The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1901-11-30
sUNDAY-sCHooL LESSON.
Dec. L, 1901: The Call of Moses
Exodus, iii, 1-12.

Hf
Far seen across the sandy wild,
While, like a solitary child.
He thoughtless roamed and free,
one towering thorn was wrapt in flame;
Bright without blaze il went and came
Who would not turn and see?
Along the mountain lodges green.
The scattered sheep at will may CLEAN
The while, with undivided heart.
The shepherd talks with God apart,
And as he talks, adOres.
-Keble. in Christian Year.
After an absence of four centuries the Theo-
phany blazes out once more. It's last appear
ance was the lamp of fire. which swung low
between the fragments of Abraham's dismem-
bered sacrifice. The inehable voice heard last
by Jacob at Beersheba as he journeyed to meet
his long-lost son. now breaks its protracted ST
lence. Light and voice fall upon eye and ear
Of a solitary shepherd far down the Sinaitlc
peninsula. . . Were we looking for a de-
liverer for captive Israel, We would hardly have
traversed the wilderness of Shur. Pharan. and
Ethan to find him. We would not be likely to
have gone to the tribe of INDIAN. so spiritless
and destitute of resources. We would not have
selected a meek and peaceful shepherd. .
But God seeth not as man seeth. a better
emancipator could not be conceived Of than that
very herdsman kneeling before that green bush
transmitted into a flaming shrine. Moses knew
Egypt, not the mere lay of the land but
q law ~ Lie
knew the points most likely to be vulnerable in
the character or administration Of any Pharaoh.
He knew his fellow-countrymen. their strength
and weakness. He was familiar with every .ncn
Of the Sinaitic peninsula, from point to point of
which he was to lead the emancipated nation for
forty years. " . . But this knowledge after
all, was merely incidental. Moses real q~ualihca-
ton was his righteousness. Is II too much to be-
lieve that it was this which led him to the
sanctuary Of the desert, in very hopes that there
jehovah would break his silence and communi-
cate his will? The prepared message came then
as ever to the prepared mind. . . Never
was more striking illustration Of the divine
affirmation, MY strength is made perfect in
weakness" Consciousness Of his personal in
adequacy to the tremendous task of freeing a
wholly dispirited people from the most in
vincible despotism, drove him to implicit ODE
dience and trust in Jehovah. Forty years of
exile, too, had Injured him to trying vicissitudes.
and made him much enduring (meek) above
all men" He was a graduate thoroughly equip
ped from Gods school Of adversely. His won
der-working rod was his diploma. . " 4" As n
few months later, in this very mount, his face
toward Canaan and three million liberated serfs
at his back. he prayed. IF thy presence go not
with me, carry US not up hence so now, with
his face toward Egypt and his mighty task
clearly outlined before him. he invoked the
divine presence, and there came the assuring
response, Certainly 1 will be with thee"
Enough! Pharaoh and all his serried legions are
as the exceeding fine dust of the balance.
THE TEACHERS LANTERN.
A long leap that from the papyrus ark to the
shaggy acacia1the one floating, with its pre-
cious burden, on the Nile; the other burning
with Theophanic splendor on the brow Of Sinai.
The span is eighty years in time, and two hun
dred odd miles in space. That arch covers the
double tutelage of the boy Moses, the training
Of the court in all Egypt's wisdom, and of his
mother in the pious annals Of the patriarchs.
1t covers the sublime self-oblivion which re-
jected the treasures of Egypt for the affection Of
Gods people-the premature effort at emancipa-
ton; the flight into indian, whose awful soli-
tudes were educative in themselves. . I. .
Elijah and Paul undoubtedly went to school for
training to this self-same school of nature.
where granite cliffs and silent canyon are teach
ers. The Tishbite prophet fed from the scant
shelter Of his juniper-tree to Horeb, the Mount
OF God, and the Christian apostle says, IT went
into Arabia" and speaks of Mount Sinai as
only an eyewitness could. " The thorn