The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1888-09-15


is not necessarily implied. According to
Hebrew usage, Con is said to do whatever is
in accordance with His will, or in the ao-
oomplishment of His purpose. The death
and burial of Moses were Divinely decreed
and accomplished. He was not permitted
to enter the earthly Canaan, but was trans
lated to the heavenly Canaan, for which he
was spiritually prepared. The account of
Moses death harmonizes with the account
which gives reason for the Divine degree,
which may have been added to the original
story of his life and Leadership of Israel. 1t
is not improbable that the story of his death
is colored by legend, since in Arabian and
Rabbinical literature and tradition numer-
GUS legends are connected with his death.
But whatever the cause and reason for his
death, the Divine decree by which he was
translated, having had only vision of the
Promised Land, was wise and merciful.
Even the penalties of COP are kind and be-
nefcent. He had done. the work for which he
was specially fitted. Another was qualified
to accomplish the mission for which he may
have had no heart. Had he lived longer, he
would have found that Canaan was not what
he had dreamed Of, nor what it appeared to
be from the top of Pisgah; nor would the
Israelites become what he hoped and prayed.
Do not misunderstood these words. These
words represent the conception of ignorance.
This is an afterthought by which the so-ealled
premature death of Moses is to be accounted
for; but the event as it stands here is out of
analogy with the whole currant and How of
the story, as if it could be accepted just as
it here appears, it would throw infinite dis
credit upon all that had gone before.
Though the speech is attributed to COP
(xxxii. 5, ~, and put as it were into his very
lips, it is the conception of the man who
wrote 1.-THE afterthought of the historian.
We are emboldened to say this because of all
the previous history. If sin could disqualify
a man for entrance into Canaan, then not
man in all the host ought ever no have seen
the Promised Land. But Moses was trained
above. If there be two things in which it is
impossible for COP to lie, it is impossible
for the GoD of Justice to speak of Moses as a
criminal. Whatever may have been written
on the margin by some unskilled or malicious
hand, and whatever may have been trans
ferred from the margin into the body of the
text, all nature, all Justice, all truth says:
Moses must not die on the ground of being
a criminal. Moses was to see that the
promise had been fulfilled. He was to be
ranked with Abraham, and Isaac and Jacob,
in that it was unworthy of him to go into So
little land, so mean home; enough for the
scholars behind him; enough for those who
were still reading, and half blind; who could
scarcely discriminate between the right and
the left-school- house for them, but as for
Moses-after Sinai, after forty days COM
munion upon the mountain, after the shining
face, after all the experience that had made
him what he was-his next movement must
be to the eternal Canaan, the better land,
the Jerusalem which is above Joseph Par
ker, d. d., ''The Peoples Bible"
The actual manner of Moses's death must
remain forever a mystery. No eye saw it
None knew the exact moment of it. In 81
lence ard solitude, at the top of Pisgah,
alone with COP, the great law-giver, prophet,
leader passed away, passed to the rest which
he had 20 well earned not smitten by any
painful disease, nor worn out by gradual de-
cay-but still in the full possession of his
powers, sill with none of his natural force
abated, ha sank to rest-he twas not, for COP
took him" (Gen. v. 24) The soul fled; the
body remained, and was buried in some
strange aud mysterious wey-not by Eleazsr,
nor by il shua-in ravine of the mountain
but exactly where no man knew The
grave on Mt. Nebo was, as is the grave of
Golgotha, shrouded in thick darkness, to
after ages an unknown locality. Moses;
His Life and times"
HIS SUCCESSOR IN 0FFICE.-Before his
death Moses designated Joshua, and qualified
him to be his successor in the Divine leader
ship of Israel Mum. xxxvii. Is 23) whom the
people received and duly installed into the
office. Johua was Moses minister of war, and
was specially qualified to be the leader of the
Israeites in the conquest of Canaan. His
courage and fidelity was proven as one of the
spies, who explored the country thirty-eight
years before, and made favorable report.
and urged an immediate aggressive move
ment, trusting in COP, who had promised
this goodly inheritance to their fathers, to
give them an easy victory over the inhabi-
tants of the land, and establish them in
peaceable and prosperous possession of it.
He afterwards accomplished the conquest of
Canaan, aud established the children of Is
rael in the independent possession of the
Promised Land, an account of which is con
tanned in "The Book of Joshua" He was,
probably, the biographer of Moses, and the
first editor and CO npiler of his works as the
law-giver of Israel.
HIS FAME.-Mosss is the most famous
prophet of Israel, and the greatest man OF
antiquity-one of the greatest the world has
ever known. Hs was the liberator, organi-
ger, law-giver, civilizer, of the Jewish nation,
whose institutions and statutes have become
the basis of government and law of the most
civilized nations of the earth. He organized
the Divine government of Israel on plan
which typifed the Kingdom of COP for the
Divine government of mankind. Before
CHRIST, the founder of the Kingdom of Cor
in the earth, no one who had ever lived. had
known and declared the will of GoD 80 per
fectly as did Moses, who held intimate and
immediate communion with Him, as one
talks face to face with friend. and was able
to do the greatest and most wonderful works
by His powers-a knowledge of whose oper'
atoms he obtained and possessed.
Moses, the founder of the moral yehweh
worship, stands at the head of the spiritual
| movement which eliminated in Him who
said: BLESSED are the pure in heart, fol
they shall see GoD."-Dr. Fl. Oort, 1.-THE Bi
BILE for Learners"
THE LESSON OF HIS LIFE AND DEATH
"A lesson to be learned from the life and
death of Moses is that we cannot hope to live
to accomplish our noblest ambitions. The
| grandest of GoD's workers fall in the mids
of their lsbors, and at the right time fol-
other better qualified, perhaps, to carry for
ward their work to its final accomplishment
There is no real cause for Encouragement
| when the leaders of great moral movements