Many of our states compel citizens to work in repairing country roads. Is this temporary peonage? How do you justify a state in compelling citizens to risk their lives in war? In what circumstances would a state be justified in compelling its citizens to labor? Did circumstances justify Pharaoh? Why were he and his kingdom punished?
Is it ever right, for an individual to raise his hand against a recognized and established authority? Or, when there is an established government, should an individual ever attempt to punish crime or avenge personal wrong? Were our revolutionary forefathers right in resisting the demands of King George? Are numbers essential to the rightness of a cause?
In what ways does God to-day call men to do an important task? Do you consider Lincoln a man raised up by God for a purpose and called by him to service? If so, how did the call come? Was Moses' call similar? Should a clergyman have a definite call to his life-work? Should every man? Does every man have such a call, if he but interprets rightly his experiences?
A working girl had seen the story of Moses at a moving picture show. Afterwards she commented as follows: "Our walking delegate is a regular Moses. He said to the factory boss, 'You let my people go.'" In what respect is the labor struggle to-day similar to that in Egypt under Moses?
Subjects for Further Study.
(1) The Egyptian System of Education. Breasted, Hist. of the Ancient Egyptians, 92-94, 395; Hist. of Egypt, 98-100; Maspero, Dawn of Civilization, 288; Erman, Life of the Ancient Egyptians, 328-368.
(2) Origin of the Jehovah Religion. Budde, Religion of Israel, 1-38; Gordon, Early Traditions of Gen., 106-110; Hastings, Dict. of the Bible, Extra Vol. 626-627.
(3) The Practical Training for Statesmanship of Augustus, Gladstone and Lincoln. Plutarch, Lives of the Emperors; Morley, Life of Gladstone; A. good Biographical Dictionary; Brown, The Message of the Modern Pulpit.
(4) Compare the government of Egypt under Pharaoh with that in China in the days of Confucius and with that of Greece in the days of the siege of Troy. Homer, Iliad and Odyssey; Life of Confucius.