stone, wherewith a man may die, seeing him not, and cast it upon him, that he die, and was not his enemy, neither sought his harm: “Then the congregation shall judge between the slayer and the revenger of blood according to these judgments: “And the congregation shall deliver the slayer out of the hand of the revenger of blood, and the congregation shall restore him to the city of his refuge, whither he was fled.”… [Footnote: Numbers XXXV, 15, 20-25.] Here we have a defendant in a case of homicide setting up the defence that the killing happened through an accident, but an accident not caused by criminal negligence, and this defence is to be tried by the congregation, which is tantamount to trial by jury. It is not left to God, under the oversight of the Church; and this is precisely our own system at the present day. We now come to the inferences to be drawn from these facts. Supposing that the Israelites when they migrated to Egypt, in the time of Joseph, were in the condition of pure nomads among whom the blood feud was fully recognized as law, an interval of four or five hundred years, such as they are supposed to have passed in Goshen would bring them to the exodus. Now, assuming that the Israelites during those four centuries, when they lived among civilized neighbors and under civilized law, made an intellectual movement corresponding in velocity to the movement the English made after the conquest, they would have been, about the time when the cities of refuge were created, in the position described in Numbers, which is what we should expect assuming the Biblical tradition to be true. To us the important question is not whether a certain piece of the supposed Mosaic legislation actually went into effect during the life of Moses, for that is relatively immaterial, but whether the Biblical narrative is, on the whole, worthy of credence, and this correlation of dates gives the strongest possible evidence in its favor. Very possibly, perhaps it may even be said certainly, the order in which events occurred may have been transposed, but, taken as a whole, it is impossible to resist the inference that the Bible story is excellent history and that, due allowance being made for the prejudice of the various scribes who wrote the Pentateuch in favor of the miraculous, where Moses was concerned, the Biblical record is good and trustworthy history, and frank at that;–much superior to quantities of modern documents which we accept without question. Of all the achievements of Moses’ life none equals the exodus itself, either in brilliancy or success. How it was possible for Moses, with the assistance he had at command, to marshal and move a column of a million or a million and a half of men, women, and children, without discipline or cohesion, and encumbered with their baggage, beside their cattle, is an insoluble mystery. “And the children of Israel did according to the word of Moses; and they borrowed of the Egyptians jewels of silver, and jewels of gold, and raiment: … And they spoiled the Egyptians. And the children of Israel journeyed from Ramses to Succoth, about six hundred thousand on foot that were men, beside children. And a mixed multitude went up also with them; and flocks and herds, even very much cattle.” They started from Ramses and Succoth. The position of Ramses has been identified; that of Succoth is more questionable. Ramses and Pithom were fortified places, built by the Israelites for Ramses II, of the Nineteenth Dynasty, but apparently Succoth was the last halting-place before coming to the difficult ground which was overflowed by the sea. The crossing was made at night, but it is hard to understand how, even under the most favorable conditions of weather, such a vast and confused multitude of women and children could have made the march in darkness with an active enemy pursuing, without loss of life or material. Indeed, even at that day the movement seemed to the actors so unparalleled that it always passed for a miracle, and its perfect success gave Moses more reputation with the Israelites and more practical influence over them than anything else he ever did, or indeed than all his other works together. “And Israel saw that great work which the Lord did upon the Egyptians: and the people feared the Lord and believed the Lord and his servant Moses.” “And Miriam, the prophetess, the sister of Aaron; and all the women went after her with timbrels and with dances.” Now Miriam was in general none too loyal a follower of her younger brother, but that day, or rather night, she did proclaim Moses as a conqueror; which was a great concession from her, and meant much. And Moses exulted openly, as he had good cause to do, and gave vent to his exultation in a song which tradition has ever since attributed to him, and has asserted to have been sung by him and his congregation as they stood by the shore of the sea and watched the corpses of the Egyptians lying in the sand. And, if ever man had, Moses then had, cause for exultation, for he had seemingly proved by the test of war, which is the ultimate test to which a man can subject such a theory as his, that he had indeed discovered the motor which he sought, and, more important still, that he knew how to handle it. Therefore, he was master of supreme energy and held his right to command by the title of conquest. This was the culminating moment of his life; he never again reached such exaltation. From this moment his slow and gradual decline began. And, indeed, great as had been the momentary success of Moses, his position was one of extreme difficulty, and probably he so understood it, otherwise there would be no way to account for his choosing the long, difficult, and perilous journey by Sinai, instead of approaching the “Promised Land” directly by way of Kadesh-Barnea, which was, in any event, to be his ultimate objective. It may well have been because Moses felt himself unable alone to cope with the difficulties confronting him that he decided at any cost to seek Jethro in Midian, who seems to have been the