The Emancipation of Massachusetts. Adams Brooks

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СКАЧАТЬ and Moses took the opportunity of making the investiture on Mount Hor. So Aaron passed away, a sacrifice to the optimism of Moses. Next came the turn of Moses himself. The whole story is told in Deuteronomy. Within, probably, something less than a year after Aaron’s death the “Lord” made a like communication to Moses.

      “Get thee up … unto Mount Nebo, which is in the land of Moab, that is over against Jericho;

      “And die in the Mount whither thou goest up, and be gathered unto thy people; as Aaron, thy brother died in Mount Hor;

      “Because ye trespassed against me among the children of Israel at the waters of Meribah-Kadesh, in the wilderness of Zin, because ye sanctified me not in the midst of the children of Israel.

      “And Moses went up from the plains of Moab unto the mountain of Nebo, … And the Lord showed him all the land of Gilead, unto Dan.

      “And Moses the servant of the Lord died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the Lord.... But no man knoweth of his sepulchre unto this day.

      “And Moses was an hundred and twenty years old when he died: his eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated.”

      The facts, as preserved by Josephus, appear to have been these: Moses ascended the mountain with only the elders, the high priest Eleazar, and Joshua. At the top of the mountain he dismissed the elders, and then, as he was embracing Joshua and Eleazar and still speaking, a cloud covered him, and he disappeared in a ravine. In other words, he killed himself.

      Such is the story of Moses, a fragment of history interesting enough in itself, but especially material to us not only because of the development of the thought dealt with in the following volumes, but of the inferences which, at the present time, it permits us to draw touching our own immediate future.

      Moses was the first great optimist of whom any record remains, and one of the greatest. He was the prototype of all those who have followed. He was a visionary. All optimists must be visionaries. Moses based the social system which he tried to organize, not on observed facts, but on a priori theories evolved out of his own mind, and he met with the failure that all men of that cast of mind must meet with when he sought to realize his visions. His theory was that the universe about him was the expression of an infinite mind which operated according to law. That this mind, or consciousness, was intelligent and capable of communicating with man. That it did, in fact, so communicate through him, as a medium, and that other men had only to receive humbly and obey implicitly his revelations to arrive at a condition nearly approaching, if not absolutely reaching, perfection, while they should enjoy happiness and prosperity in the land in which they should be permitted, by an infinite and supernatural power and wisdom, to dwell. All this is not alien to the attitude of scientific optimists at the present day, who anticipate progressive perfection.

      Let us consider, for a moment, whither these a priori theories led, when put in practice upon human beings, including himself. And, in the first place, it will probably be conceded that no optimist could have, or ever hope to have, a fairer opportunity to try his experiment than had Moses on that plastic Hebrew community which he undertook to lead through Arabia. Also it must be admitted that Moses, as an expounder of a moral code, achieved success. The moral principles which he laid down have been accepted as sound from that day to this, and are still written up in our churches, as a standard for men and women, however slackly they may be observed. But when we come to mark the methods by which Moses obtained acceptance of his code by his contemporaries, and, above all, sought to constrain obedience to himself and to it, we find the prospect unalluring. To begin with, Moses had only begun the exodus when he learned from his practical father-in-law that the system he employed was fantastic and certain to fail: his notion being that he should sit and judge causes himself, as the mouthpiece of the infinite, and that therefore each judgment he gave would demand a separate miracle or imposture. This could not be contemplated. Therefore Moses was constrained to impose his code in writing, once for all, by one gigantic fraud which he must perpetrate himself. This he tried at Sinai, unblushingly declaring that the stone tablets which he produced were “written with the finger of God”; wherefore, as they must have been written by himself, or under his personal supervision, he brazenly and deliberately lied. His good faith was obviously suspected, and this suspicion caused disastrous results. To support his lie Moses caused three thousand unsuspecting and trusting men to be murdered in cold blood, whose only crime was that they would have preferred another leadership to his, and because, had they been able to effect their purpose, they would have disappointed his ambition.

      To follow Moses further in the course which optimism enforced upon him would be tedious, as it would be to recapitulate the story which has already been told. It suffices to say shortly that, at every camp, he had to sink to deeper depths of fraud, deception, lying, and crime in order to maintain his credit. It might be that, as at Meribah, it was only claiming for himself a miracle which he knew he could not work, and for claiming which, instead of giving the credit to God, he openly declared he deserved and must receive punishment; or it might be some impudent quackery, like the brazen serpent, which at least was harmless; or it might have been complicated combinations which suggest a deeper shade; as, for example, the outbreak of the plague, after Korah’s rebellion, which bears the aspect of a successful effort at intimidation to support his own wavering credit. But the result was always the same. Moses had promised that the supernatural power he pretended to control should sustain him and give victory. Possibly, when he started on the exodus he verily believed that such a power existed, was amenable and could be constrained to intervene. He found that he had been mistaken on all these heads, and when he accepted these facts as final, nothing remained for him but suicide, as has been related. It only remains to glance, for a single moment, at what befell, when he had gone, the society he had organized on the optimistic principle of the approach of human beings toward perfection. During the period of the Judges, when “there was no king in Israel, but every man did that which was right in his own eyes,” [Footnote: Judges xvii, 6.] anarchy supervened, indeed, but also the whole Mosaic system broke down because of the imbecility of the men on whom Moses relied to lift the people toward perfection.

      Eli, a descendant of Aaron, was high priest, and a judge, being the predecessor of Samuel, the last of the judges. Now Eli had two sons who “were sons of Belial; they knew not the Lord.”

      Eli, being very old, “heard all that his sons did unto all Israel; and how they lay with the women that assembled at the door of the tabernacle....” And Eli argued with them; “notwithstanding they harkened not unto the voice of their father.”

      Samuel succeeded Eli. He was not a descendant of Aaron, but became a judge, apparently, upon his own merits. But as a judge he did not constrain his sons any better than Eli had his, for “they took bribes, and perverted judgment.” So the elders of Israel came to Samuel and said, “Give us a king to judge us.” “And Samuel prayed unto the Lord,” though he disliked the idea. Yet the result was inevitable. The kingdom was set up, and the Mosaic society perished. Nothing was left of Mosaic optimism but the tradition. Also there was the Mosaic morality, and what that amounted to may best, perhaps, be judged by David, who was the most perfect flower of the perfection to which humanity was to attain under the Mosaic law, and has always stood for what was best in Mosaic optimism. David’s morality is perhaps best illustrated by the story of Uriah the Hittite.

      One day David saw Uriah’s wife taking a bath on her housetop and took a fancy to her. The story is all told in the Second of Samuel. How David sent for her, took her into the palace, and murdered Uriah by sending him to Joab who commanded the army, and instructing Joab to set Uriah in the forefront of the hottest battle, and “retire ye from him that he may be smitten and die.” And Uriah was killed.

      Then came the famous parable by Nathan of the ewe lamb. “And David’s anger was greatly kindled against the man; and he said to Nathan, As the Lord liveth, the man who hath done this thing shall surely die.

      “And Nathan said to David, Thou СКАЧАТЬ