The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1895-08-03

But cleaving to the parched roof 1t hung;
No tr'ckling drops distil, no dewy sweat,
To easy his weary limbs and cool the raging
heat"
The CONSERVATION, the horror, which
possessed the people when they saw such
sights repeated. made the evils OF which
they had formerly complained seem tri
vial. The people became for the time
insane with dread of the fiery serpents.
This terrible affection was to the
Israelites a divine judgment. Ii
wrought in them an intense realization
of their sin of atheism and rebellion.
And the people came to Noses and said
We haze sinned. because sUe haze spoken
against the Lord and against thee !;
pray unto the Lord that he take array
the serpents from as. While the fiery
snakes were, and are, the natural product
of that region. the people believed that
they were specially sent to punish them
for the faults of which they felt them
selves to be guilty.
We are not to forget. in reading all
the Hebrew annals, that it was the dis,
tinctive Hebrew faith that God is the
immediate cause of all natural phenom-
ena. The Hebrews had no conception
of what we call miracle, because every
occurrence was to them equally miracu-
lous. 1t was therefore in accordance
with their habit of thought that their
panic became an aroused sense of per-
sonal guilt.
Moses, beholding their terror and re-
pentance, became pitiful and in their be-
half prayerful.
3. Moses Provides a Remark
able Remedy,-vs SO.
And the Lord said unto Noses, Make
thee fiery serpent and set it upon q
standard: and 1T shall come to pass that
every one that is bitten, aohen he seeth
1T shall hve. That is: Moses exercised
his sagacity under prayerful appeal to
the Inner Voice. In other words he
made heroic use of his common sense.
The philosophy of his strange remedy,
as we understand it is not far to seek.
The trouble with the people was mainly
a nervous affection. AS one is in our
day cured of the sickness caused by the
sea by continuously beholding the sea
and becoming accustomed to its motion;
as one again is cured OF the nervous
fright which locomotive causes by be-
coming familiarzed with the locomotive
by railroad journeys. so the fever caused
by the occasional sight Of the poisonous
serpents would be subdued by becoming
accustomed to the sight of a dead reptile,
of mans making. under mans control.
For all who had been bitten by reptiles,
yet we're not poisoned, the sight of the
brazen image meant life saving, rescue
from insane fear. Those who had been
actually poisoned might even have the
venom counteracted by restored sanity
and a sudden inspiration of hope.
The pictorial popular statement is
scientifically credible that Moses, having
made a serpent of bronze and set it on a
standard, 1t came to pass that If a SER
pent had bitten any man. achen he
looked unto the serpent of brass he
lived.
The meaning of the brazen serpent is
limited by the immediate and temporary
purpose it served. This the Jewish
prophets themselves taught. The image
was preserved until the time of Heze.
kiah, but this king, when he saw the
people burning incense before it in idola-
trous worship, caused it to be broken in
pieces z Kings Is: 4
To now make the image Of the brazen
serpent type of Christ. in any literal or
prophetic sense, is to make it deserving
of second destruction.