only able, honest, and experienced man within reach. Joshua, indeed, might be held to be an exception to this generalization, but Joshua, though a good soldier, was a man of somewhat narrow understanding, and quite unfit to grapple with questions involving jurisprudence and financial topography. And at this juncture Moses must have felt his own deficiencies keenly. As a captain he made no pretence to efficiency. The Amalekites were, as he well knew, at this moment lying in wait for him, and forthwith he recognized that he had no alternative but to retire into the background himself and surrender the active command of the army to Joshua, a fatal concession had Joshua been ambitious or unscrupulous. And this was but the beginning. Before he could occupy Palestine he had to encounter and overcome numbers of equally formidable foes, a defeat by any one of whom might well be fatal. A man like Jethro, therefore, would be invaluable in guiding the caravan to spots favorable for action, from whence retreat to a place of safety would be open in case of a check. A reverse which happened on a later occasion gave Moses a shock he never forgot. Furthermore, though Moses lived many years with Jethro, as his chief servant, he never seems to have travelled extensively in Arabia, and to have been ignorant of the chief trade routes along which wells were dug, and of the oases where pasture was to be found; so that Moses was nearly worthless as a guide, and this was a species of knowledge in which Jethro, according to Moses’ own statement, excelled. Meanwhile, the lives of all his followers depended on such knowledge. And Moses, when he reached Sinai, left no stone unturned to overcome Jethro’s reluctance to join him and to instruct him on the march north. More important and pressing than all, Moses was ignorant of how, practically, to administer the law which he taught. His only idea was to do all in person, but this, with so large a following, was impossible. And here also his hope lay in Jethro. For when he got to Sinai, and Jethro remonstrated with him upon his methods, pointing out that they were impracticable, all Moses had to say in reply was that he sat all day to hear disputes and “I judge between one and another; and I do make them know the statutes of God, and his laws.” Further than this he had nothing to propose. It was Jethro who explained to him a constructive policy. On the whole, upon this analysis, it appears that in all those executive departments in which Moses, by stress of the responsibilities which he had assumed, was called upon, imperatively, to act, there was but one, that of the magician or wise man, in which, by temperament and training, he was fitted to excel, and the functions of this profession drove him into to intolerably irksome and distressing position, yet a position from which throughout his life he found it impossible to escape. No one who attentively weighs the evidence can, I apprehend, escape the conviction that Moses was at bottom an honest man who would have conformed to the moral law he laid down in the name of the Lord had it been possible for him to do so. Among these precepts none ranked higher than a regard for truth and honesty. “Ye shall not steal, neither deal falsely, neither lie one to another.” [Footnote: Leviticus XIX, 11.] And this text is but one example of a general drift of thought. Whether these particular words of Leviticus, or any similar phrases, were ever used by Moses is immaterial. No one can doubt that, in substance, they contained the gist of his moral doctrine and that he enforced the moral duty which they convey to the best of his power. And here the burden lay, which crushed this man, from which he never thenceforward could, even for an instant, free himself, and which Saint Paul avers to be the heaviest burden man can bear. Moses, to fulfil what he conceived to be his destiny and which at least certainly was his ambition, was condemned to lead a life of deceit and to utter no word during his long subsequent march which was not positively or inferentially a lie. And the bitterest of his trials must have been the agony of anxiety in which he must have lived lest some error in judgment on his part, some slackness in measuring the exact credulity of his audience, should cause his exposure and lead to his being cast out of the camp as an impostor and hunted to death as a false prophet: a fate which more than once nearly overtook him. Indeed, as he aged and his nerves lost their elasticity under the tension, he became obsessed with the fixed idea that God had renounced him and that some horror would overtake him should he attempt to cross the Jordan and enter the “Promised Land.” Defeated at Hormah, he dared not face another such check and, therefore, dawdled away his time in the wilderness until further dawdling became impossible. Then followed his mental collapse which is told in Deuteronomy, together with his suicide on Mount Nebo. And thus he died because he could not gratify at once his lust for power and his instinct to live an honest man. CHAPTER II. The interval during which Moses led the exodus falls, naturally, into three parts of unequal length. The first consists of the months which elapsed between the departure from Ramses and the arrival at Sinai. The second comprises the halt at Sinai, while the third contains the story of the rest of his life, ending with Mount Nebo. His trials began forthwith. The march was hardly a week old before the column was in quasi-revolt because he had known so little of the country, that he had led the caravan three days through a waterless wilderness where they feared to perish from thirst. And matters grew steadily worse. At Rephidim, “And the people murmured against Moses, and said, Wherefore is this that thou hast brought us up out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and our cattle with thirst?” Not impossibly Moses may still, at this stage of his experiences, have believed in himself, in the God he pretended to serve, and in his mission. At least he made