have made him self-distrustful. He replies to the great _I Am_, "Who am
I, that _I_ should bring forth the Children of Israel out of Egypt?
Behold, I am not eloquent; they will not believe me, nor hearken to my
voice." In spite of the miracle of the rod, Moses obeys reluctantly, and
Aaron, his elder brother, is appointed as his spokesman.

Armed with the mysterious wonder-working rod, at length Moses and Aaron,
as representatives of the Jewish people, appear in the presence of
Pharaoh, and in the name of Jehovah request permission for Israel to go
and hold a feast in the wilderness. They do not demand emancipation or
emigration, which would of course be denied. I cannot dwell on the
haughty scepticism and obdurate hardness of the King--"Who is Jehovah,
that I should obey _his_ voice?"--the renewed persecution of the
Hebrews, the successive plagues and calamities sent upon Egypt, which
the magicians could not explain, and the final extorted and unwilling
consent of Pharaoh to permit Israel to worship the God of Moses in the
wilderness, lest greater evils should befall him than the destruction of
the first-born throughout the land.

The deliverance of a nation of slaves is at last, it would seem,
miraculously effected; and then begins the third period of the life of
Moses, as the leader and governor of these superstitious, sensual,
idolatrous, degraded slaves. Then begin the real labors and trials of
Moses; for the people murmur, and are consumed with fears as soon as
they have crossed the sea, and find themselves in the wilderness. And
their unbelief and impatience are scarcely lessened by the tremendous
miracle of the submersion of the pursuing host, and all successive
miracles,--the mysterious manna, the pillar of cloud and of fire, the
smitten rock at Horeb, and the still more impressive and awful
wonders of Sinai.