honour. Go on then, all of you, both in your individual and collective capacity, without intermission and without weari- ness : so shall the work proceed to the honour of our God, and a rich recoinpence be treasured up for your own souls.]
cv.
Exod. xxxii. 19, 20. And it came to pass, as soon as he came nigh unto the camp, that he saw the calf, and the dancing. And Moses1 anger waxed hot, and he cast the tables out of his hands, and brake them beneath the mount. And he took the calf which they had made, and burned it in the fire, and ground it to powder, and strawed it upon the water, and made the children of Israel drink of it.
IT is painful to reflect how transient is the effect of the most laborious ministry, and in how many in- stances hopeful appearances of piety come to nought. If ever man was faithful, it was Moses ; of whom God himself says, " He was faithful in all his house." And if ever there was reason to expect that the work of conversion had taken place upon many hundreds of thousands of people, it was when Israel were singing praises to their God on occasion of their deliverance at the Red Sea. It might well be sup- posed, that their gratitude to God on that occasion, deepened by the awe impressed upon their minds at the thunders of Mount Sinai, would never be for- gotten. But, behold! Moses, summoned as he was by God into the holy mount, in order that he might receive from Jehovah a written copy of that Law which had been just proclaimed, had not been absent from the people forty days, before they all concurred in desiring Aaron to make for them a god whom they might worship, and who should go before them in their way to the promised land : and even Aaron himself became an active confederate in this horrible apostasy. As for Moses, they seem to have lost all respect for him, as well as all becoming reverence for Jehovah, whose minister he was. Of this, God apprised Moses ; and at last sent him down in haste to the people, that he might see with his own eyes