a feint of so doing. Indeed, he had to. Not to have done so would have caused his instant downfall. He always had to do so, in every emergency of his life. A few days later he was at his wits’ end. He cried unto the Lord, “What shall I do unto this people? They be almost ready to stone me.” In short, long before the congregation reached Sinai, and indeed before Moses had fought his first battle with Amalek, the people had come to disbelieve in Moses and also to question whether there was such a god as he pretended. “And he called the name of the place Massah, and Meribah, because of the chiding of the children of Israel, and because they tempted the Lord, saying, Is the Lord among us, or not?” “Then came Amalek, and fought with Israel in Rephidim.” [Footnote: Exodus xvii, 7, 8.] Under such conditions it was vital to Moses to show resolution and courage; but it was here that Moses, on the contrary, flinched; as he usually did flinch when it came to war, for Moses was no soldier. “And Moses said unto Joshua, Choose us out men and go out, fight with Amalek: to-morrow I will stand on the top of the hill with the rod of God in mine hand.” And Moses actually had the assurance to do as he proposed, nor did he even have the endurance to stand. He made Aaron and Hur fetch a stone on which he should sit and then hold up his hands for him, pretending the while that when Moses held up his hands the Hebrews prevailed and when he lowered them Amalek prevailed. Notwithstanding, Joshua won a victory. But it may readily be believed that this performance of his functions as a captain, did little to strengthen the credit of Moses among the fighting men. Nor evidently was Moses satisfied with the figure that he cut, nor was he confident that Joshua approved of him, for the Lord directed Moses to make excuses, promising to do better the next time, by assuring Joshua that “I will utterly put out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven.” This was the best apology Moses could make for his weakness. However, the time had now come when Moses was to realize his plan of meeting Jethro. “And Jethro … came with his sons and his wife unto Moses into the wilderness, where he encamped at the mount of God: … And Moses went out to meet his father-in-law, and did obeisance, and kissed him; and they asked each other of their welfare; and they came into the tent. “And Moses told his father-in-law all that the Lord had done unto Pharaoh and to the Egyptians for Israel’s sake, and all the travail that had come upon them by the way, and how the Lord had delivered them…. “And Jethro said, Blessed be the Lord, who hath delivered you out of the hand of the Egyptians…. Now I know that the Lord is greater than all gods…. And Aaron came, and all the elders of Israel, to eat bread with Moses’ father-in-law before God.” It is from all this very plain that Jethro had a controlling influence over Moses, and was the proximate cause of much that followed. For the next morning Moses, as was his custom, “sat to judge the people: and the people stood by Moses from the morning unto the evening.” And when Jethro saw how Moses proceeded he remonstrated, “Why sittest thou thyself alone, and all the people stand by thee from morning unto even?” And Moses replied: “Because the people come unto me to enquire of God.” And Jethro protested, saying “The thing thou doest is not good. Thou wilt surely wear away, both thou and this people that is with thee: for this thing is too heavy for thee; thou art not able to perform it thyself alone. “Hearken, … I will give thee counsel, and God shall be with thee; Be thou for the people to God-ward, that thou mayest bring the causes unto God.” Then it was that Moses perceived that he must have a divinely promulgated code. Accordingly, Moses made his preparations for a great dramatic effect, and it is hard to see how he could have made them better. For, whatever failings he may have had in his other capacities as a leader, he understood his part as a magician. He told the people to be ready on the third day, for on the third day the Lord would come down in the sight of all upon Mount Sinai. But, “Take heed to yourselves that ye go not up into the mount, or touch the border of it: whosoever toucheth the mount shall be surely put to death: “There shall not an hand touch it, but he shall surely be stoned or shot through; whether it be beast or man, it shall not live: when the trumpet soundeth long, they shall come up to the mount.” It must be admitted that Moses either had wonderful luck, or that he had wonderful judgment in weather, for, as it happened in the passage of the Red Sea, so it happened here. At the Red Sea he was aided by a gale of wind which coincided with a low tide and made the passage practicable, and at Sinai he had a thunder-storm. “And it came to pass on the third day, in the morning, that there were thunders and lightnings, and a thick cloud upon the mount, and the voice of the trumpet exceeding loud; so that all the people that was in the camp trembled.” Moses had undoubtedly sent some thoroughly trustworthy person, probably Joshua, up the mountain to blow a ram’s horn and to light a bonfire, and the effect seems to have been excellent. “And Mount Sinai was altogether on a smoke, because the Lord descended upon it in fire: and the smoke thereof ascended as the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mount quaked greatly. “And when the voice of the trumpet sounded long, and waxed louder and louder, Moses spake, and God answered him by a voice. “And the Lord came down upon Mount Sinai, on the top of the mount; and the Lord called Moses up to the top of the mount; and Moses went up.” And the first thing that Moses did on behalf of the Lord was to “charge the people, lest they break through unto the Lord to gaze, and many of them perish.” And Moses replied to God’s enquiry, “The people cannot come up to Mount Sinai: for thou chargedst us, saying, Set bounds about the mount. “And the Lord said unto him, Away, get thee down, and thou shalt come