1 William Hall.
HEBREWS XI. 24-26 431
brings so much pain with it that we can only tell it from pain by its being what we would choose before everything else, because our souls see it is good.^
ii. The Acceptance.
1. What did Moses prefer ? He " chose rather to suffer afflic- tion with the people of God," He chose the side of weakness and oppression against the side of unscrupulous might ; a weak minority against an outrageous majority. He was willing to be one of the weak plus their pain, rather than be on the side of majestic and magnificent vice. There is no more splendid spectacle than this, the sight of a man who, if he likes, can have ease, leisure, pleasure, treasure, putting off his slippers, putting on his heavy boots, going out into the stormy night, battling with wind and rain because he has heard the cry of pain and servitude. Happily, the Christian centuries abound in men and women who have left ease, delight, luxurious home and wealth in the interest of the weak and oppressed.
^ If young women want to know what a woman can be, read Josephine Butler's life of her husband and see how she mingles with it as one of, shall I say, the knight-errants of the Lord Christ ? Josephine Butler, living in the ease and seclusion of a snug deanery, heard the cry of awfully oppressed womanhood. It shook her heart with pain and fear. She at once made up her mind to go out into the night, if she might be the means of lifting the burden from the oppressed womanhood of our realm. She knew what it meant — the contempt of the aristocracy, the loss of much social esteem and regard; she counted the cost. She made the con- fession to her husband : God had created the husband as splendid as the wife; he was willing that the sacrifice should be made. She tells how she made her purpose known to her husband : " I went to him one evening when he was alone, all the household having gone to rest, and I recollect the painful thoughts that seemed to throng that passage from my room to his study. I hesitated. I leaned my cheek against the closed door, and as I leaned I prayed. Then I went in, and I gave him something that I had written, and I left him. I did not see him until the next day. He looked very pale " — he had been in Gethsemane through that night — " and very troubled, and for some days he was very silent. And then I spoke to my husband of all that had passed in my mind, and I said : ' I feel as if I must go out into the streets
^ George Eliot, Bomola.
432 THE CHOICE OF MOSES
and cry aloud, or my heart will break/ and that good and noble man, foreseeing what it meant both for me and for himself, never said, ' What will the world say ? ' He had pondered the matter, and looking straight " — I like that phrase — " as was his wont, he saw only a great wrong, and a woman who wanted to redress the wrong, and in loving and reverent response he said, ' Go, and God be with you.' " Out into the night she went ; she chose to suffer affliction with the people of God rather than dwell in the luxuri- ous seclusion of a deanery, and I tell you that if the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews were to return, and were to enlarge his nave, and wanted to erect a memorial to some distinguished woman, Josephine Butler would find a place.^
2. "He esteemed the reproach of Christ" — put that in one hand: "greater than the treasures of Egypt" — put that in the other hand. He esteemed reproach, contumely, contempt, derision plus right, more than all the treasures of Egypt plus unrighteous- ness. He did not mind a scar; some scars are ornaments. Is there a more splendid word in all the supremely splendid Epistles of St. Paul than " I bear about in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus " ? " Do you see that ? " he said ; " I was stoned there " ; and I think he pulled up his sleeve and said, "Do you see that ? It is the mark of the scourge. If you could only see my back; I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus"; he exhibited them as some men parade their degrees. His scars were his crown. So Moses refused, he turned his back upon majesty ; he chose, he preferred oppression and weakness.
It is difficult for us to realize how daring such a faith was, for we look back across the intervening millenniums and see witli what unique lustre Israel has shone, and how singularly it has justified Moses' estimate. We think of all the splendid galaxy of saints and prophets, of sages and psalmists, who so gloriously vindicated Israel's right to the title. But all this still lay in the future to Moses. He knew nothing of the lofty spiritual achieve- ments which awaited his race. It was rather a mere horde of slaves, with all that this implies. For we know what slavery does for men, how it takes the pith out of their manhood and grinds them into abject submission, how it creates a degraded slave-morality of its own, underhand and obsequious.