crown, and of completely changing Egyptian tenures. Nor does any one
question, at this day, the reality of the power which the Biblical writers
ascribed to the Empire of the Hittites. Under such conditions the course
of the commentator is clear. He should treat the Jewish record as
reliable, except where it frankly accepts the miracle as a demonstrated
fact, and even then regard the miracle as an important and most suggestive
part of the great Jewish epic, which always has had, and always must have,
a capital influence on human thought.

The Pentateuch has, indeed, been demonstrated to be a compilation of
several chronicles arranged by different writers at different times, and
blended into a unity under different degrees of pressure, but now, as the
book stands, it is as authentic a record as could be wished of the
workings of the Mosaic mind and of the minds of those of his followers who
supported him in his pilgrimage, and who made so much of his task
possible, as he in fact accomplished.

Moses, himself, but for the irascibility of his temper, might have lived
and died, contented and unknown, within the shadow of the Egyptian court.
The princess who befriended him as a baby would probably have been true to
him to the end, in which case he would have lived wealthy, contented, and
happy and would have died overfed and unknown. Destiny, however, had
planned it otherwise.

The Hebrews were harshly treated after the death of Joseph, and fell into
a quasi-bondage in which they were forced to labor, and this species of
tyranny irritated Moses, who seems to have been brought up under his
mother's influence. At all events, one day Moses chanced to see an
Egyptian beating a Jew, which must have been a common enough sight, but a
sight which revolted him. Whereupon Moses, thinking himself alone, slew