The Montgomery advertiser. [volume] (Montgomery, Ala.) 1885-1982, 1902-07-12
Third Quarter, Lesson IT; July IS,
1909; Exodus, Xxx, Ill.
The Ten COMMANDMENTS IS to
n<d

The Ten Comrlandments-Du'i IS to
Ced.
After the dead level of Egypt, the tow
ering thunder-smitten cliffs of Sinai
would be all the more impressive. The
place seems isolated by nature-the Al
mighty secret audience-chamber. The
most nonchalent traveller feels perforce
the spell of awful grandeur. He recog-
nizes at once the appropriateness of ma
lures setting for that scene of superla-
tive majesty,
A hundred days had passed since Moses
and Miriam had sung their peans on the
shore-days in which bitter waters had
been sweetened, quails and mamma had
been gathered, and the hordes of Amalek
overcome at Rephidim. And now three
million people stand upon the four hum
dred acres of bowling floor, and gaze al
the granite throne of the Almighty tow
ering two thousand feet above them.
Nature was agitated as II on the point
Of dissolution. That pyramidal altar
shook and smoked and blaZed. Jehovah
made flames of fire his ministers that day
There were angel attendants also, as Ste
phen and the author of Hebrews affirm
There was sound as of a trumpet exc
cutting a cresendo. But speech Of man
breaks down in effort to describe the The
ophany. this most august sight OF
earth and greatest event by far of the
old covenant.
The unapproachable holiness of God was
significantly indicated by thea barrier set
up between the multitude and the noun
tain. and the extreme penalty upon man
or beast for so much as touching Jeho-
vahs temporary and material throne. A
day, too, had been spent in ablutions be-
fore the people could so much as stand
in the divine presence.
Ineffably glorious as this scene was, II
did not amount to- as Hegel af1rms, AN
absolute enslavement OF human individu-
ality by the majesty of the divine per-
"a Anof ~ a
covenant, and that always implies the
freedom of both parties. 1t was the es-
adjustment of conjugal relation. In that
secret shrine of nature God married his
people, having first won their consent,
which they expressed in the words. ',All
that the Lord hath spoken we will do
This was the coronation Of Jehovah, the
establishment of theocracy but the set
ting of it up with the full consent Of the
The Ten Words formed in the air by
the power of God, and distinctly heard,
understood. and agreed to by the whole
nation, are the basic principles from
which all human codes have since been
developed. Like the steel frame which
holds towering modern structure to-
gether, the Ten Commandments are the
Invisible framework of society. There Is
an old tradition of the rabbis which af-
firms that God spoke in tongue that
divided itself into the seventy Languages
then extant, and extended thus audih!y
over the whole earth. That, of course.
Is fiction. But that the Decalogue Is the
cradle Of all codes Is fact.
1t Is of comparatively small moment
how we divide the law, whether with
Philo into two pentads, or with Augustine
into three and seven. God was dealing
with race in its childhood. and their
digits were evidently intended to he help l
could keep and count the Decalogue on
their fingers.
One table is commonly believed to have
contained the laws which express mans
duty to God, the other his duty toward
his fellows. The first contained the COM
mandments respecting % other gods, (2)
images, 90 the name Of God, "a the Sab
bath The second ID parents, (9 muir
der! 90 adultery, "a stealing, (5 false
witness, go covetousness.
In this vast audience chamber, the nat
ural sublimity Of which had been indie
scribably enhanced by this supernal
scene, the whole nation tarried for eleven
months. as If in constitutional assembly.
until the fundamental principles of the
Decalogue had been drawn out in
particular statutes. ethical, sacer-
dotal. judicial, and civil. Then at