Before him went devouring flame,

And thunder roll'd behind.

At his approach the mountains reel'd,
Like vessels, to and fro;
Earth, heaving like a sea, reveal'd
The gulfs below.

Borne through the wilderness in wrath,
He seem'd, in power alone, a God;
But blessings follow'd in his path,
For Mercy seized his rod.

He smote the rock, and, as he pass'd,
Forth gush'd a living stream;
The fire, the earthquake, and the blast,
Fled as a dream.

JAMES MONTGOMERY (1771-1854).

MOSES.

He said unto the Lord:-"Shall I ne'er be done?

Where wilt thou still that I my footsteps turn?

Am I to live for aye, great, powerful, and alone?

Give me, ah, give me leave to sleep the sleep of earth!

What did I to thee to be chosen thine elect?

Let now some other stand 'twixt thee and thine!

Some other curb thy wild steed, Israel! I gladly make him heir to book and brazen rod.

Why needest thou have dried up all my hopes?

Why not have left me man in all my ignorance?

Alas! thou madest me wise among the wise:

My finger showed thy wandering race its path,

I called down fire upon the heads of kings,

And future time will kneel before my laws.

I am the Great: my feet tread nations' necks,

My hand holds generations in its will. Alas, my Lord! I am great-I am alone: Give me—ah, give me leave to sleep the sleep of earth!"

ALFRED DE VIGNY (1799-1863).

THE PLEDGES GIVEN AT

SINAI.

THICK darkness shrouds the "Mount of God"

Save when the lightning's blinding glare

Reveals Divinity's abode

The Lord of Hosts sojourning there. See! Israel tremble at its base

Sore troubled hear Jehovah's voice, While glories glow on Moses' face

As Israel's weal his thought employs. Thus speaks Jehovah from his throne, "Obey and live; my covenant's sure, My law to Israel I make known;

It shall unchanged, for aye endure.
"But how shall Israel hostage give
That he obedient will remain?
That he in faith with me will live

My favor always to retain?"

That Prince of Prophets then replied, "Thou know'st a father's fervent love, How careful he his child will guide

And from his path offense remove.

So do thou Israel's footsteps guard As we our children's straying feet, Yea! to our weakness have regard

And day by day thy grace repeat.

Then shall this people serve their God When they thy fatherhood shall prove, Thy land Jehovah's blest abode

They bound to thee in filial love." WILLIAM DEARNESS.

MOSES.

I WILL sing high-hearted Moses,
By the Nile's sweet-watered stream,
In a land of strange taskmasters,
Brooding o'er the patriot theme;

Brooding o'er the bright-green valleys Of his dear-loved Hebrew home, Whence the eager pinch of Famine Forced the Patriarch to roam;

Brooding o'er his people's burdens, Lifting vengeful arm to smite When he saw the harsh Egyptian

Stint the Hebrew of his right;

Brooding far in lonely places,

Where on holy ground unshod, He beheld the bush that burned

With unconsuming flame from God.

Saw, and heard, and owned the mission,
With his outstretched prophet-rod
To stir plagues upon the Pharaoh,
Scorner of the most high God;

God who brought His folk triumphant From the strange taskmaster free, And merged the Memphians, horse and rider,

In the deep throat of the sea.

Then uprose the song of triumph,
Harp and timbrel, song and dance;
And with firm set will the hero
Led the perilous advance.

And he led them through the desert
As a shepherd leads his flock,
Breaking spears with cursed Amalek,
Striking water from the rock.

And he led them to Mount Sinai's
High-embattled rock; and there,
'Mid thick clouds of smoke and thunder
That like trumpet clave the air,

To the topmost peak he mounted. And with reverent awe unshod, As a man with men discourseth,

So he there communed with God.

Not in wild ecstatic plunges,

Not in visions of the night, Not in flashes of quick fancy, Darkness sown with gleams of light,

But with calm untroubled survey,
As a builder knows his plan,
Face to face he knew Jehovah

And His wondrous ways with man;

Ways of gentleness and mercy,

Ways of vengeance strong to smite, Ways of large unchartered giving, Ever tending to the right.