up, thou, and Aaron with thee: but let not the priests and the people break through to come up unto the Lord, lest he break forth upon them. “So Moses went down unto the people, and spake unto them.” Whether the decalogue, as we know it, was a code of law actually delivered upon Sinai, which German critics very much dispute as being inconsistent with the stage of civilization at which the Israelites had arrived, but which is altogether kindred to the Babylonish law with which Moses was familiar, is immaterial for the present purpose. What is essential is that beside the decalogue itself there is a considerable body of law chiefly concerned with the position of servants or slaves, the difference between assaults or torts committed with or without malice, theft, trespass, and the regulation of the lex talionis. There are beside a variety of other matters touched upon all of which may be found in the 21st, 22d, and 23d chapters of Exodus. Up to this point in his show Moses had behaved with discretion and had obtained a complete success. The next day he went on to demand an acceptance of his code, which he prepared to submit in form. But as a preliminary he made ready to take Aaron and his two sons, together with seventy elders of the congregation up the mountain, to be especially impressed with a sacrifice and a feast which he had it in his mind to organize. In the first place, “Moses … rose up early in the morning, and builded an altar, … and sacrificed peace offerings of oxen unto the Lord…. “And he took the book of the covenant, and read in the audience of the people: and they said, All that the Lord hath said will we do, and be obedient.” Had Moses been content to end his ceremony here and to return to the camp with his book of the covenant duly accepted as law, all might have been well. But success seems to have intoxicated him, and he conceived an undue contempt for the intelligence of his audience, being, apparently, convinced that there were no limits to their credulity, and that he could do with them as he pleased. It was not enough for him that he should have them accept an ordinary book admittedly written by himself. There was nothing overpoweringly impressive in that. What he wanted was a stone tablet on which his code should be engraved, as was the famous code of Hammurabi, which he probably knew well, and this engraving must putatively be done by God himself, to give it the proper solemnity. To have such a code as this engraved either by himself or by any workman he could take into the mountain with him, would be a work of time and would entail his absence from the camp, and this was a very serious risk. But he was over-confident and determined to run it, rather than be baulked of his purpose, “And Moses rose up, and his minister Joshua; and Moses went up into the mount of God. “And he said unto the elders, Tarry you here for us, until we come again unto you: and, behold, Aaron and Hur are with you: and if any man have matters to do, let him come unto them. And Moses went into the midst of the cloud, and gat him up into the mount: and Moses was in the mount forty days and forty nights.” But Moses had made the capital mistake of undervaluing the intelligence of his audience. They had, doubtless, been impressed when Moses, as a showman, had presented his spectacle, for Moses had a commanding presence and he had chosen a wonderful locality for his performance. But once he was gone the effect of what he had done evaporated and they began to value the exhibition for what it really was. As men of common sense, said they to one another, why should we linger here, if Moses has played this trick upon us? Why not go back to Egypt, where at least we can get something to eat? So they decided to bribe Aaron, who was venal and would do anything for money. “And when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down out of the mount, the people gathered themselves together unto Aaron, and said unto him, Up, make us gods, which shall go before us; for as for this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him.” When Aaron heard this proposition he showed no objection to accept, provided the people made it worth his while to risk the wrath of Moses; so he answered forthwith, “Break off the golden earrings, which are in the ears of your wives, of your sons, and of your daughters, and bring them unto me.” These were the ornaments of which the departing Israelites had spoiled the Egyptians and they must have been of very considerable value. At all events, Aaron took them and melted them and made them into the image of a calf, such as he had been used to see in Egypt. The calf was probably made of wood and laminated with gold. Sir G. Wilkinson thinks that the calf was made to represent Mnevis, with whose worship the Israelites had been familiar in Egypt. Then Aaron proclaimed a feast for the next day in honor of this calf and said, “To-morrow is a feast to the Lord,” and they said, “These be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.” “And they rose up early on the morrow, and offered burnt offerings, and brought peace offerings: and the people sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to play.” It was not very long before Moses became suspicious that all was not right in the camp, and he prepared to go down, taking the two tables of testimony in his hands. These stone tablets were covered with writing on both sides, which must have taken a long time to engrave considering that Moses was on a bare mountainside with probably nobody to help but Joshua. Of course all that made this weary expedition worth the doing was that, as the Bible says, “the tables were” to pass for “the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God.” Accordingly, it is not surprising that as Moses “came nigh unto the camp,” and he “saw the calf, and the dancing”: that his “anger waxed hot, and he cast the tables out of his hands, and brake them beneath the mount. “And he took the calf which they had made, and burnt it in the fire, and ground it to powder, and