Page:On the Desert - Recent Events in Egypt.djvu/136

 it cannot exist without Law; and if we might apply these majestic lines to the sacred image of Law enthroned on the cliffs of Sinai, we might say that from those "heights" not only do

 Fragments of her mighty voice Come rolling on the wind,"

but that the full voice, loud and clear, speaks to all the kindreds of mankind.

Whence then had this man this wisdom? He was "learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians," but he did not find it there, for a part of his code is aimed directly at the idolatries which were universal in Egypt. Where then did he get his inspiration? This is for those who are fond of pointing out the Mistakes of Moses to answer. They seem not to reflect, that when they have exhausted their small stock of wit on the supernatural proofs of his Divine mission, (as when, for example, they suggest that he took advantage of a thunder storm, which came up while he was on the mountain, to work upon the fears and the credulity of the people!) and have thus disposed, as they imagine, of the miracles of Moses, they leave the great miracle untouched: it is the Law itself. They have explained the lightnings and the thunderings: let them explain the Law. That remains a great fact in history, harder and more unyielding than the granite dome of Mount Sinai itself. Where did Moses get that Law? Those who, while they disparage the Bible, are ready to do honor to all other religions, to their founders and their sacred books, would willingly ascribe it to Buddha, whose Five Commandments so nearly correspond to the Second Table of the Law. Nor would it daunt them in the least that it would oblige them to follow those Commandments of Buddha from India across the whole breadth of Asia; but unfortunately Moses lived and died more than eight hundred years