to an honored guest. Noon came, the afternoon passed away,
evening deepened into night, and morning returned, yet I still waited
for the guest. But when the sum of that day was nearing the western
horizon, the dogs began to bark loudly, and when I went to the door a
powerful man, with tangled grey hair and beard, clad in the tattered
white robes of a priest, hurried toward me. The dogs shrank back
whining; but I recognized my brother.

"Our meeting after so long a separation at first brought me more fear
than pleasure; for Moses was flying from the officers of the law because
he had slain the overseer. You know the story.

"Wrath still glowed in his flashing eyes. He seemed to me like the god
Seth in his fury, and each one of his slow words was graven upon my
soul as by a hammer and chisel. Thrice seven days and nights he remained
under my roof, and as I was alone with him and deaf Rachel, and he was
compelled to remain concealed, no one came between us, and he taught me
to know Him who is the God of our fathers.

"Trembling and despairing, I listened to his powerful words, which
seemed to fall like rocks upon my breast, when he admonished me of God's
requirements, or described the grandeur and wrath of Him whom no mind
can comprehend, and no name can describe. Ah, when he spoke of Him and
of the Egyptian gods, it seemed as if the God of my people stood before
me like a giant, whose head touched the sky, and the other gods were
creeping in the dust at his feet like whining curs.

"He taught me also that we alone were the people whom the Lord had
chosen, we and no other. Then for the first time I was filled with pride
at being a descendant of Abraham, and every Hebrew seemed a brother,
every daughter of Israel a sister. Now, too, I perceived how cruelly
my people had been enslaved and tortured. I had been blind to their
suffering, but Moses opened my eyes and sowed in my heart hate, intense
hate of their oppressors, and from this hate sprang love for the
victims. I vowed to follow my brother and await the summons of my
God. And lo, he did not tarry and Jehovah's voice spoke to me as with
tongues.

"Old Rachel died. At Moses' bidding I gave up my solitary life and
accepted the invitation of Aaron and Amminadab.

"So I became a guest in their household, yet led a separate life among
them all. They did not interfere with me, and the sycamore here on their
land became my special property. Beneath its shadow God command