The Wheeling daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1865-1903, 1879-04-15

IngeFSOlI.
From a Sermon Reported 10 the Chicago Times.
When 1 hear people treating the Penta
touch as something they would like to Sc,
done away, I cannot help wishing that /
could be dug up atresh in these days o
curious research into the past. Why
suppose that the Jews had no such books
and had not known anything Of their orr.
gin except a vague tradition Of some sort
Of migration under n Moses, and curl
ously fitting to this the Egyptian tradition
which IL, you know, that some 1906
years before Christ q great multitude OF
people had gone out OF Egypt, led BY an
Egyptian priest, who taught them MANY
things contrary to the Egyptian religion,
and afterwards changed his name to
Moses well, supposing then these books
Of the PentateuGh should be discovered
somewhere-why, the world would 20
wild over them. What would 1t matter
whether Il would be settled that Moses
himself did or did not write them -or
that possibly they were not written till
centuries alter, and only preserved what
was believed about him at that early date
still the fact would remain that they
take us by traditions, at any rate, 50
much further back into the past and show
US there n OF the very noblest stories OF
the world. For that Is what the story Of
Moses Is. Take off all the discount YOU
will for exaggeration-I dare say the mum.
bers are immensely exaggerated. Sun.
posethe idea othis having been led by God
speaking to him to have been only his own
intense consciousness OF what was best,
ascribed to God. Suppose the idea Of his
having been helped by miracles to have
been only his own r~everent impression,
ascribing every trouble that came on
Egypt, and every favoring circumstance
to his own people, to some purposed and
direct help from God. All that does not
touch the essence of the story OF Moses.
There 1t stands, how those Hebrews
through many generations had sunk into
the pariah and helot class OF that great
rich Egyptian civilization; and how at last
this Moses rose up, to rally them to a
mighty effort to get right away into some
other land. He had been somehow
brought up among the Egyptians, trained
in the sacred city, educated among the
priests-an adopted son OF Pharaoh's
daughter but he had given it all up, iden-
tilted himself with his down.trodden peo-
pie, and at last won for them the liberty
to go! And they went out-out into the
great desert waste. What does it matter
that the tradition Of their numbers got
perhaps enormously exaggerated? Ifthere
were only . hundredth part thirty thou
sand instead OF three million in all-there
were quite enough To task their leaders
fortitude to its utmost; aud through those
books We have at least very Lying glimpses
Of him in his efforts to keep them
from grumbling and getting dis
heartenedI in bis efforts to keep them
true to his simple teaching o. tho
one Almighty God; in his lonely hours
when he was listening for tho eternal
word, and shaping his best thoughts which
he believed came to him from God into
laws for his people. And there is the
great fact, you know-however, he did 1t,
he did guide and lead them through that
long migration, and at last brought them
to the land from which their fathers had
gone out long before, aud babe them 60
in and possess it! And that multitude
whom he led out of Egypt q race of slaves,
servile with long oppression, at ovarv diff
Guilty talking Of going back, he had in that
forty years knit into a brave, hardy fierce
race-whod did go in and possess the land
and became the progenitors Of n OF the
worlds noblest races. That is the story Of
Moses-juSt the barest skeleton OF it,
taking only the largest, most nnmistak-
able features; and | say again there is no
finer story in history. And what will
you say Of the a who will make fun OF
It?
Why, what would you think OF any man
who would 60 around the country making
fierce fun Of Abraham Lincoln, holding up
his gaunt, lank figure to ridicule, bur.
lesquing his speeches, denouncing as lies
some Of those quaint little anecdotes, and
holding him up Rs q fool and al idiot?
And yet that glorious work that makes
Lincoln's name dear not to Americans
only but TO the lovers Of freedom and OF
man in every nation-that work Of his was
nn1u thu N6ndaRO nnNhfornaHf nf u,haf