observed.

It is written that when the law was given, the voice of the trumpet
waxed louder and louder still. And as the multitude became aware that in
this tempestuous and growing crash there was a living centre, and a
voice of intelligible words, their awe became insufferable: and instead
of needing the barriers which excluded them from the mountain, they
recoiled from their appointed place, trembling and standing afar off.
"And they said unto Moses, Speak thou with us and we will hear, but let
not God speak with us lest we die." It is the same instinct that we have
already so often recognised, the dread of holiness in the hearts of the
impure, the sense of unworthiness, which makes a prophet cry, "Woe is
me, for I am undone!" and an apostle, "Depart from me, for I am a sinful
man."

Now, the New Testament quotes a confession of Moses himself, well-nigh
overwhelmed, "I do exceedingly fear and quake" (Heb. xii. 21). And yet
we read that he "said unto the people, Fear not, for God is come to
prove you, and that His fear may be before your faces, that ye sin not"
(xx. 20). Thus we have the double paradox,--that he exceedingly feared,
yet bade them fear not, and yet again declared that the very object of
God was that they might fear Him.

Like every paradox, which is not a mere contradiction, this is
instructive.

There is an abject fear, the dread of cowards and of the guilty, which
masters and destroys the will--the fear which shrank away from the mount
and cried out to Moses for relief. Such fear has torment, and none ought
to admit it who understands that God wishes him well and is merciful.

There is also a natural agitation, at times inevitable though not
unconquerable, and often strongest in the highest natures because they
are the most finely strung. We are sometimes taught that there is sin in
that instinctive recoil from death, and from whatever brings it close,
which indeed is implanted by God to prevent foolhardiness, and to
preserve the race. Our duty, however, does not require the absence of
sensitive nerves, but only their subjugation and control. Marshal Saxe
was truly brave when he looked at his own trembling frame, as the cannon
opened fire, and said, "Aha! tremblest thou? thou wouldest tremble much
more if thou knewest whither I mean to carry thee to-day." Despite his
fever-shaken nerves, he was perfectly entitled to say to any waverer,
"Fear not."

And so Moses, while he himself quaked, was ent