not fear though a host rose up against
him, and can break a bow of steel, and has a table prepared for him, and
an overflowing cup. Especially is this true of the historical books. God
is here seen ruling states, judging in the earth, remembering Israel in
bondage, and setting him free, providing supernatural food and water,
guiding him by the fiery cloud. There is not a word about regeneration,
conversion, hell, or heaven. And yet there is a profound sense of God.
He is real, active, the most potent factor in the daily lives of men.
Now, this may teach us a lesson, highly important to us all, and
especially to those who must teach others. The difference between
spirituality and secularity is not the difference between the future
life and the present, but between a life that is aware of God and a
godless one. Perhaps, when we find our gospel a matter of indifference
and weariness to men who are absorbed in the bitter monotonous and
dreary struggle for existence, we ourselves are most to blame. Perhaps,
if Moses had approached the Hebrew drudges as we approach men equally
weary and oppressed, they would not have bowed their heads and
worshipped. And perhaps we should have better success, if we took care
to speak of God in this world, making life a noble struggle, charging
with new significance the dull and seemingly degraded lot of all who
remember Him, such a God as Jesus revealed when He cleansed the leper,
and gave sight to the blind, using one and the same word for the
"healing" of diseases and the "saving" of souls, and connecting faith
equally with both. Exodus will have little to teach us, unless we
believe in that God who knoweth that we have need of food and clothing.
And the higher spiritual truths which it expresses will only be found
there in dubious and questionable allegory, unless we firmly grasp the
great truth, that God is not the Saviour of souls, or of bodies, but of
living men in their entirety, and treats their higher and lower wants
upon much the same principle, because He is the same God, dealing with
the same men, through both.

Moreover, He treats us as the men of other ages. Instead of dealing with
Moses upon exceptional and strange lines, He made known His ways unto
Moses, His characteristic and habitual ways. And it is on this account
that whatsoever things were written aforetime are true admonition for us
also, being not violent interruptions but impressive revelations of the
steady silent me