strewed it upon the water, and made the children of Israel drink of it. “And Moses said unto Aaron, What did this people unto thee, that thou hast brought so great a sin upon them? “And Aaron said, Let not the anger of my lord wax hot: thou knowest the people, that they are set on mischief. “For they said unto me, Make us gods, which shall go before us: for as for this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him. “And I said unto them, Whosoever hath any gold, let them break it off. So they gave it me: then I cast it into the fire, and there came out this calf. “And when Moses saw that the people were naked; (for Aaron had made them naked unto their shame among their enemies:)” that is to say, the people had come to the feast unarmed, and without the slightest fear or suspicion of a possible attack; then Moses saw his opportunity and placed himself in a gate of the camp, and said: “Who is on the Lord’s side? Let him come unto me. And all the sons of Levi gathered themselves together unto him. “And he said unto them, Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, Put every man his sword by his side, and go in and out from gate to gate throughout the camp, and slay every man his brother, and every man his companion, and every man his neighbour. “And the children of Levi did according to the word of Moses: and there fell of the people that day about three thousand men.” There are few acts in all recorded history, including the awful massacres of the Albigenses by Simon de Montfort and the Abbot Arnold, more indefensible than this wholesale murder by Moses of several thousand people who had trusted him, and whom he had entrusted to the care of his own brother, who participated in their crime, supposing that they had committed any crime saving the crime of tiring of his dictatorship. The effect of this massacre was to put Moses, for the rest of his life, in the hands of the Levites with Aaron at their head, for only by having a body of men stained with his own crimes and devoted to his fortunes could Moses thenceforward hope to carry his adventure to a good end. Otherwise he faced certain and ignominious failure. His preliminary task, therefore, was to devise for the Levites a reward which would content them. His first step in this direction was to go back to the mountain and seek a new inspiration and a revelation more suited to the existing conditions than the revelation conveyed before the golden calf incident. Up to this time there is nothing in Jewish history to show that the priesthood was developing into a privileged and hereditary caste. With the consecration of Aaron as high priest the process began. Moses spent another six weeks in seclusion on the mount. And as soon as he returned to the camp he proclaimed how the people should build and furnish a sanctuary in which the priesthood should perform its functions. These directions were very elaborate and detailed, and part of the furnishings of the sanctuary consisted in the splendid and costly garments for Aaron and his sons “for glory and for beauty.” “And thou shalt put upon Aaron the holy garments, and anoint him, and sanctify him; that he may minister unto me in the priest’s office. And thou shalt bring his sons, and clothe them with coats: And thou shalt anoint them, as thou didst anoint their father, that they may minister unto me in the priest’s office: for their anointing shall surely be an everlasting priesthood, throughout their generations. “Thus did Moses: according to all that the Lord commanded him, so did he.” It followed automatically that, with the creation of a great vested interest centred in an hereditary caste of priests, the pecuniary burden on the people was correspondingly increased and that thenceforward Moses became nothing but the representative of that vested interest: as reactionary and selfish as all such representatives must be. How selfish and how reactionary may readily be estimated by glancing at Numbers XVIII, where God’s directions are given to Aaron touching what he was to claim for himself, and what the Levites were to take as their wages for service. It was indeed liberal compensation. A good deal more than much of the congregation thought such services worth. In the first place, Aaron and the Levites with him for their service “of the tabernacle” were to have “all the tenth in Israel for an inheritance.” But this was a small part of their compensation. There were beside perquisites, especially those connected with the sacrifices which the people were constrained to make on the most trifling occasions; as, for example, whenever they became unclean, through some accident, as by touching a dead body: “This shall be thine of the most holy things, reserved from the fire: every oblation of their’s, every meat offering of their’s, and every sin offering of their’s, and every trespass offering of their’s, which they shall render unto me, shall be most holy for thee and thy sons. “In the most holy place shalt thou eat it; every male shall eat it; it shall be holy unto thee. “And this is thine…. All the best of the oil, and all the best of the wine, and of the wheat, the first fruits of them which they shall offer unto the Lord, them have I given thee; … every one that is clean in thine house shall eat of it. “Everything devoted in Israel shall be thine…. “All the heave offerings of the holy things, which the children of Israel offer unto the Lord, have I given thee, and thy sons and thy daughters with thee, by a statute forever: it is a covenant of salt forever before the Lord unto thee and to thy seed with thee.” Also, on the taking of a census, such as occurred at Sinai, Aaron received a most formidable perquisite. The Levites were not to be numbered; but there was to be a complicated system of redemption at the rate of “five shekels by the poll, after the shekel of the sanctuary.” “And Moses took the redemption money of them that were over and above them that were redeemed by the Levites: Of the first-born of the children of Israel took he the money; a thousand