But the
breeze was wandering on again; under the great sun the prairie
spread dim to the southwest, and tawny to the northeast; only
between his own loose knees the horse trembled in every limb, and
mumbled the bit with dry mouth. All was as before in earth and
sky, apparently, but not in his own self. It was as if his spirit
stood apart from him, putting questions which he could not answer,
and demanding judgment upon problems which he dare not reason out.

"Then he remembered what this thing was which had happened. The
prairie had spoken to him, as sooner or later it spoke to most men
that rode it. It was a something well known amongst them, but
known without words, and as by a subtle instinct, for no man who
had experienced it ever spoke willingly about it afterwards. Only
the man would be changed; some began to be more reckless, as if a
dumb blasphemy rankled hidden in their breasts. Others, coming
with greater strength perhaps to the ordeal, became quieter,
looking squarely at any danger as they face it, but continuing
ahead as though quietly confident that nothing happened save as the
gods ordained."

The motive power in all of Moses' later work was that transforming,
vivid sense of Jehovah's presence that came to him on the barren
mountain peak.

Also fundamental to his call was the recognition of the crying need
of his disorganized, oppressed kinsmen in Egypt. This appealed to
all the instincts begotten by his shepherd training; for they were
a shepherdless flock in the midst of wolves. Through the ages the
inhabitants of the parched, stony wilderness had looked with hungry
eyes upon the tree-clad hills and green fields of Palestine. The
early traditions of his ancestors also glorified this paradise of
the wilderness wanderer and led Moses to look to it as the haven of
refuge to which he might lead his helpless kinsmen. Vividly and
concretely the ancient narrative tells of the struggle in the mind
of Moses between his own diffidence and consciousness of his
limitations on the one side and on the other his sense of duty and
the realization of Jehovah's power to accomplish what seemed to man
miraculous. Was Moses' inner experience like that of the other
great Hebrew prophets? Who? Like that of Jesus? Does every man
who undertakes a great service for humanity to-day pass through a
somewhat similar struggle? How about Grant on leaving his home at
Galena, Illinois? Lincoln at the great crisis o