sway the destinies of
nations.

And now the brothers meet, embrace, and exchange confidences. As Andrew,
the first disciple who brought another to Jesus, found first his own
brother Simon, so was Aaron the earliest convert to the mission of
Moses. And that happened which so often puts our faithlessness to shame.
It had seemed very hard to break his strange tidings to the people: it
was in fact very easy to address one whose love had not grown cold
during their severance, who probably retained faith in the Divine
purpose for which the beautiful child of the family had been so
strangely preserved, and who had passed through trial and discipline
unknown to us in the stern intervening years.

And when they told their marvellous story to the elders of the people,
and displayed the signs, they believed; and when they heard that God had
visited them in their affliction, then they bowed their heads and
worshipped.

This was their preparation for the wonders that should follow: it
resembled Christ's appeal, "Believest thou that I am able to do this?"
or Peter's word to the impotent man, "Look on us."

For the moment the announcement had the desired effect, although too
soon the early promise was succeeded by faithlessness and discontent. In
this, again, the teaching of the earliest political movement on record
is as fresh as if it were a tale of yesterday. The offer of emancipation
stirs all hearts; the romance of liberty is beautiful beside the Nile as
in the streets of Paris; but the cost has to be gradually learned; the
losses displace the gains in the popular attention; the labour, the
self-denial and the self-control grow wearisome, and Israel murmurs for
the flesh-pots of Egypt, much as the modern revolution reverts to a
despotism. It is one thing to admire abstract freedom, but a very
different thing to accept the austere conditions of the life of genuine
freemen. And surely the same is true of the soul. The gospel gladdens
the young convert: he bows his head and worships; but he little dreams
of his long discipline, as in the forty desert years, of the solitary
places through which his soul must wander, the drought, the Amalekite,
the absent leader, and the temptations of the flesh. In mercy, the long
future is concealed; it is enough that, like the apostles, we should
consent to follow; gradually we shall obtain the courage to which the
task may be revealed.

FOOTNOTES:

[7] Tertullian appealed to the second o