, they will not believe me,
nor hearken unto my voice; for they will say, The Lord hath not appeared
unto thee." This is very unlike the invention of a later period,
glorifying the beginnings of the nation; but it is absolutely true to
life. Great men do not fear the wrath of enemies if they can be secured
against the indifference and contempt of friends; and Moses in
particular was at last persuaded to undertake his mission by the promise
of the support of Aaron. His hesitation is therefore the earliest
example of what has been so often since observed--the discouragement of
heroes, reformers and messengers from God, less by fear of the attacks
of the world than of the contemptuous scepticism of the people of God.
We often sigh for the appearing, in our degenerate days, of

"A man with heart, head, hand,
Like some of the simple great ones gone."

Yet who shall say that the want of them is not our own fault? The
critical apathy and incredulity, not of the world but of the Church, is
what freezes the fountains of Christian daring and the warmth of
Christian zeal.

For the help of the faith of his people, Moses is commissioned to work
two miracles; and he is caused to rehearse them, for his own.

Strange tales were told among the later Jews about his wonder-working
rod. It was cut by Adam before leaving Paradise, was brought by Noah
into the ark, passed into Egypt with Joseph, and was recovered by Moses
while he enjoyed the favour of the court. These legends arose from
downright moral inability to receive the true lesson of the incident,
which is the confronting of the sceptre of Egypt with the simple staff
of the shepherd, the choosing of the weak things of earth to confound
the strong, the power of God to work His miracles by the most puny and
inadequate means. Anything was more credible than that He who led His
people like sheep did indeed guide them with a common shepherd's crook.
And yet this was precisely the lesson meant for us to learn--the
glorification of poor resources in the grasp of faith.

Both miracles were of a menacing kind. First the rod became a serpent,
to declare that at God's bidding enemies would rise up against the
oppressor, even where all seemed innocuous, as in truth the waters of
the river and the dust of the furnace and the winds of heaven conspired
against him. Then, in the grasp of Moses, the serpent from which he fled
became a rod again, to intimate that these avenging forces we