ness where God was." It was at this "dark circle" and private sitting with his Lord, that Moses obtained the matter comprised in the last part (from verse twenty-two) of the twentieth, the twenty-first, twenty-second, and the twenty-third chapters of Exodus. With this matter, properly matured, Moses returned from his place of secret retirement to the people, who were in their tents "afar off" from the foot of the mount, and then and there he laid this whole matter before them-" and Moses came and told the people all the words of the Lord, and all the judgments, and all the people answered with one voice, and said, all the words which the Lord hath said will we do. And Moses wrote all the words of the Lord, and rose up early in the morning, and builded an altar under the hill, and twelve pillars, according to the twelve tribes of Israel." Now, as I before have stated, if Moses here "wrote all the words of the Lord," as he says he did, then he had a record of the law before the Lord invited him up to take a copy which he had on hand-which he had written with his own finger, on tables of stone.

CHAPTER XXIV.

THE LAW-THE UNION-MOSES IS VICTORIOUS-HE CELEBRATES HIS TRIUMPH.

SECTION 1. The narrative of the children of Israel, as given in the Pentateuch, was dropped, in the last Chapter, at that point where, in the account, by blind pledge, the people dismantled themselves of their entire self-hood. By artful management, thrice, in a particular manner, Moses extorted from the people important pledges. Though the import of the vows which they took upon themselves they little understood, they were effective for Moses' purposes. Little by little he overcame and disrobed them of their every God-given prerogative. Through the flattering promise of national greatness, favoritism and splendor-the promise of having a future distinct and abiding national existence, and also of being the Lord's, Jehovah's, pet people—and the aid of the "elders of Israel," Moses, apparently, obtained the unanimous consent of the people that they would obey "all that the Lord (Moses' Lord) hath spoken."

SEC. 2. The first vow which Moses succeeded in getting the people to take upon themselves, after they encamped in the wilderness of Sinai, was after his return from his mountain retirement. (See Ex. XIX: 8.) The second of these most important vows which Moses, by stealth, extorted from the people, was after the, so called, ten commandments were delivered from the heights of Sinai. Through the agitated condition of the people's minds, and operating through their leaders, "the elders," he obtained from them the pledge that they would obey in the future anything, whatever, whic he should command, as of the Lord. (See Ex. xx: 19.) A this point of time Moses had not his national covenant il

readiness to lay before the people that they could swear perpetual allegiance to it. But he had them pledged before his Lord ("the Lord heard the voice of your words," Deut. v: 28,) that they would swear allegiance whenever he desired it, and to whatever he should require.

SEC. 3. Immediately after Moses had received the people's pledge, he returned again into the mountain, there to mature and put into form that which he would have them to do. Now he had everything his own way, and all that he had to do was to write down such words as would best serve his ambitious purposes, then lay them before the people, and have them swear eternal fealty to them. It was for this purpose for which he "drew near unto the thick darkness where God was." (Ex. xx: 21.) When Moses returned from this "thick darkness" he brought with him his "covenant" and his judicial code-these he matured while this time retired in the mountain. On his return to the people his first movement was to ensnare them, and bind them together in a National Union, by his combined civil and religious compact-the moral law, so called, and his judicial code, which he then submitted to them, to be followed by further submissions the next time-that of his installed priesthood, with its formalities and authority, and the tomfooleries of its official garb. And then his orders for the building of Tabernacles, and the Ark; and then, his orders establishing the manner of performing religious worship, which, when performed, in and of itself, was something far worse than foolery, for through it the people were held in subserviency to Moses, and also by it continuously swindled out of their chiefest good.

SEC. 4. Moses returned to the people from the mountain, (this was the fourth time that he came down from it, after the Israelites encamped on the plain of Sinai,) with his national covenant, and his judgments, or in other words, his ten commandments, and his political laws, in readiness to be submitted to the people, to be by them acknowledged as the law of God, and by them accepted as their national law.

The record says, in Ex. XXIV: 3, that this time that Moses came to the people, he "told them all the words of the Lord, and all the judgments;" and all the people, with one voice, promised him that all the words which the Lord had said they would do. Then, in the succeeding verse it is said that "Moses wrote all the words of the Lord." And it is said in the verses 7 and 8, of the same chapter, that, "he took the book of the covenant, and read in the audience of the people: and they said: All that the Lord hath said will we do, and be obedient. And Moses took the blood (the blood of the sacrifices offered on that particular occasion,) and sprinkled it on the people, and said, Behold the blood of the covenant, which the Lord hath made with you concerning all these words."

SEC. 5. That the ten commandments, so called, were, by Moses, also called "the covenant of the Lord," and is that to which he alludes in the quotations in the last preceding Section, is evident from his own statements. In speaking to the children of Israel, of the scenes which they witnessed about Sinai, at the time when the said commandments were spoken to the people from its top, Moses says: (see Deut. IV: 13,) "And he (the Lord,) declared unto you his covenant, which he commanded you to perform, even ten commandments: and he wrote them upon two tables of stone." Then in Deut. v: 22, he says: "These words the Lord spake unto all your assembly in the mount out of the midst of the fire, of the cloud, and of the thick darkness, with a great voice: and he added no more. And he wrote them in two tables of stone, and delivered them unto me." The facts that the ten commandments were called by Moses, the covenant, and were what he had in allusion, when speaking of "the book of the covenant" which he read in the audience of the people, are amply substantiated by the above extracts from Moses' record; therefore, they require the introduction of no further evidence to prove the point.

SEC. 6. In that consummating pledge of the people's, made to Moses, when he sprinkled the blood of the sacri

fices, half on the altar which he erected to his Lord, and half on the people, and by which performances-bloodsprinkling and pledge-the people of Israel collectively, either in person or by "the elders," representing them, formally surrendered unto Moses their entire self-hood; and, they avowed the everlasting blind and discordant forces of matter for their God. This power was that which Moses worshipped for his God from the first to the last; and he required it of the children of Israel whom he led that they should acknowledge the same power as the Supreme God— as being "the Lord their God which brought them out of Egypt," and had conducted them hither, and which in the future they would serve and obey, he, Moses, being the oracle of that God to them, always.

SEC. 7. The nature of this latter vow which the people took upon themselves was such that they not only abdicated their own self-hood, and accepted Moses' material God to be their God, and agreed to serve and obey him, as he should dictate through Moses, but they, as an eminent orthodox divine, who was also a distinguished writer, expresses it, gave their unconditional assent that “he became their king, the head of their civil constitution, and the feudal lord of their territory," and of whom all lands which in the future they, perchance, might obtain by conquest, or otherwise, they were to hold on terms of vassalage. By this covenant cntered into a Nation was created, a national Union was formed of which Moses was made its head, temporal and spiritual; by this covenant he became, in fact, and was acknowledged to be, the supreme head of an Autocracy— the position which he ardently had aspired to, and which, from the moment that he turned his back upon the ground where stood the "burning bush," by setting his face to go back to Egypt, by every conceivable means possible, he diligently strove to attain.

SEC. 8. Moses having attained his desired position, and been made secure in it, his next move was to have a jollification meeting over the joyous event of his success; in