What was the meaning of his death at that time ? The question might have but a feeble interest for us if it were
^ Browniutj, A Grammar ian^s Funeral,
94 THE DEATH AND BURIAL OF MOSES
not that the facts of life force it upon us daily. Is it not a mystery by which we all are baffled — a mystery which in some hours we strive to confront because of its deep sadness, and which at other times seems to darken before us through our useless questionings — that the greatest and holiest purposes men cherish seem never to be attained ? The common phrase that speaks of men " dying before their time " is the confession of a riddle which cannot be solved. It met the old heathen who, without the light of Christianity, said, in his simplicity, " Whom the gods love die young." And he has thought but little who has not asked in perplexity, Why should such men die, as if the greatness of their aim had shattered the chain of their earthly life, while those who have no God-given purpose so often live on till a useless old age creeps over them? The truest servants of the Lord come to life's end with one common confession that they have attained but a fragment of their purposes. The Christian Church repeats from age to age the story that its most earnest men are too frequently the first to die; and no Christian ever awoke to the deep conviction that life was not to be spent in selfishness, but in Christ-like effort for man, without discovering that his aim, in this world, is never fulfilled; and that is the world-wide mystery.
^ His father had several friends, wont to spend an evening hour or two in his study, to which John was now admitted on equal terms. Amongst these was a young advocate, a tall and energetic man, full of vitality, brimming over with good spirits and laughter. He went into the country on some business con- nected with his profession, slept at a little inn in damp sheets, took a chill, and died of rapid consumption, disappearing from his accustomed place with a suddenness which startled John as if a miracle had taken place before his eyes. The man had been the very embodiment of overflowing health. There had been no natural mounting up to full maturity and gradual decadence to death. In the bloom and vigour of early manhood death smote him and laid him low. That old men should die seemed plain enough ; that weakly children should fade from life was grievous, but not mysterious; but that, after all the preparation which youth must undergo to fit the man for life — that, so fitted and equipped, on the very threshold of usefulness and experience, death might leap from an ambuscade and lay him low — that pulled him up from all easy-going acceptance of wliat to-day and
DEUTERONOMY xxxiv. 5, 6 95
to-morrow had to offer, since the third day might find him face to face with the same dread experience.^
^ A famous historian died, leaving incomplete his one master- work to which he had given all his strength and all his love. He was not afraid of death. He set his affairs in order with great thoughtfulness. He said good-bye to his friends with unbroken courage. But one thing broke his heart. He had not finished his book. The long years spent in gathering knowledge and in solving problems ; the patient labour to which he had sacrificed pleasures, and riches, and bodily health; they were never to bear their expected fruit. The bitterness of the thought was too much for his fortitude, and his dying cry was a cry of regret : " My book, my unfinished book ! "
^ The English statesman, Pitt, who gave his life to the task of bringing his country through the great struggle with Napoleon, died of the task at forty-seven years of age. His closing moments were made dark and sad by the thought that he must leave the work undone. They brought to him the news of Napoleon's last victory. He turned his face to the wall, murmuring, " My country ! how I leave my country ! "
"Go home content, the evening falls. Day's tired sinews are unbent; No more the thrush or linnet calls. The twilight fades, go home content."
" Father, the field is but half-turned,
And yet the spring is well-nigh spent."
"My son, the hour of rest is earned,
The day's work done, go home content."
1. The first answer is that the desire of Moses was unful- filled because of his sin. One of the great truths which the old law and ordinances given by Moses were intended to burn in on the conscience of the Jew, and through him on the con- science of the world, was that indissoluble connexion between evil done and evil suffered, which reaches its highest exempli- fication in the death which is the wages of sin. And just as some men that have invented instruments for capital punish- ment have themselves had to prove the sharpness of their own axe, so the lawgiver, whose message it had been to declare, "the soul that sinneth, it shall die," had himself to go up
* A. M. Stoddart, John Stuart Blaclie, i. 22.