The Caucasian. (Shreveport, La.) 1900-192?, 1907-02-12
Ca;ln1aQe
Sermon
By Rev.
Frank De Witt Talmaee, D. D.

sermon the preacher shows that as
Moses exile was necessary for his
practical training and development as
d great leader so there are periods in
our own lives when we seem to be
hopelessly. sidetracked by suffering,
trial or misfortune, all of which are
needed to bring out the better quail
ties of our nature. The text is En-
odus ii. l., But Moses fed from the
face of Pharaoh and dwelt i'll the land
of INDIAN
Hunger and hardship prove torture
to all men who endure them, yet they
entail the greatest suffering when they
assail men who have once dwelt in
the palaces of luxury. 1t is harder to
be Il pauper after one has once been Il
silk robed prince than it is to be a pau
per when one has always been accu.;-
toned to wear rags. Moses would not
have felt the bot, blistering sands of
the desert as he did. nor would his
parehed lips or his blistered tongue
have been so distressing. if his desert
journey when lie was fleeing away
from Egypt to the land of INDIAN.
near to old Mount Sinai, had been tax
Ell by a man who had never been any
thing else but a Hebrew slave. Mo
ses, it is true, had been born of a
slave but lie lad been accustomed -
luxury through the adoption by which
he became the son Of rharaoh's daugh-
ter. The finest garments crowded his
wardrobe The most costly viandS
were in his larder. The richest of pal
aces We're his domiciles. The most
learned sages couyersant with all
Egyptian lsre were his teachers. The
softest of couches were his resting
places. All that wealth and love could
give were layished upon him as child
a boy and a man. Now as a handsome
prince and as one of the keenest intel
lects of the world, as an epicurean,
who looked upon the rarest luXuries of
life as his necessities. we suddenly
find him a hunted fugitive. fleeing
from his foster mothers home with a
price upon his head. He is charged
than that. his crime is aggravated by
the fact that the murdered man was
an Egyptian who was cruelty ahus ,ng
one of the Hebrew slaves. IN other
words Moses was hated as the cham
pion of an alien race, that race race
of slaves. As an Egyptian prince he
had dared stand up and esporse the
cause and the rights of the Hebrew
slaves. who were the unpaid laborers
of the kingdom of the pharaohs.
Moses Blessings.
| want to dwell this morning on the
blessings which came to Moses life i'll
his forty long years of exile in the
land of the Midianites. l want to
speak about the blessings which came
to Moses in midlife. The period he
spent in indian extended from the a2e
Of forty to fifty, and from fifty to sixty,
and from sixty to seventy, and from
seventy to eighty. These twoscore
years of Moses life We're in some re
spects the most momentous OF all
Moses career Moses spent his first
forty years as beloved prince i'll
Pharaoh's palaces. The second forty
years he lived in the land of the
Midianites. The third forty years of
his life he spent in the wilderness with
the Hebrews, leading them from the
scene of Egyptian enslavement to the
crystal gates of the Jordan 1t is about
the second epoch of Moses life that |
would speak today.
In the first place, God had purpose
In permitting Moses to be driven into
exile. 1t was to teach him that God
thoughts are not as mans thoughts
nor Gods ways as mans ways. Inc
great Jehovah seemed to say to the
future emancipation of the Hebrew
race: MY son, | want to take you
away from the palaces of Memphis
and the temple of Karnak and all the
repulsive heather worship of the
Egyptians | want you to be alone
with me out III the desert sands. /
want to talk, with you and have you
talk with me. | want you to learn
about the God of Abraham and Isaac
and Jacob. / want you to be truly
my child and not be worshtper OF
cows, and bulls, and rams, and croco
diles. and cats, and lions, and frogs
and fishes, and hawks, and falcons. II
is almost an impossibility for any man
to live In the communicating spiritual
atmosphere W here his loved ones Are
worshiping false gods without having
his own spiritual ears dulled. Come
my child, to the faroff indian lands
where in the stiffness of the day and
In the stiffness of the night / can tall
| with thee and thou canst talk witt
me- Thus God led Moses far away
from the Egyptian temples into the
| quietude of exile in order that Moses
| might learn of him and study Wha'
! God wanted him to do.
Was this not very wise plan
| Where In all the world was the abem
nation of heather worship made more
| attractive than in old Egypt? Wher
we stand amid the ruins of Memphis
| we find there that the sacred deity
was worshiped In the form of a bull
These bulls were allowed to live fol
twenty years. Then they were pu
to death and their bodies embalmef
| like those of kings. Then, with grea1
ceremony, their bodies were carried
| T., mo 0n;6oant tom he which tombs