Page:Great Men and Famous Women Volume 3.djvu/18

2 worth our while to take the point of view in which all shades of belief may find common ground, and accepting the main features of Hebrew record, consider them in the light of history, and of human nature as it shows itself to-day. Here is a case in which sacred history may be treated as we would treat profane history without any shock to religious feeling. The keenest criticism cannot resolve Moses into a myth. The fact of the Exodus presupposes such a leader. To lead into freedom a people long crushed by tyranny; to discipline and order such a mighty host; to harden them into fighting men, before whom warlike tribes quailed and walled cities went down; to repress discontent and jealousy and mutiny; to combat reactions and reversions; to turn the quick, fierce flame of enthusiasm to the service of a steady purpose, require some towering character—a character blending in highest expression the qualities of politician, patriot, philosopher, and statesman.

Such a character in rough but strong outline the tradition shows us—the union of the wisdom of the Egyptians with the unselfish devotion of the meekest of men. From first to last, in every glimpse we get, this character is consistent with itself, and with the mighty work which is its monument. It is the character of a great mind, hemmed in by conditions and limitations, and working with such forces and materials as were at hand—accomplishing, yet failing. Behind grand deed, a grander thought. Behind high performance, the still nobler ideal.

Egypt was the mould of the Hebrew nation the matrix in which a single family, or, at most, a small tribe, grew to a people as numerous as the American people at the time of the Declaration of Independence. For four centuries, according to the Hebrew tradition a period as long as America has been known to Europe this growing people, coming a patriarchal family from a roving, pastoral life, had been placed under the dominance of a highly developed and ancient civilization a civilization symbolized by monuments that rival in endurance the everlasting hills; a civilization so ancient that the Pyramids, as we now know, were hoary with centuries ere Abraham looked on them.

No matter how clearly the descendants of the kinsmen who came into Egypt at the invitation of the boy-slave become prime minister, maintained the distinction of race, and the traditions of a freer life, they must have been powerfully affected by such a civilization; and just as the Hebrews of to-day are Polish in Poland, German in Germany, and American in the United States, so, but far more clearly and strongly, the Hebrews of the Exodus must have been Egyptian.