rovidence of
God.

But Moses was not merely a man of genius, he was also a man of knowledge
and learning. During forty years he lived in Egypt, where all the learning
of the world was collected; and, being brought up by the daughter of
Pharaoh as her son, was in the closest relations with the priesthood. The
Egyptian priests were those to whom Pythagoras, Herodotus, and Plato went
for instruction. Their sacred books, as we have seen, taught the doctrine
of the unity and spirituality of God, of the immortality of the soul, and
its judgment in the future world, beside teaching the arts and sciences.
Moses probably knew all that these books could teach, and there is no
doubt that he made use of this knowledge afterward in writing his law.
Like the Egyptian priests he believed in one God; but, unlike them, he
taught that doctrine openly. Like them he established a priesthood,
sacrifices, festivals, and a temple service; but, unlike them, he allowed
no images or idols, no visible representations of the Unseen Being, and
instead of mystery and a hidden deity gave them revelation and a present,
open Deity. Concerning the future life, about which the Egyptians had so
much to say, Moses taught nothing. His rewards and punishments were
inflicted in this world. Retribution, individual and national, took place
here. As this could not have been from ignorance or accident, it must have
had a purpose, it must have been intentional. The silence of the
Pentateuch respecting immortality is one of the most remarkable features
in the Jewish religion. It has been often objected to. It has been
asserted that a religion without the doctrine of immortality and future
retribution is no religion. But in our time philosophy takes a different
view, declaring that there is nothing necessarily religious in the belief
of immortality, and that to do right from fear of future punishment or
hope of future reward is selfish, and therefore irreligious and immoral.
Moreover it asserts that belief in immortality is a matter of instinct,
and something to be assumed, not to be proved; and that we believe in
immortality just in proportion as the soul is full of life. Therefore,
though Moses did not teach the doctrine of immortality, he yet made it
necessary that the Jews should believe in it by the awakening influence of
his law, which roused the soul into the fullest activity.

But beside genius, beside knowledge, did not Moses also possess that which
he cla