s brethren understood how that God
by his hand was giving them deliverance." These, says Stephen, were his
thoughts before he fled from Egypt. Very different is his language after
the probation of the wilderness: "Who am I, that I should go unto
Pharaoh, and that I should bring forth the children of Israel out of
Egypt?" Four times he pleads and deprecates. Not until the anger of the
Lord is kindled against him does he take heart to attempt the formidable
task.

The Hebrews had been more than two hundred years in the house of
bondage. So far as we know, the Lord had not once appeared or spoken to
men for six generations. No revelation was given between Jacob's vision
at Beersheba[288] and the vision of the burning bush. We may well
believe that there were in those days mockers, saying, The age of
miracles is past; the supernatural is played out. But Moses henceforth
lives in a veritable world of miracles. The supernatural came with a
rush, like the waking of a sleeping volcano. Signs and wonders encompass
him on every side. The bush burns unconsumed; the rod in his hand is
cast on the ground, and becomes a serpent; he takes the serpent in his
hand again, and it becomes a rod; he puts his hand into his bosom, and
it is leprous; he puts the leprous hand into his bosom, and it is as
his other flesh. When he returns into Egypt, signs vie with signs, God
with demons. Plague follows plague. Moses lifts up his rod over the sea,
and the children of Israel go on dry ground through the midst of the
sea. At last he stands once more on Horeb. But in the short interval
between the day when one poor thorn-bush of the desert glowed with flame
and the day on which Sinai was altogether on a smoke and the whole
mountain quaked, a religious revolution had occurred second only to one
in the history of the race. At the touch of their leader's wand a nation
was born in a day. The immense transition from the Church in a family to
a holy nation was brought about suddenly, but effectively, when the
people were hopeless outcasts and Moses himself had lost heart.

Such a revolution must be inaugurated with sacrifice and with sacrament.
The sins of the past must be expiated and forgiven, and the people,
cleansed from the guilt of their too frequent apostasy from the God of
their fathers, must be dedicated anew to the service of Jehovah. The
patriarchal dispensation expired in the birth of a holy nation. The
Passover was both a sacrifice and a sac