LESSON IV.

THE WILDERNESS.

"Where Is He that brought them up out of the sea with the shepherd of
His flock? Where is He that put His Holy Spirit within him?"--_Isaiah_,
lxiii. 11.

When Moses had led the 600,000 men, with their wives, children, and
cattle, beyond the reach of the Egyptians, they were in a small
peninsula, between the arms of the Red Sea, with the wild desolate peaks
of Mount Horeb towering in the midst, and all around grim stony crags,
with hardly a spring of water; and though there were here and there
slopes of grass, and bushes of hoary-leaved camel-thorn, and long-spined
shittim or acacia, nothing bearing fruit for human beings. There were
strange howlings and crackings in the mountains, the sun glared back
from the arid stones and rocks, and the change seemed frightful after
the green meadows and broad river of Egypt.

Frightened and faithless, the Israelites cried out reproachfully to
Moses to ask how they should live in this desert place, forgetting that
the Pillar of cloud and fire proved that they were under the care of Him
who had brought them safely out of the hands of their enemies. In His
mercy God bore with their murmurs, fed them with manna from Heaven, and
water out of the flinty rock; and gave them the victory over the Edomite
tribe of robber Amalekites at Rephidim, where Joshua fought, and Moses,
upheld by Aaron and Hur, stretched forth his hands the whole day. Then,