three hundred and three score and five shekels, after the shekel of the sanctuary; And Moses gave the money of them that were redeemed unto Aaron and to his sons.” Assuming the shekel of those days to have weighed two hundred and twenty- four grains of silver, its value in our currency would have been about fifty-five cents, but its purchasing power, twelve hundred years before Christ, would have been, at the very most moderate estimate, at least ten for one, which would have amounted to between six and seven thousand dollars in hard cash for no service whatever, which, considering that the Israelites were a wandering nomadic horde in the wilderness, was, it must be admitted, a pretty heavy charge for the pleasure of observing the performances of Aaron and his sons, in their gorgeous garments. Also, under any sedentary administration it followed that the high priest must become the most considerable personage in the community, as well as one of the richest. And thus as payment for the loyalty to himself of the Levites during the massacre of the golden calf, Moses created a theocratic aristocracy headed by Aaron and his sons, and comprising the whole tribe of Levi, whose advancement in fortune could not fail to create discontent. It did so: a discontent which culminated very shortly after in the rebellion of Korah, which brought on a condition of things at Kadesh which contributed to make the position of Moses intolerable. Moses was one of those administrators who were particularly reprobated by Saint Paul; Men who “do evil,” as in the slaughter of the feasters who set up the golden calf, “that good may come,” and “whose damnation,” therefore, “is just.” [Footnote: Romans III, 8.] And Moses wrought thus through ambition, because, though personally disinterested, he could not endure having his will thwarted. Aaron had nearly the converse of such a temperament. Aaron appears to have had few or no convictions; it mattered little to him whether he worshipped Jehovah on Sinai or the golden calf at the foot of Sinai, provided he were paid at his own price. And he took care to exact a liberal price. Also the inference to be drawn from the way in which Moses behaved to him is that Moses understood what manner of man he was. Jethro stood higher in the estimation of Moses, and Moses did his best to keep Jethro with him, but, apparently, Jethro had watched Moses closely and was not satisfied with his conduct of the exodus. On the eve of departure from Sinai, just as the Israelites were breaking camp, Moses sought out Jethro and said to him; “We are journeying unto the place of which the Lord said, I will give it you; come thou with us, and we will do thee good; for the Lord has spoken good concerning Israel. “And he said unto him, I will not go; but I will depart to mine own land, and to my kindred.” Not discouraged, Moses kept on urging: “Leave us not, I pray thee; forasmuch as thou knowest how we are to encamp in the wilderness, and thou mayest be to us instead of eyes. “And it shall be, if thou go with us, yea, it shall be, that what goodness the Lord shall do unto us, the same will we do unto thee.” It has been inferred from a passage in Judges, [Footnote: Judges I, 16.] that Moses induced Jethro to reconsider his refusal and that he did accompany the congregation in its march to Kadesh, but, on the whole, the text of the Bible fails to bear out such inference, for there is no subsequent mention of Jethro in the books which treat directly of the trials of the journey, although there would seem to have been abundant occasion for Moses to have called upon Jethro for aid had Jethro been present. In his apparent absence the march began, under the leadership of the Lord and Moses, very much missing Jethro. They departed from the mount: “And the cloud of the Lord was upon them by day,” when they left the camp “to search out a resting-place.” Certainly, on this occasion, the Lord selected a poor spot for the purpose, quite different from such an one as Jethro would have been expected to have pointed out; for the children of Israel began complaining mightily, so much so that it displeased the Lord who sent fire into the uttermost parts of the camp, where it consumed them. “And the people cried unto Moses, and when Moses prayed unto the Lord, the fire was quenched.” This suggestion of a divine fire under the control of Moses opens an interesting speculation. The Magi, who were the priests of the Median religion, greatly developed the practices of incantation and sorcery. Among these rites they “pretended to have the power of making fire descend on to their altars by means of magical ceremonies.” [Footnote: Lenormant, Chaldean Magic, 226, 238.] Moses appears to have been very fond of this particular miracle. It is mentioned as having been effective here at Taberah, and it was the supposed weapon employed to suppress Korah’s rebellion. Moses was indeed a powerful enchanter. His relations with all the priestcraft of central Asia were intimate, and if the Magi had secrets which were likely to be of use to him in maintaining his position among the Jews, the inference is that he would certainly have used them to the utmost; as he did the brazen serpent, the ram’s horns at Sinai, and the like. But in spite of all his miracles Moses found his task too heavy, and he frankly confessed that he wished himself dead. “Then Moses heard the people weep throughout their families… and the anger of the Lord was kindled greatly; Moses also was displeased. “And Moses said unto the Lord, Wherefore hast thou afflicted thy servant? … that thou layest the burden of all this people upon me? “Have I conceived all this people? have I begotten them, that thou shouldest say unto me, Carry them in thy bosom, as a nursing father beareth the sucking child, unto the land which thou swarest unto their fathers? “Whence should I have flesh to give unto all this people? for they weep unto me saying, Give us flesh that we may eat. “I am not able to bear all this people alone, because it is too heavy for me. “And if