^ He who walks by sight only walks in a blind alley. He who does not know the freedom and joy of reverent, loving speculation wastes his life in a gloomy cell of the mouldiest of prisons. Even in matters that are not distinctively religious faith will be found to be the inspiration and strength of the most useful life. It is faith that does the great work of the world. It is faith that sends men in search of unknown coasts. It is faith that re-trims the lamp of inquiry when sight is weary of the flame. It is faith that unfastens the cable and gives men the liberty of the seas. It is faith that inspires the greatest works in civilization. So we cannot get rid of religion unless we first get rid of faith, and when we get rid of faith we give up our birthright and go into slavery for ever.^
0 God ! the scholar and the sage
Into Thy mysteries peer. And strive by Eeason's subtle art
To make their meaning clear.
^ Joseph Parker.
436 THE CHOICE OF MOSES
But my bewildered heart rejects The puzzling paths they lay,
And seeks to gain the Eternal Heart By some directer way.
Lord, draw me as the sun in spring Draws the awakening vine,
And up some lattice of Thy love Bid my affections twine !
So when my grasp on Eeason fails, Faith-led, I still may go.
And all the mystery shall melt As melts the April snow.
III.
The Motive.
What was the motive which inspired the choice of Moses ? In other words. What form did his faith take ? How did it express itself ? The answer is, " He looked unto the recompense of reward."
1. When the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews tells us that Moses "looked unto the recompense of reward," he seems to spoil what has gone before. Our impulse is at once to retort, " Oh, then, Moses was self-seeking after all, only he made much cleverer calculations than other people would have done. Faith was just the cooler, keener insight which enabled him to make a better bargain than his fellows. He was good because it paid him better." The writer does not, it is true, tell us precisely what he had in mind, but we can, at any rate, rest assured that we should wrong Moses himself by such a criticism. For what we may call the higher doctrine of the future life emerged in the religion of Israel at a comparatively late period, and therefore the founder of the religion may reasonably be regarded as untouched by this as regards motive. So far as he was concerned he did his duty and made his sacrifice without thought of reward in that sense. If, then, we give to the author's words a meaning which shall harmonize with history, we shall speak of Moses as
HEBREWS XI. 24-26 437
contemplating a reward only in the sense in which we speak of virtue as its own reward. He had peace of conscience and the Assurance that, at all costs, he had followed the path of duty. He had the privilege of knowing that his sacrifice had meant the redemption of his people. Above all, he was happy in the sense of God's approval. We may all desire that our own actions may be prompted by such disinterested anticipations of reward.
^ To labour in a righteous cause with the assurance that some day the right will be justified is to manifest the disposition of faith. Is it not a beautiful word in the Psalmist : " He shall bring forth thy righteousness as the light " ? A man said to me last week in Birmingham, only a working man, " We don't seem to make much headway there in the slums ; it is like trying to clean them with a spoon, but I am doing my best, and I am trusting God." It came to me to quote "thy righteousness" — only like a little candle in a dark place, but if thou art faithful to it — " He shall bring forth thy righteousness as the light," and even when thou art working, as with a candle amidst surrounding blackness, work thou as a child of the noon. Oh, that is the meaning ; when we are working in the twilight, when the dark- ness envelops and oppresses us, to work as children of the noon. Is that not what our Master meant when He said, " Whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive " ? ^
2. And yet it was possible for Moses to see a definite though distant reward. We read of the Saviour Himself : " Who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame." "He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied." What do those words mean ? They mean far more than we can comprehend. They, however, at least teach us that the salvation of those for whom He died will be His recompense. His reward will be the satisfaction which the presence of the redeemed, which no man can number, will give to the love that brought Him from His heaven to die for them. Such a reward in a humbler measure and in a different sense was the reward of Moses.