Page:On the Desert - Recent Events in Egypt.djvu/183

 And is this the Law that was "written in blood"? No, not in blood, but in tears: for through the sternness of the lawgiver is continually breaking the heart of the man. Behind the coat-of-mail that covers the breast of the warrior, is sometimes found the heart of a woman. This union of gentleness with strength is one of the most infallible signs of a truly great nature: "Out of the strong cometh forth sweetness." So was it with Moses: with a natural delicacy and tenderness, made still more sensitive by his own peculiar experience. His life had been one of many trials, of loneliness and exile, and we can well believe that the thoughtful provisions that appear even in the midst of rigorous statutes, were the suggestions of his own sad memories, the blessed fruit of sorrow. It is this mingling of the tender and the terrible that gives to the Hebrew Law a character so unique — a majesty that awes, with a gentleness that savors more of parental affection than of severity. Crime and its punishment is not in itself a pleasing subject to dwell on; but when on this dark background is thrown the light of such provisions for the poor and the weak, the effect is like the glow of sunset on the red granite of the Sinai mountains. Even the peaks that were hard and cold, look warm in the flood of sunlight which is poured over them all.

Thus uniting the character of the Supporter of Weakness and Protector of Innocence, with that of the Punisher of Crime, Moses appears almost as the divinity of his nation — as not only the founder of the Hebrew state, but as its guardian genius through all the periods of its history. When he went up into Mount Nebo, and stretched out his arm towards the Promised Land, which lay in full view on the other side of the Jordan, he gave to that land the inestimable blessing of laws founded in eternal justice, and not only laws founded in justice, but laws in which