Then followed a strange conversation. Moses was terrified at the
thought of what he had to do, and reasonably: moreover, the
Israelites in Egypt had forgotten God. 'And Moses said unto God,
Behold, when I come unto the children of Israel, and shall say unto
them, The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you; and they shall
say to me, What is his name? what shall I say unto them? And God
said unto Moses, I Am that I Am: and he said, Thus shalt thou say
unto the children of Israel, I Am hath sent me unto you.'

I Am; that was the new name by which God revealed himself to Moses.
That message of God to Moses was the greatest Gospel, and good news
which was spoken to men, before the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Ay, we are feeling now, in our daily life, in our laws and our
liberty, our religion and our morals, our peace and prosperity, in
the happiness of our homes, and I trust that of our consciences, the
blessed effects of that message, which God revealed to Moses in the
wilderness thousands of years ago.

And Moses took his wife, and his sons, and set them upon an ass, and
returned into the land of Egypt, to say to Pharaoh, 'Thus saith the
Lord, Israel is my son, even my firstborn, Let my son go that he may
serve me, and if thou let not my firstborn go, then I will slay thy
firstborn.'

A strange man, on a strange errand. A poor man, eighty years old,
carrying all that he had in the world upon an ass's back, going down
to the great Pharaoh, the greatest king of the old world, the great
conqueror, the Child of the Sun (as his name means), one of the
greatest Pharaohs who ever sat on the throne of Egypt; in the midst
of all his princes and priests, and armies with which he had