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ETHEL MUNRO GOSS Moses must have possessed from the first that same independence of character which compelled his great forefather Abraham to obey the voice that urged him to get out of his country and to go into a land which Truth would show him. He had a hatred of oppression and a generous passion to help the oppressed, for we find him taking the side of his fellow countryman against an Egyptian taskmaster; then protecting the daughter of Reuel, priest of Midian, otherwise known as Jethro, against the shepherds. Still later he was led to his great life work, the freeing of the Hebrew captives in the land of Egypt, not by the strength of his own right arm, but in the strength of the God of Israel. While the children of Israel "sighed by reason of the bondage," and "they cried, and their cry came up unto God," their future deliverer was being prepared for his mission by tending the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law, in the desert. There, in silent communion with the God of his fathers, the vision was granted him of the God who would deliver his beloved people, — "I AM THAT I AM," the self-existent One, — and the vision was accompanied by a demonstration of Truth's power in the case of the rod and the leprous hand. There also to Moses, as to all who receive the message to go forward, came the suggestion of human weakness. "O my Lord," he pleads, "I am not eloquent, . . . I am slow of speech, and of a slow tongue." Still the vision fails not, and Moses is strengthened by the realization of Mind's all-power. So, with Aaron as his mouthpiece, he accepts his mission and takes his first step. How wonderful must have been the return of Moses and Aaron to their own people, who now saw that their cry to God had been heard; that the God of their fathers had not forgotten His promises. We read that "they bowed their heads and worshiped," so by their gratitude taking their first step out of bondage. Then follows a long struggle with error before they make their start out of the land of idolatry. After leaving Egypt, the first test of their new-found courage came when they were confronted by the Red Sea before and the power that would drive them back to servitude behind. There Moses, true to his vision in the desert, neither faltered nor failed, but steadfastly looked up to Truth to deliver them; and after their deliverance they sang in exultation, "The Lord is my strength and song, and he is become my salvation." It was after this that the bitter waters of Marah were healed by a tree which "the Lord shewed him," and here the people were given their first statute: "If thou wilt diligently hearken to the voice of the Lord thy God, . . . I will put none of these diseases upon thee, which I have brought upon the Egyptians: for I am the Lord that healeth thee." This is the first record of healing through obedience, and here Moses outlines his life work — to teach his beloved people freedom through obedience. How stupendous the task, and what a heroic figure he stands, through murmurings, complainings, idolatry, and the materiality that sighed for the slavery and the fleshpots of Egypt! Once only we hear him complaining of the burden — "I am not able to bear all this people alone, because it is too heavy for me." His cry reached the great heart of Love, and the help came; some of the elders became imbued with his spirit, and they bore the burden of the people with him. Moses denied to no one the right to share his mission. When the word came to him that two men in the camp were prophesying, the heartfelt prayer sprang at once to his lips, "Would God that all the Lord's people were prophets." "O people saved by the Lord, . . . thine enemies shall be found liars unto thee; and thou shalt tread upon their high places," was the prophecy of him who saw divine Truth face to face. That they who had been slaves in the land of material sense should learn freedom through obedience to spiritual law was his divine mission. We are experiencing the fulfillment of this prophecy now, by the same power that Moses knew carried him triumphant through the Red Sea, that upheld him through all the trials of the wilderness, and that raised him to Pisgah's heights, whence he beheld afar off the promised land. And with what ineffable tenderness he concludes his final message to his beloved people — "The eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms." This tenderness carries us across the centuries to the time when Jesus came to bring a fuller, richer revelation of law to a materialistic world, and stretching out his pitying arms over Jerusalem cried, "How often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!" Mrs. Eddy says: "The All-wise does not bestow His highest trusts upon the unworthy. When He commissions a messenger, it is one who is spiritually near Himself" (Science and Health, p. 455). Moses demonstrated this nearness in his perception of law, and, like our own beloved Leader, he was not content with keeping the vision for himself, but gave it to the world. This giving was his life work, and it involved such sacrifice that his life is an inspiration for all who share with him the desire to show mankind the way to freedom, to share in the work of the true church, which Mrs. Eddy has defined on page 583 of Science and Health as "rousing the dormant understanding from material beliefs to the apprehension of spiritual ideas."
Christian Science Sentinel, November 17, 1917 |
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