Page:On the Desert - Recent Events in Egypt.djvu/223

Rh in which were a hundred spots that could yield a temporary sustenance for their flocks and herds. But with all these alleviations of their lot, still the Israelites found this waste over which we are now passing, a Great and Terrible Wilderness. A country in which they could find no abiding place — where they were kept moving from one pasture ground to another, eating up the land before them, and leaving a desolate wilderness behind them; in constant danger, if left to themselves, of perishing by famine or by pestilence — was not a country through which millions of people could make their way unguided and alone. I repeat what I have said before, that the more I see of the desert the more the miracle of the Exodus grows upon me. How the Israelites lived through it, is a mystery which no resources of their own can explain, without the help of Him who was their Guide and Protector. In reading the story of their wanderings, we wonder not that they often fainted, and that their hearts died within them. Forty years! that is more than the lifetime of a generation. In that time old men died, and young men grew old; wives and children were buried in the sands of the desert. What a trial for the wisdom and the firmness of their great leader to keep any control of millions of people, who were at times almost starving, and often in a state of mutiny! Moses himself was sometimes ready to despair; but he withdrew into the wilderness, and alone he knelt upon the rocks or sands, and cried to Heaven for help, and then returned, with new courage in his heart, to inspire the faint and strengthen the weak, and to lead them on, until at last he brought them to the Promised Land.

We camped in the Wady el Arish. It was a bitter night. The wind blew so that we feared it would blow down our tents, and the men had to keep a sharp lookout, driving in the tent-pegs to hold them fast. At the same