ries
forward: the rock abides. And this is the Rock of Ages.

Now, such a conception is at first sight not far removed from that
apathetic and impassive kind of deity which the practical atheism of
ancient materialists could well afford to grant;--"ever in itself
enjoying immortality together with supreme repose, far removed and
withdrawn from our concerns, since it, exempt from every pain, exempt
from all danger, strong in its own resources and wanting nought from us,
is neither gained by favour nor moved by wrath."

Thus Lucretius conceived of the absolute Being as by the necessity of
its nature entirely outside our system.

But Moses was taught to trust in Jehovah as intervening, pitying sorrow
and wrong, coming down to assist His creatures in distress.

How could this be possible? Clearly the movement towards them must be
wholly disinterested, and wholly from within; unbought, since no
external influence can modify His condition, no puny sacrifice can
propitiate Him Who sitteth upon the circle of the earth and the
inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers: a movement prompted by no
irregular emotional impulse, but an abiding law of His nature, incapable
of change, the movement of a nature, personal indeed, yet as steady, as
surely to be reckoned upon in like circumstances, as the operations of
gravitation are.

There is no such motive, working in such magnificent regularity for
good, save one. The ultimate doctrine of the New Testament, that God is
Love, is already involved in this early assertion, that being wholly
independent of us and our concerns, He is yet not indifferent to them,
so that Moses could say unto the children of Israel "I AM hath sent me
unto you."

It is this unchangeable consistency of Divine action which gives the
narrative its intense interest to us. To Moses, and therefore to all who
receive any commission from the skies, this title said, Frail creature,
sport of circumstances and of tyrants, He who commissions thee sits
above the waterfloods, and their rage can as little modify or change His
purpose, now committed to thy charge, as the spray can quench the stars.
Perplexed creature, whose best self lives only in aspiration and desire,
now thou art an instrument in the hand of Him with Whom desire and
attainment, will and fruition, are eternally the same. None truly fails
in fighting for Jehovah, for who hath resisted His will?

To Israel, and to all the oppressed whose minds are open to