made to the people. First of all the two brothers
unite their energies to hush their outcries: "At evening ye shall know
that Jehovah is your leader from Egypt, and in the morning ye shall
behold His glory; and what are we, that ye murmur against us?" Then
Moses affirms, with all the energy of his chieftainship, that in the
evening they shall eat flesh, and in the morning bread to the full.
Again he asks them "What are we?" and more sternly and directly charges
them with murmuring against Jehovah. And this is a good example of the
true meaning of his "meekness." He is fiery enough, but not for his own
greatness; rather because he feels his littleness, and that the offence
is entirely against God, does he resent their conduct; absence of
self-assertion is his "meekness," and thus we read of it when Miriam and
Aaron spake against him, declaring that they were commissioned as well
as he (Num. xii. 3). Finally, when order was restored, and some
mysterious manifestation was at hand, he resumed the solemn and formal
usage of conveying his orders through his brother, and in cold, compact,
impressive words, said unto Aaron, "Say unto all the congregation of the
children of Israel, Come near before the Lord, for He hath heard your
murmurings." All this is very dignified and natural. And so is--what
after ages could scarcely have invented--the impressive reticence of
what follows. "They looked toward the wilderness, and behold, the glory
of the Lord appeared in the cloud."

Were they not then intended to "come near"? and was it as they turned
their faces to draw nigh that the Vision revealed itself and stopped
them? And what was the untold sight which they beheld? The narrative
belongs to a primitive age; it is quite unlike the elaborate symbolisms
of Ezekiel and Daniel, or even of Isaiah, but yet this undescribed,
mystic and solitary glory is not less sublime than the train which
covered the Temple-floor, while, hovering above it, reverent seraphim
veiled their faces and their feet, or the terrible crystal and the
wheels of dreadful height, or the throne of flame whence issued a fiery
stream, and before which thousands of thousands and myriads of myriads
stood (Isa. vi. 2; Ezek. i. 22, 18; Dan. vii. 9, 10). But the point to
observe is that it is different, more primitive, an undefined and lonely
vision of awe well fitted for the desert wilds and for the gaze of men
whose hearts must not be misled by the likeness of anything in he