Part 7 (1/2)

It has taught them what G.o.d is, and what Christ is. It has taught them what man is, and what a Christian man should be. It has taught them what a family means, and what a nation means. It has taught them the meaning of law and duty, of loyalty and patriotism. It has filled their minds with things honest and just and lovely and of good report; with the histories of men and women like themselves, who sinned and sorrowed and struggled like them in this hard battle of life, but who conquered at last, by trusting and obeying G.o.d.

This one story of Joseph, which we have been reading again this Sunday, I do not doubt that it has taught thousands who had no other story-book to read--who could not even read themselves, but had to listen to others' reading; that it has taught them to be good sons, to be good brothers; that it has taught them to keep pure in temptation, and patient and honest under oppression and wrong; that it has stirred in them a n.o.ble ambition to raise themselves in life; and taught them, at the same time, that the only safe and sure way of rising is to fear G.o.d and keep his commandments; and so has really done more to civilize and refine them--to make them truly civilized men and gentlemen, and not vulgar savages--than if they had known a smattering of a dozen sciences. I say that the Bible is the book which civilizes and refines, and enn.o.bles rich and poor, high and low, and has been doing so for fifteen hundred years; and that any man who tries to shake our faith in the Bible, is doing what he can--though, thank G.o.d, he will not succeed--to make such rough and coa.r.s.e heathens of us again as our forefathers were five hundred years ago.

And I tell you, labouring people, that if you want something which will make up to you for the want of all the advantages which the rich have--go to your Bibles and you will find it there.

There you will find, in the history of men like ourselves--and, above all, in the history of a man unlike ourselves, the perfect Man--perfect Man and perfect G.o.d together--whatsoever is true, whatsoever is honest, just, pure, lovely, and of good report; every virtue, and every just cause of praise which mortal man can desire.

Read of them in your Bible, think of them in your hearts, feed on them with your souls, that your souls may grow like what they feed on; and above all, read and study the story and character of Jesus Christ himself, our Lord, that beholding, as in a gla.s.s, the glory of the Lord, you may be changed into his likeness, from grace to grace, and virtue to virtue, and glory to glory.

And that change and that growth are as easy for the poor as for the rich, and as necessary for the rich as for the poor.

SERMON IX. MOSES

(Fifth Sunday in Lent.)

EXODUS iii. 14. And G.o.d said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM.

And now, my friends, we are come, on this Sunday, to the most beautiful, and the most important story of the whole Bible-- excepting of course, the story of our Lord Jesus Christ--the story of how a family grew to be a great nation. You remember that I told you that the history of the Jews, had been only, as yet, the history of a family.

Now that family is grown to be a great tribe, a great herd of people, but not yet a nation; one people, with its own G.o.d, its own wors.h.i.+p, its own laws; but such a mere tribe, or band of tribes as the gipsies are among us now; a herd, but not a nation.

Then the Bible tells us how these tribes, being weak I suppose because they had no laws, nor patriotism, nor fellow-feeling of their own, became slaves, and suffered for hundreds of years under crafty kings and cruel taskmasters.

Then it tells us how G.o.d delivered them out of their slavery, and made them free men. And how G.o.d did that (for G.o.d in general works by means), by the means of a man, a prophet and a hero, one great, wise, and good man of their race--Moses.

It tells us, too, how G.o.d trained Moses, by a very strange education, to be the fit man to deliver his people.

Let us go through the history of Moses; and we shall see how G.o.d trained him to do the work for which G.o.d wanted him.

Let us read from the account of the Bible itself. I should be sorry to spoil its n.o.ble simplicity by any words of my own: 'And the children of Israel were fruitful, and increased abundantly, and multiplied, and waxed exceeding mighty; and the land was filled with them. Now there arose up a new king over Egypt, which knew not Joseph. And he said unto his people, Behold, the people of the children of Israel are more and mightier than we: Come on, let us deal wisely with them; lest they multiply, and it come to pa.s.s, that, when there falleth out any war, they join also unto our enemies, and fight against us, and so get them up out of the land.

Therefore they did set over them taskmasters to afflict them with their burdens. And they built for Pharaoh treasure cities, Pithon and Raamses. . . . And Pharaoh charged all his people, saying, Every son that is born ye shall cast into the river, and every daughter ye shall save alive. And there went a man of the house of Levi, and took to wife a daughter of Levi. And the woman conceived and bare a son: and when she saw him that he was a goodly child, she hid him three months. And when she could no longer hide him, she took for him an ark of bulrushes, and daubed it with slime and with pitch, and put the child therein: and she laid it in the flags by the river's brink. And his sister stood afar off, to wit what would be done to him. And the daughter of Pharaoh came down to wash herself at the river; and her maidens walked along by the river's side; and when she saw the ark among the flags, she sent her maid to fetch it. And when she had opened it, she saw the child; and behold the babe wept. And she had compa.s.sion on him, and said, This is one of the Hebrews' children. Then said his sister to Pharaoh's daughter, Shall I go and call to thee a nurse of the Hebrew women, that she may nurse the child for thee? And Pharaoh's daughter said to her, Go. And the maid went and called the child's mother. And Pharaoh's daughter said unto her, Take this child away, and nurse it for me, and I will give thee thy wages. And the woman took the child, and nursed it. And the child grew, and she brought him unto Pharaoh's daughter, and he became her son. And she called his name Moses: and she said, Because I drew him out of the water.'

Moses, the child of the water. St. Paul in the Epistle to the Hebrews says that Moses was called the son of Pharaoh's daughter; that is, adopted by her. We read elsewhere that he was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, of which there can be no doubt from his own writings, especially that part called Moses' law.

So that Moses had from his youth vast advantages. Brought up in the court of the greatest king of the world, in one of the greatest cities of the world, among the most learned priesthood in the world, he had learned, probably, all statesmans.h.i.+p, all religion, which man could teach him in those old times.

But that would have been little for him. He might have become merely an officer in Pharaoh's household, and we might never have heard his name, and he might never have done any good to his own people and to all mankind after them, as he has done, if there had not been something better and n.o.bler in him than all the learning and statesmans.h.i.+p of the Egyptians.

For there was in Moses the spirit of G.o.d; the spirit which makes a man believe in G.o.d, and trust G.o.d. 'And therefore,' says St. Paul, 'he refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter; esteeming the reproach of CHRIST better than all the treasures in Egypt.'

And how did he do that? In this wise.

The spirit of G.o.d and of Christ is also the spirit of justice, the spirit of freedom; the spirit which hates oppression and wrong; which is moved with a n.o.ble and Divine indignation at seeing any human being abused and trampled on.

And that spirit broke forth in Moses. 'And it came to pa.s.s in those days, when Moses was grown, that he went out unto his brethren, and looked on their burdens: and he spied an Egyptian smiting an Hebrew, one of his brethren. And he looked this way and that way, and when he saw that there was no man, he slew the Egyptian, and hid him in the sand.'

If he cannot get justice for his people, he will do some sort of rough justice for them himself, when he has an opportunity.

But he will see fair play among his people themselves. They are, as slaves are likely to be, fallen and base; unjust and quarrelsome among themselves.