thou deal thus with me, kill me, I pray thee, out of hand, if I have found favour in thy sight; and let me not see my wretchedness.” Leaving aside for the moment all our childish preventions, and considering this evidence in the cold light of history, it becomes tolerably evident that Moses had now reached the turning-point in his career, the point whither he had inexorably tended since the day on which he bid good-bye to Jethro to visit Egypt and attempt to gain control of the exodus, and the point to which all optimists must come who resolve to base a religious or a political movement on the manipulation of the supernatural. However pure and disinterested the motives of such persons may be at the outset, and however thoroughly they may believe in themselves and in their mission, sooner or later, to compass their purpose, they must resort to deception and thus become impostors who flourish on the credulity of their dupes. Moses, from the nature of the case, had to make such demands on the credulity of his followers that even those who were bound to him by the strongest ties of affection and self-interest were alienated, and those without such commanding motives to submit to his claim to exact from them absolute obedience, revolted, and demanded that he should be deposed. The first serious trouble with which Moses had to contend came to a head at Hazeroth, the second station after leaving Sinai. The supposed spot is still used as a watering-place. There Miriam and Aaron attacked Moses because they were jealous of his wife, whom they decried as an “Ethiopian.” And they said, “Hath the Lord indeed spoken only by Moses? hath he not spoken also by us?” Instantly, it became evident to Moses that if this denial of his superior intimacy with God were to be permitted, his supremacy must end. Accordingly the Lord came down “in the pillar of the cloud, and stood in the door of the tabernacle, and called Aaron and Miriam: and they both came forth.” And the Lord explained that he had no objection to a prophet; if any one among the congregation had an ambition to be a prophet he would communicate with him in a dream; but there must always be a wide difference between such a man or woman and Moses with whom he would “speak mouth to mouth, even apparently, and not in dark speeches.” And then God demanded irritably, “Wherefore, then, were ye not afraid to speak against my servant Moses?” “Afterward the cloud,” according to the Bible, departed and God with it. Ever since the dawn of time the infliction of or the cure of disease has been the stronghold of the necromancer, the wise man, the magician, the saint, the prophet and the priest, and Moses was no exception to the rule, only hitherto he had had no occasion to display his powers of this kind. Nevertheless, among the Hebrews of the exodus, the field for this form of miracle was large. Leprosy was very prevalent, so much so that in Egypt the Jews were called a nation of lepers. And in the camp the regulations touching them were strict and numerous. But the Jews were always a dirty race. In chapter XIII of Leviticus, elaborate directions are given as to how the patient shall be brought before Aaron himself, or at least some other of the priests, who was to examine the sore and, if it proved to be a probable case of leprosy, the patient was to be excluded from the camp for a week. At the end of that time the disease, if malignant, was supposed to show signs of spreading, in which case there was no cure and the patient was condemned to civil death. On the contrary, if no virulent symptoms developed during the week, the patient was pronounced clean and returned to ordinary life. The miracle in the case of Miriam was this: When the cloud departed from off the tabernacle, Miriam was found to be “leprous, white as snow,” just as Moses’ hand was found to be white with leprosy after his conversation with the Lord at the burning bush. Upon this Aaron, who had been as guilty as Miriam, and was proportionately nervous, made a prayer to Moses: “Alas, my lord, I beseech thee, lay not the sin upon us, wherein we have done foolishly…. Let her not be as one dead. “And Moses cried unto the Lord, saying, Heal her now, O God, I beseech thee.” But the Lord replied: “If her father had but spit in her face, should she not be ashamed seven days? Let her be shut out from the camp seven days, and after that let her be received in again.” This was the Mosaic system of discipline. And it was serious for all parties concerned. Evidently it was very serious for Miriam, who had to leave her tent and be exiled to some spot in the desert, where she had to shift for herself. We all know the almost intolerable situation of those unfortunates who, in the East, are excluded from social intercourse, and sit without the gate, and are permitted to approach no one. But it was also a serious infliction for the congregation, since Miriam was a personage of consequence, and had to be waited for. That is to say, a million or two of people had to delay their pilgrimage until Moses had determined how much punishment Miriam deserved for her insubordination, and this was a question which lay altogether within the discretion of Moses. In that age there were at least seven varieties of eruptions which could hardly, if at all, be distinguished, in their early stages, from leprosy, and it was left to Moses to say whether or not Miriam had been attacked by true leprosy or not. There was no one, apparently, to question his judgment, for, since Jethro had left the camp, there was no one to controvert the Mosaic opinion on matters such as these. Doubtless Moses was content to give Aaron and Miriam a fright; but also Moses intended to make them understand that they lay absolutely at his mercy. After this outbreak of discontent had been thus summarily suppressed and Miriam had been again received as “clean,” the caravan resumed its march and entered into the wilderness of Paran, which adjoined Palestine, and from whence an invasion of Canaan, if one were to be attempted, would be