MOSES.
So Moses the servant of the Lord, died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the Lord.
And He buried him in a valley in the land of Moab, over against Beth-peor: but no man knoweth of his sepulchre unto this day.—Deuteronomy, xxxiv. 5, 6.
By faith Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter;
Choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season;
Esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt; for he had respect unto the recompense of the reward.—Hebrews, xi. 24, 25, 26.
Slow glides the Nile; amid the margin flags,
Closed in a bulrush ark, the babe is left;
Left by a mother’s hand. His sister waits
Far off; and pale, ’tween hope and fear, beholds
The royal maid, surrounded by her train,
Approach the river bank; approach the spot
Where sleeps the innocent: she sees them stoop
With meeting plumes; thy rushy lid is ope’d,
And wakes the infant smiling in his tears.
Grahame.
The son of Amram spurns the regal prize,
From the rich scene the zealous hero flies,
And dwells ’mongst Israel’s sons. Resigned he bears
The servile yoke, and every burden shares;
Rather than violate Jehovah’s trust,
And live the pampered slave of sordid lust,
He quits the Egyptian court, and, undismayed,
Seeks poverty’s inhospitable shade.
Samuel Hayes.
In his hand
The rod which blasted, with strange plagues, the realm
Of Mizraim, and from its time-worn channels
Upturned the Arabian Sea. Fair was his broad
High front, and forth from his soul-piercing eye,
Did legislation look.
Hillhouse.
On the Mount
Of Sinai, whose foundations shook, whose top
Was lost in smoke and fire, while seraphim
At distance gazed, full forty days and nights,
Guest of terrestrial mould, did he sojourn
Within the dread pavilion, and the veil
Of cloud and tempest; there as face to face,
In visions of beatitude rejoiced
Past utterance, till his countenance imbibed
Transcendent splendours.
Charles Hoyle.
Moses, the patriot fierce, became
The meekest man on earth,
To show us how love’s quickening flame
Can give our souls new birth.
Moses, the man of meekest heart,
Lost Canaan by self-will,
To show, where Grace has done its part,
How sin defiles us still.
Lyra Apostolica.
Sweet was the journey to the sky
The holy prophet tried;
“Climb up the mount,” said God, “and die”—
The prophet climbed, and died.
Softly his fainting head he lay
Upon his Maker’s breast;
His Maker soothed his soul away,
And laid his flesh to rest.
In God’s own arms he left the breath
That God’s own Spirit gave;
His was the noblest road to death,
And his the sweetest grave.
Watts.
God made his grave, to men unknown,
Where Moab’s rocks a vale infold;
And laid the aged seer alone,
To slumber while the world grows old.
Thus still, where’er the good and just
Close the dim eye on life and pain,
Heaven watches o’er their sleeping dust,
Till the pure spirit comes again.
W. C. Bryant.