Both guns and swords are strong, no doubt,
And so are tongue and pen, And so are sheaves of good bank-notes
To sway the souls of men.
But guns and swords, and gold and thought.
Though mighty in their sphere, Are sometimes feebler than a smile,
And poorer than a tear.
k J. D. JooM.
The Burning Bush.
*S9
Literature.
Banks (L. A.), On the Trail of Moses, 33. Campbell (R. J.), Sermom Addressed to Individuals, 207. Davies (D. C), The Atonement and Intercession of Christ, 162, Gunsaulus (F. W.), Paths to Potoer, 9.
Liddon (H. P.), Bampton Lectures (Our Lord's Divinity), 53. Maclaren (A.), Expositions : Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers, 19. Macmillan (H.), Hie Garden and the City, 80. McNeill (J.), Regent Square Pulpit, i. 97.
Neale (J. M.), Sermons Preached in Sackville College Chapel^ iv. 251. Norton (J. N.), Short Sermons, 305. Parker (J.), The City Temple, ii. (1872) 51. Peabody (F. G.), Mornings in the College Chapel, 2nd Ser., 95. Penn-Lewis (Mrs.), Face to Face, 34. Stanford (C), Symbols of Christ, 61. Vaughan (D. J.), The Days of the Son of Man, 209. Wilson (S. L.), Helpful Words for Daily Life, 197. Woodrow (S. Q.), Christian Verities, 34. British Congregationalist, July-Dec, 1908, 102 (Jowett). Christian, World Pulpit^ xliv. 20 (Mackay) ; Iviii. 246 (Muir) ; IxvL 267 (Cleal).
The Burning Bush.
And the angel of the Lord appeared unto Moses in a flame of Are out of the midst of a bush : and he looked, and, behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed. — Ezod. iii. 2.
1. It was a very sharp descent from Pharaoh's palace to the wilderness; and a shepherd's life was a strange contrast to the brilliant future that oiice seemed likely for Moses. But God tests His weapons before He uses them, and great men are generally prepared for great deeds by great sorrows. Solitude is " the mother-country of the strong," and the wilderness, with its savage crags, its awful silence, and the unbroken round of its blue heaven, was a better place to meet God in than the heavy air of a palace, or the profitless splendours of a court.
2. Among the desolate solitudes of Horeb, occasional fertile spots are to be found. A thin alpine turf covers the soil, whose verdure forms a delightful contrast to the awful sterility of the naked rocks around. A perennial spring oozes up in some shady cleft, and sends its scanty rill down the mountain-side, marking its course among the crags by a green streak of moss and grass which its life-giving waters have nourished. To one of these little oases Moses led the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law, at the close of his sojourn in this secluded region. He had probably given up all thought of Israel's deliverance, which had been the dream of his youth ; and in the peaceful and monotonous occupa- tion of a shepherd hoped to end his days. But God had a higher destiny in view for him, for which he had been insensibly trained by his meditative employment amid the solemn influences of the lonely hills. This was, unknown to himseK, to be the last day of his shepherd life. The skill and fidelity which had been exerted in tending sheep were to find nobler scope for their exercise in guiding and training men.
%6,
262 THE BURNING BUSH
The Preparation of Mosks.
1. " In process of time the king of Egypt died," probably the great Kameses, no other of whose dynasty had a reign which extended over the indicated period of time. If so, he had while living every reason to expect an immortal fame as the greatest among Egyptian kings, a hero, a conqueror on three continents, a builder of magnificent works. But he has won only an immortal notoriety. "Every stone in his buildings was cemented with human blood." The cause he persecuted has made deathless the banished refugee, and has gibbeted the great monarch as a tyrant, whose misplanned severities wrought the ruin of his successor and his army. Such are the reversals of popular judgment ; and such the vanity of fame.
Nought but a gust of wind is earthly fame.
Which blows from this side now, and now from that, And, as it changes quarter, changes name.
Renown of man is like the hue of grass,
Which comes and goes; the same sun withers it, Whereby from earth the green plant raised was.^
2. " The children of Israel sighed by reason of the bondage, and they cried." Another monarch had come at last, a change after sixty-seven years, and yet no change for them ! It filled up the measure of their patience, and also of the iniquity of Egypt. We are not told that their cry was addressed to the Lord ; what we read is that it reached Him, who still overhears and pities many a sob, many a lament, which ought to have been addressed to Him, and is not. Indeed, if His compassion were not to reach men until they had remembered and prayed to Him, who among us would ever have learned to pray to Him at all ? Moreover He remembered His covenant with their forefathers for the fulfilment of which the time had now arrived. " And God saw the children of Israel, and God took knowledge of them."