organized. Accordingly Moses appointed a reconnaissance, who in the language of the Bible are called “spies,” to examine the country, report its condition, and decide whether an attack were feasible. On this occasion Moses seems to have remembered the lesson he learned at Sinai. He did not undertake to leave the camp himself for a long interval. He sent the men whom he supposed he could best trust, among whom were Joshua and Caleb. These men, who corresponded to what, in a modern army, would be called the general-staff, were not sent to manufacture a report which they might have reason to suppose would be pleasing to Moses, but to state precisely what they saw and heard together with their conclusions thereon, that they might aid their commander in an arduous campaign; and this duty they seem, honestly enough, to have performed. But this was very far from satisfying Moses, who wanted to make a strenuous offensive, and yet sought some one else to take the responsibility therefor. The spies were absent six weeks and when they returned were divided in opinion. They all agreed that Canaan was a good land, and, in verity, flowing with milk and honey. But the people, most of them thought, were too strong to be successfully attacked. “The cities were walled and very great,” and moreover “we saw the children of Anak there.” “The Amalekites dwell in the land of the south; and the Hittites, and the Jebusites, and the Amorites, dwell in the mountains; and the Canaanites dwell by the sea, and by the coast of Jordan. “And Caleb stilled the people before Moses, and said, Let us go up at once, … for we are well able to overcome it. “But the men that went up with him said, We be not able to go up against the people; for they are stronger than we. “And they brought up an evil report of the land which they had searched, … saying, … all the people that we saw in it are men of great stature. “And there we saw the giants, the sons of Anak, … and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so were we in their sight.” Had Moses been gifted with military talent, or with any of the higher instincts of the soldier, he would have arranged to have received this report in private and would then have acted as he thought best. Above all he would have avoided anything like a council of war by the whole congregation, for a vast popular meeting of that kind was certain to become unmanageable the moment a division appeared in their command, upon a difficult question of policy. Moses did just the opposite. He convened the people to hear the report of the “spies.” And immediately the majority became dangerously depressed, not to say mutinous. “And all the congregation lifted up their voice, and cried; and the people wept that night. “And all the children of Israel murmured against Moses and against Aaron: and the whole congregation said unto them, Would God that we had died in the land of Egypt! Or would God we had died in this wilderness!… “And they said one to another, Let us make a captain, and let us return into Egypt. “Then Moses and Aaron fell on their faces before all the assembly of the congregation of the children of Israel.” But Joshua, who was a soldier, when Moses thus somewhat ignominiously collapsed, retained his presence of mind and his energy. He and Caleb “rent their clothes,” and reiterated their advice. “And they spake unto all the company of the children of Israel, saying, The land which we passed through to search it, is an exceeding good land. “If the Lord delight in us, then he will bring us into this land, and give it us; a land which floweth with milk and honey. “Only rebel not ye against the Lord, neither fear ye the people of the land; for they are bread for us: their defence is departed from them… fear them not. “But all the congregation bade stone them with stones.” By this time Moses seems to have recovered some composure. Enough, at least, to repeat certain violent threats of the “Lord.” Nothing is so impressive in all this history as the difference between Moses when called upon to take responsibility as a military commander, and Moses when, not to mince matters, he acted as a quack. On the one hand, he was all vacillation, timidity, and irritability. On the other, all temerity and effrontery. In this particular emergency, which touched his very life, Moses vented his disappointment and vexation in a number of interviews which he pretended to have had with the “Lord,” and which he retailed to the congregation, just at the moment when they needed, as Joshua perceived, to be steadied and encouraged. “How long,” vociferated the Lord, when Moses had got back his power of speech, “will this people provoke me? and how long will it be ere they believe me, for all the signs which I have shewed among them? “I will smite them with the pestilence, and disinherit them, and will make of thee a greater nation and mightier than they.” But when Moses had cooled a little and came to reflect upon what he had made the “Lord” say, he fell into his ordinary condition of hesitancy. Supposing some great disaster should happen to the Jews at Kadesh, which lay not so very far from the Egyptian border, the Egyptians would certainly hear of it, and in that case the Egyptian army might pursue and capture Moses. Such a contingency was not to be contemplated, and accordingly Moses began to make reservations. It must be remembered that all these ostensible conversations with the “Lord” went on in public; that is to say, Moses proffered his advice to the Lord aloud, and then retailed his version of the answer he received. “Now if thou shalt kill all this people as one man, then the nations which have heard the fame of thee will speak, saying, “Because the Lord was not able to bring this people into the land which he sware unto them, therefore he hath slain them in the wilderness…. “Pardon, I beseech thee, the iniquity of this people according unto the greatness of thy mercy, and as thou hast forgiven this people from Egypt even until now. “And the Lord said, I have pardoned according to thy word.”