alone.

"Hearken, ... I will give thee counsel, and God shall be with thee; Be
thou for the people to God-ward, that thou mayest bring the causes unto
God."

Then it was that Moses perceived that he must have a divinely promulgated
code. Accordingly, Moses made his preparations for a great dramatic
effect, and it is hard to see how he could have made them better. For,
whatever failings he may have had in his other capacities as a leader, he
understood his part as a magician.

He told the people to be ready on the third day, for on the third day the
Lord would come down in the sight of all upon Mount Sinai. But, "Take heed
to yourselves that ye go not up into the mount, or touch the border of it:
whosoever toucheth the mount shall be surely put to death:

"There shall not an hand touch it, but he shall surely be stoned or shot
through; whether it be beast or man, it shall not live: when the trumpet
soundeth long, they shall come up to the mount."

It must be admitted that Moses either had wonderful luck, or that he had
wonderful judgment in weather, for, as it happened in the passage of the
Red Sea, so it happened here. At the Red Sea he was aided by a gale of
wind which coincided with a low tide and made the passage practicable, and
at Sinai he had a thunder-storm.

"And it came to pass on the third day, in the morning, that there were
thunders and lightnings, and a thick cloud upon the mount, and the voice
of the trumpet exceeding loud; so that all the people that was in the camp