howling desolation."

It is here that Moses seeks safety, and finds it in the home of a
priest, where his affections may be cultivated, and where he may indulge
in lofty speculations and commune with the Elohim whom he adores;
isolated yet social, active in body but more active in mind, still fresh
in all the learning of the schools of Egypt, and wise in all the
experiences of forty years. And the result of his studies and
inspirations was, it is supposed, the book of Genesis, in which he
narrates more important events, and reveals more lofty truths than all
the historians of Greece unfolded in their collective volumes,--a marvel
of historic art, a model of composition, an immortal work of genius, the
oldest and the greatest written history of which we have record.

And surely what poetry, pathos, and eloquence, what simplicity and
beauty, what rich and varied lessons of human experience, what treasures
of moral wisdom, are revealed in that little book! How sublimely the
poet-prophet narrates the misery of the Fall, and the promised glories
of the Restoration! How concisely the historian compresses the incidents
of patriarchal life, the rise of empires, the fall of cities, the
certitudes of faith, of friendship, and of love! All that is vital in
the history of thousands of years is condensed into a few chapters,--not
dry and barren annals, but descriptions of character, and the unfolding
of emotions and sensibilities, and insight into those principles of
moral government which indicate a superintending Power, creating faith
in a world of sin, and consolation amid the wreck of matter.

Thus when forty more years are passed in study, in literary composition,
in religious meditation, and active duties, in sight of grand and barren
mountains, amid affections and simplicities,--years which must have
familiarized him with every road and cattle-drive and sheep-track, every
hill and peak, every wady and watercourse, every timber-belt and oasis
in the Sinaitic wilderness, through which his providentially trained
military instincts were to safely conduct a vast multitude,--Moses,
still strong and laborious, is fitted for his exalted mission as a
deliverer. And now he is directly called by the voice of God himself,
amid the wonders of the burning bush,--Him whom, thus far, he had, like
Abraham, adored as the Elohim, the God Almighty, but whom henceforth he
recognizes as Jehovah (Jahveh) in His special relations to the Jewish
na