Page:On the Desert - Recent Events in Egypt.djvu/131

 mountain, we might form some faint conception of the mingled majesty and terror of the sight when the Lord descended upon Sinai. From the top we observed what we had noticed in the plain, that the ground is lowest nearest the mountain, and that it rises as it recedes, like the seats of an amphitheatre, so that all converge to one point, which is the centre of the scene. At the farther end of the plain, the surface is more broken, rising and falling in gentle undulations, so that if any fled terror-stricken from the base of the mount, they could still behold it afar off, from the distant slopes, while they heard the mighty voice that swept across the plain, and reverberated like thunder in the farthest recesses of the mountains. No wonder that those who stood trembling at the sight said to Moses, "Speak thou with us and we will hear, but let not God speak with us lest we die."

But what need, asks the sneerer at Moses, of such grand "pyrotechnics" to attend the giving of the Law? Why should "the heavens be on fire" except it were to illuminate a world? What need of all this array of clouds and storms, of lightnings and thunderings? Was there a king to be crowned? Not one of the Pharaohs ever saw such a sight on the banks of the Nile. But here there was neither king nor crown, nor any of the signs of royalty. Only a law was to be proclaimed; and that not a complete system of legislation, but only Ten Commandments, expressed in few words. There is an apparent want of harmony in such magnificent preparations to usher in such a feeble conclusion. And yet somehow this Law, so small in volume, has lived for thousands of years, and promises to live to the end of time. Standing here on the rocky height where it was given, we cannot forbear some reflections on the peculiar features of a Law thus proclaimed, which had such an origin, and was to have such a history.