Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Teachers | Page 9

assume that he did not mean the command to
be perpetual. It was only through so much moving about that the Jews
seemed to lose their art spirit.
And certainly the flame of art in the Jewish heart has never died out,
even though at times it has smoldered, for wherever there has been
peace and security for the Jews, they have not been slow to evolve the
talent which creates. History teems with the names of Jews who, in
music, painting, poetry and sculpture, have devoted their days to beauty.
And the germ of genius is seen in many of the Jewish children who
attend the manual-training and art schools of America.
Art has its rise in the sense of sublimity. It seems at times to be a
fulfilment of the religious impulse. The religion which balks at work,
stopping at prayer and contemplation, is a form of arrested
development.
The number of people in the exodus was probably two or three
thousand. Renan says that one century only elapsed between the advent
of Joseph into Egypt and the revolt. Very certain it was not a great
number that went forth into the desert. A half-million women could not
have borrowed jewelry of their neighbors--the secret could not have
been kept. And in the negotiations between Moses and the King, it will
be remembered that Moses asked only for the privilege of going three
days' journey into the wilderness to make sacrifices. It was a kind of
picnic or religious campmeeting. A vast multitude could not have taken
part in any such exercise. We also hear of their singing their gratitude
on account of reaching Elim, where there were "twelve springs and
seventy palm-trees." Had there been several million people, as we have
been told, the insignificant shade of seventy trees would have meant
nothing to them.

The distance from Goshen in Egypt to Canaan in Palestine was about
one hundred seventy-five miles. But by the circuitous route they
traveled it was nearly a thousand miles. It took forty years to make the
passage, for the way had to be fought through the country of foes who
very naturally sought to block the way. Quick transportation was out of
the question. The rate of speed was about twenty-five miles a year.
Here was a people without homes, or fixed habitation, beset on every
side with the natural dangers of the desert, and compelled to face the
fury of the inhabitants whose lands they overran, fearful, superstitious,
haunted by hunger, danger and doubt. By night a man sent ahead with a
lantern on a pole led the way; by day a cavalcade that raised a cloud of
dust. One was later sung by the poets as a pillar of fire, and the other a
cloud. Chance flocks of quail blown by a storm into their midst were
regarded as a miracle; the white exuding wax of the manna-plant was
told of as "bread"--or more literally food.
Those who had taken part in the original exodus were nearly all
dead--their children and grandchildren survived, desert born and savage
bred. Canaan was not the land flowing with milk and honey that had
been described. Milk and honey are the results of labor applied to land.
Moses knew this and tried to teach this great truth. He was true to his
divine trust. Through doubt, hardship, poverty, misunderstanding, he
held high the ideal--they were going to a better place.
At last, worn by his constant struggle, aged one hundred twenty, "his
eye not dim nor his natural force abated"--for only those live long who
live well--Moses went up into the mountain to find solace in solitude as
was his custom. His people waited for him in vain--he did not return.
Alone there with his God he slept and forgot to awaken. His pilgrimage
was done. "And no man knoweth his grave even unto this day."
History is very seldom recorded on the spot--certainly it was not then.
Centuries followed before fact, tradition, song, legend and folklore
were fused into the form we call Scripture. But out of the fog and mist
of that far-off past there looms in heroic outline the form and features
of a man--a man of will, untiring activity, great hope, deep love, a faith
which at times faltered, but which never died. Moses was the first man

in history who fought for human rights and sought to make men free,
even from their own limitations. "And there arose not a prophet since
Israel like unto Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face."

[Illustration: CONFUCIUS]
CONFUCIUS
The highest study of all is that which teaches us to develop those
principles of purity and perfect virtue which Heaven bestowed upon us
at our birth, in order that we may acquire the