Morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven [Conn.]) 1848-1894, 1890-09-29
THE MORAL Law.
Opening of a Valuable Course o
sunday Evening Lectures.

At the Church of the Messiah last eve
ming Rev L. H. Squires gave the first of
course of Sunday evening lectures on
''The Moral Law" The subject last eve
ming was ''The Origin of the Ten Com
mandments.
The speaker described the circumstances
under which they were given to the Israel
ties by Moses, and claimed that there was
no good reason for the commonly received
opinion that God wrote the command
ments. The Bible narrative gives mar
row, childish, materialistic view of God
which might have been seriously held in a
superstitious age, but which to us seem
like burlesque on Deity. He is repre-
sented as coming down unto the noun
tain," as showing his back to Moses, as
blowing trumphet, as talking Hebrew,
as writing with his finger on tables of
stone, as telling Moses how to make the
ark, and the Tabernacle, and what to make
it of, how many loops on a curtain, and
all about the tables, dishes and kettles, un-
til the majesty of Jehovah, disappears,
and we have left only ceremonial priest
of an early and ignorant age. The speak
% "a P1OboCo uilc bCl1Cl thot ollC Lulu Qlo
not blow that trumpet without the use of
Aaron's mouth, nor write the command
ments without Moses chisel
Referring to the question of whether
Moses was inspired, the speaker said he
believed in inspiration. It is Just as
natural and as real as expiration, respira-
ton, perspiration, or any other cation. -
Men have been inspired in all ages In
SEPARATION is free to all, and poets, painters,
authors, inventors, statesmen, have re-
ceived large measures of it, while multi
tndes in the walks of common life have
felt the touch of the infinite upon them,
to their capacity to receive.
Moses wrote the moral law, but it was
not a supernatural revelation to him. The
commandments were in human life long
before he collated them. Monotheisn had
been the faith of the Jews for five hun
dred years, and they had always been
taught to shun idolatry. The Sabbath
was already an old institution. Honor to
parents was the most conspicuous domes
tic trait through all the preceding parri-
| archal ages. Moses wrote ''thou shalt not
kill, i" but forty years before he had been
taught that by Egyptian law, and his own
conscience, when having killed man he
| fed from the country to save his life
The marriage relation has long been es-
tablished, and adultery punished as vice.
Stealing was already branded as crime in
the laws and customs of nations, and per-
jury and covetousness were known by ex-
perience as ancient and dangerous vices.
The truth is, the Ten Commandments
were lived before they were written. They
are the outcome of an older moral nature
in man, the fruit of an older law which
God writes on the feshly tables of the
human heart
What the world needs to-day and always
is not simply to be taught the doctrine of
supernatural revelation in book, but to
be cultivated in moral character until the
divine law shall be revealed in each life
The Isralites having the outward law
made golden calf before Moses got back
from the mountain. They carried with jeal-
GUS care the ark with the commandments,
yet they killed the Canaanites and stole
their possessions. They had the law, but they
needed to have it wrought into life. This
is work of growth and culture. To give
man Bible does not give him a divine
revelation. He needs revelation in his
conscience and the moral law, not in
fancy Bible on the center table, but lived
out in character and conduct. The only
real revelation is that which comes out Of
the life.