The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-02-03
BL GEORGE LEWIS BALES


 the first time commenced a Course in Bible study. that Is run ming from Genesis straight through the Bible. It is a dwo-year course. The present semester, which ends July 1. embraces the Old Testament. The sec ond term, running nine months, deals with the life of Christ; the third, also of nine months. duration, will be a study of the Acts and the Epistles.
 The Age-Herald has arranged with Mir. Bailes of the Birmingham bar, and teacher of the Cosmopolitan Mems class at the Strand theatre, to write a short laymen's talk on each lesson. The first of the series was the Call of Abraham; the second, The Egyptian Bondage; the third, The Commissioning of Moses; next, Irrael Saved At The Red Sea-, and today, What Israel Learned At Sinai,
 DEUT. fv: .32-4O 32 For ask now of the days that are past, which were before thee, since the day that God created man upon the earth, and ask from the one side of heaven unto the other, whether there hath been any such thing as this great thing is. or hath heard like it? 33. Did ever people hear the voice of God speaking out of the midst of the fire, as thou hast heard, and live? 34 Or hath God assayed to go and take him a nation from the midst of an- other nation, by temptation,by signs,by wonders and by war;, and by a mighty hand, and by a stretched out arm, and the Lord your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes?
 35. Unto thee it was showed, that thou mightest know that the Lord he is God; there is none else beside him. 36. Out of heaven he made thee to hear his voice, that he might instruct thee; and upon earth he showed thee his great fire and thou heardest his words out of the midst of the fire. 37. And because he loved thy fathers, therefore he chose their seed after them, and brought thee out in his sight with his mighty power out of Egypt.
 38. To drive out nations from be- fore the greater and mightier than thou are, to bring thee in, to give thee their land for an inheritance, as it is this day.
 80. Know therefore this day, and consider it in thine heart, that the Lord he is God in heaven above, and upon the earth beneath there is none else. 40. Thou shall keep therefore his statutes, and his commandments, which I command thee this day, that it may go well with thee, and with thy chill dren after thee, and that thou mayest prolong thy days upon the earth. which the Lord thy God giveth thee, forever Forty Years Pass
 It was now 40 years since the day when Moses had trudged back down the side of the mountain, carrying the two stone tablets on which the finger of Jehovah had written the law.
 The scene of action has changed. The great hosts of Israel, after milling around in the waste lapd of ~sage- brush and sand for generation, and finally arrived at the foot of the noun tain range which separated the desert from the rich valley of the Jordan river. The grand old man had finally brought his people to the very gateway of the land of milk and honey. His part in the great drama was nearly finished. He is about to hand his peo- pie the chart and constitution which shall guide them as a nation until their mission is fully performed.
 Always it has been the custom for great leaders at crucial times to call their followers together and make known to them the main plan of action, the real objective to be reached by the minor tactics and lesser tasks of de- teil which are assigned to those in the ranks.
 There was time when Hannibal, conquerOr of the Legions of Rome, ,hn,N snL -f hill, assembled his army in the valley at it's base and thrilled them with new enthusiasm and courage and morale, re viewing the courage of events from the time when they left Carthage in Africa, and started out on their conquest of the cluded. By the Alps lies Italy"
 At another time Napoleon, at the same spot, assembled his valiant Frenchmen around him. recounted what the soldiers of Hannibal had done centuries before. reviewed the chain of victories wrought by his own men, and stirred them with zeal to go forward to other and greater victories.
 WashingtOn's Orders
 One is reminded of that cold, rainy Sunday in 17S3 when George Washing ton assembled his soldiers around the foot of Rockey Hill. near Princeton, and delivered his farewell orders to the armies of the United States. Every American soldier" he said, must now console himself for any unpleasant thing which has occurred. by remem- bering the uncommon scenes in which he has been called upon to act an in glorious part, and the astonishing | events of which he has been n witness l events which have. seldom, if ever, be- | fore taken place on the stage of hu- | man action; nor can they probably ever happen again. For who has ever seen a disciplined army forged from such material? Who can trace the steps by which such wonderful rev olution has been affected, and such a glorious period put to all our war-like toils:' Again he said. Religion and morality enjoin the right conduct. Can it be that Providence has not connected the permanent felicity of nation with it's virture."
 ! This, in one sense was the very ques- tion that Moses had raised on that day ,450 years before Christ, in that in- spired oration delivered at the foot of Mt. Nebo.
 In this great address Moses reviewed, not only the events of the 40 years since his people had shaken off the shackles of Egyptian slavery; he re- viewed the 400 years of that slavery more than this, he reviewed the things which Jehovah had done for his people from the time of Abraham, down to that good hour. and declared that with out obedience 10 law, without virtue, there can be no permanent well-being for men or nations
 There is nothing in all literature that excels the dramatic e1oquence of Moses here. where he describes the time when those who stood before him had heard