In the presence of the Glory,

What no mortal sees he saw, And from hand that no man touches Brought the tables of the Law,

Law that bound them with observance,
Lest untutored wit might stray,
Each man where his private fancy
Led him in a wanton way,

Law that from the life redeemed them
Of loose Arabs wandering wild,
And to fruitful acres bound them
Where ancestral virtue toiled;

Law that dowered the chosen people
With a creed divinely true,
Which subtle Greek and lordly Roman
Stooped to borrow from the Jew.
JOHN STUART BLACKIE (1809-1895).

MOSES AND THE ANGEL.

Praise Him, Al-Mutâhâli! Whose decree Is wiser than the wit of man can see.

'Tis written in the chapter "of the Cave,"

An Angel of the Lord, a minister, Had errands upon earth, and Moses said,

"Grant me to wend with thee, that I may learn

God's ways with men." The Angel, answering, said,

"Thou canst not bear with me; thou wilt not have

Knowledge to judge; yet if thou followest me,

Question me not, whatever I shall do, Until I tell thee."

Then they found a ship On the sea-shore, where from the Angel

struck

Her boards and brake them. Moses said, "Wilt drown

The mariners? this is a strange thing wrought?"

"Did I not say thou couldst not bear with me?"

The Angel answered-"be thou silent now!"

Yet farther, and they met an Arab boy :

Upon his eyes with mouth invisible The Angel breathed; and all his warm blood froze,

And, with a moan, he sank to earth and died.

Since God to every living soul sets forth The circumstance according to the

worth.

OWEN MEREDITH (1831-1891). (ROBERT, EARL OF LYTTON.)

MOSES AND THE WORM.

HOLY Moses, man of God, came to his tent one day,

And called his wife Safurja, and his children from their play:

"O sweetest orphaned children! O dearest widowed wife!

We meet, dear ones, no more on earth, for this day ends my life. Jehovah sent his angel down, and told me to prepare-"

Then swooned Safurja on the ground; the children, in despair,

Said, weeping, "Who will care for us when you, dear father, go?" And Moses wept and sobbed aloud to see his children's woe.

But then Jehovah spake from heaven: "And dost thou fear to die? And dost thou love this world so well that thus I hear thee cry?" And Moses said, "I fear not death. I leave this world with joy;

Yet cannot but compassionate this orphan girl and boy."

"In whom, then, did thy mother trust, when, in thy basket-boat,

An infant on the Nile's broad stream,
all helpless thou didst float?
In whom didst thou thyself confide
when by the raging sea

The host of Pharaoh came in sight?"
Then Moses said: "In thee!
In thee, O Lord, I now confide, as I
confided then."

And God replied: "Go to the shore!
Lift up thy staff again."
Then Moses lifted up his rod. The sea
rolled wide away.

And in the midst a mighty rock, black and uncovered, lay.

"Smite thou the rock!" said God again. The rock was rent apart,

And then appeared a little worm, close nestled in its heart.

The worm cried: "Praise to God on high, who hears his creatures' moan, Nor did forget the little worm concealed within the stone!"

The sunbeam, slanting through the cedar grove,

How lovely, and how mild! but loveliest still

The welcome in the eye of ancient friends,

Scarce known at first;-and dear the fig-tree shade,

In which, on Sabbath eve, his father

told

Of Israel, from the house of bondage freed,

Led through the desert to the promised land.

With eager arms the agèd stem he clasps, And with his tears the furrow'd bark bedews;

And still at midnight hour he thinks he hears

The blissful sound that brake the bondman's chains,—

The glorious peal of freedom and of joy. JAMES GRAHAME (1765-1811).

AARON ON MOUNT HOR. THE summer-day declined o'er Edom's

vales,

As on, through rugged paths of lone
Mount Hor,

Three men went travelling slow.
One, whose white beard
O'erswept his reverend breast, moved
painful on,

And ever, as the ascent steeper grew,
More wearily did lean on those who lent
Their kindly aid.

I see the mitred brow Of the High Priest of Israel, and anon, As the slant sun sends forth some brighter beam

Through the sparse boughs and cones of terebinth,

His dazzling breastplate like a rainbow gleams.

He muses o'er the distant Past, and calls

The buried years. Each, like unwilling ghost,

Comes up with its dark scroll and glides