Page:Legends of Old Testament Characters.djvu/283

XXXII.] One day, as Moses was tending his flock in a barren place, he saw that one of the lambs had left the flock and was escaping. The good shepherd pursued it, but the lamb ran so much the faster, fled through valley and over hill, till it reached a mountain stream; then it halted and drank.

Moses now came up to it, and looked at it with troubled countenance, and said,— "My dear little friend! Then it was thirst which made thee run so far and seem to fly from me; and I knew it not! Poor little creature, how tired thou must be! How canst thou return so far to the flock?"

And when the lamb heard this, it suffered Moses to take it up and lay it upon his shoulders; and, carrying the lamb, he returned to the flock.

Now whilst Moses walked, burdened with the lamb, there fell a voice from heaven, "Thou, who hast shown so great love, so great patience towards the sheep of man's fold, thou art worthy to be called to pasture the sheep of the fold of God."

4. MOSES BEFORE PHARAOH. One day that Moses was keeping sheep, his father-in-law, Jethro, came to him and demanded back the staff that he had given him. Then Moses cast the staff from him among a number of other rods, but the staff ever returned to his hand as often as he cast it away. Then Jethro laid hold of the rod, but he could not move it. Therefore he was obliged to let Moses retain it. But he was estranged from him.

Now Pharaoh was dead. And when the news reached Moses in Midian, he gat him up, and set his wife Zipporah and his son Gershom on an ass, and took the way of Egypt.

And as they were in the way. they halted in a certain place; and it was cloudy, and cold, and rainy. Then they encamped, and Zipporah tried to make a fire, but could not, for the wood was damp.

Moses said, "I see a fire burning at the foot of the mountain. I will go to it, for there must be travellers there;