different from a good many loud talkers, who have more words than
thoughts, and who get a great character as politicians and
demagogues, simply because they have the art of stringing fine words
together, which Moses, the true demagogue, the leader of the people,
who led them indeed out of Egypt, had not. Beyond that we know
little. Of his character one thing only is said: but that is most
important. 'Now the man Moses was very meek.'

Meek: we know that that cannot mean that he was meek in the sense
that he was a poor, cowardly, abject sort of man, who dared not
speak his mind, dared not face the truth, and say the truth. We
have seen that that was just what he was not; brave, determined,
out-spoken, he seems to have been from his youth. Indeed, if his
had been that base sort of meekness, he never would have dared to
come before the great king Pharaoh. If he had been that sort of man
he never would have dared to lead the Jews through the Red Sea by
night, or out of Egypt at all. If he had been that sort of man,
indeed, the Jews would never have listened to him. No; he had--the
Bible tells us that he had--to say and do stern things again and
again; to act like the general of an army, or the commander of a
ship of war, who must be obeyed, even though men's lives be the
forfeit of disobedience.

But the man Moses was very meek. He had learned to keep his temper.
Indeed, the story seems to say that he never lost his temper really
but once; and for that God punished him. Never man was so tried,
save One, even our Lord Jesus Christ, as was Moses. And yet by
patience he conquered. Eighty years had he spent in learning to
keep his temper; and when he had learned to keep his temper, then,
and not till then, was he worthy to bring his people out of Egypt.