listened to these tales as they fell from the lips of the
gentle woman who had given him life, and from those of his nurse, and
his grandfather Elishama. Yet he imagined that they had faded from his
memory long ago.

But in old Eliab's hovel he could have repeated the stories word for
word, and he now knew that there was indeed one invisible, omnipotent
God, who had preferred his race above all others, and had promised to
make them a mighty people.

The truths concealed by the Egyptians under the greatest mystery were
the common property of his race. Every beggar, every slave might raise
his hands in supplication to the one invisible God who had revealed
Himself unto Abraham.

Shrewd Egyptians, who had divined His existence and shrouded His image
with monstrous shapes, born of their own thoughts and imaginations,
had drawn a thick veil over Him, hidden Him from the masses. Among
the Hebrews alone did He really live and display His power in all its
mighty, heart-stirring grandeur.

He was not nature, with whom the initiated in the temples confounded
Him. No, the God of his fathers was far above all created things and the
whole visible universe, far above man, His last, most perfect work, whom
He had formed in His own image; and every living creature was subject
to His will. The Mightiest of Kings, He ruled the universe with stern
justice, and though He withdrew Himself from the sight and understanding
of man, His image, He was nevertheless a living, thinking, moving Being,
though His span of existence was eternity, His mind omniscience, His
sphere of sovereignty infinitude.

And this God had made Himself the leader of His people! There was no
warrior who could venture to cope with His might. If the spirit of
prophecy had not deceived Miriam, and the Lord had indeed commanded
Hosea to wield His sword, how dared he resist, what higher position
could earth offer? And his people? The rabble of whom he had thought so
scornfully, what a transformation seemed to have been wrought in them by
the power of the Most High, since he had listened to old Eliab's tale!
Now he longed to be their leader, and midway to the camp he paused on
a sand-hill, whence he could see the limitless expanse of the sea
shimmering under the sheen of the twinkling stars of heaven, and for the
first time in many a long, long year, he raised his arms and eyes to the
God whom he had found once more.

He began with a little prayer his mother had taugh