ghty host; to harden them into fighting men, before whom
warlike tribes quailed and walled cities went down; to repress
discontent and jealousy and mutiny; to combat reactions and reversions;
to turn the quick, fierce flame of enthusiasm to the service of a steady
purpose, require some towering character--a character blending in
highest expression the qualities of politician, patriot, philosopher,
and statesman.

Such a character in rough but strong outline the tradition shows us--the
union of the wisdom of the Egyptians with the unselfish devotion of the
meekest of men. From first to last, in every glimpse we get, this
character is consistent with itself, and with the mighty work which is
its monument. It is the character of a great mind, hemmed in by
conditions and limitations, and working with such forces and materials
as were at hand--accomplishing, yet failing. Behind grand deed, a
grander thought. Behind high performance, the still nobler ideal.

Egypt was the mould of the Hebrew nation--the matrix in which a single
family, or, at most, a small tribe, grew to a people as numerous as the
American people at the time of the Declaration of Independence. For four
centuries, according to the Hebrew tradition--a period as long as
America has been known to Europe--this growing people, coming a
patriarchal family from a roving, pastoral life, had been placed under
the dominance of a highly developed and ancient civilization--a
civilization symbolized by monuments that rival in endurance the
everlasting hills; a civilization so ancient that the Pyramids, as we
now know, were hoary with centuries ere Abraham looked on them.

[Illustration: Moses in the bulrushes.]

No matter how clearly the descendants of the kinsmen who came into Egypt
at the invitation of the boy-slave become prime minister, maintained the
distinction of race, and the traditions of a freer life, they must have
been powerfully affected by such a civilization; and just as the Hebrews
of to-day are Polish in Poland, German in Germany, and American in the
United States, so, but far more clearly and strongly, the Hebrews of the
Exodus must have been Egyptian.

It is not remarkable, therefore, that the ancient Hebrew institutions
show in so many points the influence of Egyptian ideas and customs. What
is remarkable is the dissimilarity. To the unreflecting nothing may seem
more natural than that a people, in turning their back upon a land where
they had bee