» o ^ o > ^ > > ^lifc-V ^ % .^>>o /\j^/ y .*^. V^ c .v^v. V^ ;*»* ^ I **« t I ■ I ....*.*«». fc.. ■stare MOSES AND WASHINGTON. A DISCOURSE DELIVERED TO THE STUDENTS OF WABASH COLLEGE, FEBRUARY Qlst, 18«-4, BY REV. JOSEPH F. TUTTLE, D. D. '^ublisbeb bg t!cHabnsb pagajtne Association. -*^ J CINCINNATI: GAZETTE STEAM PRINTING HOUSE, FOURTH AND VINE STREETS. 18 6 4. £3 IllP s<&ci8* » ><<>» WTrW<> * » » > WVWWI^WWWV > Ml I ^TT^^^^^*^^^^^^^.^^ MOSES ASD WASHINGTON. A DISCOURSE. DELIVERED TO THE STUDENTS OF WABASH COLLEGE, FEBRUARY Slst,, 186^, BY KEY. JOSEPH F. TTJTTLE, D. D. |!ublislub bji SuRabasIj Paga§hw 2Usocration.. < CINCINNATI GAZETTE STEAM PRINTING HOUSE, FOURTH AND VINE STREET; 18 64. DISCOURSE. "And there -arose not a prophet mdco in Israel like unto Moses." — Deut. 34:10. Moses is thus singled out from among all the great prophets of Israel and declared to be the greatest of them all. In the same strain he was called ''the man of God." The promised Messiah was compared to him, and by a sort of common con- sent he has come to be regarded not only as the greatest of Is- raelites but the greatest of men. It is not necessary here to discuss the question which seeks to decide how much of his greatness was due to the direct inspiration of God. It is enough to say that no man can be either small or great who is not so in consequence of God's imparted gifts, so that it were as really a folly to seek to detract from the claim of Mo- ses as the greatest of great men because 'he became so by the gifts of inspiration as it would to take the purple from the re- gal shoulders of Shakspeare, because he received his genius from God. To the humblest glow-worm, to the lowliest flow- eret, to the feeblest intellect as truly as to such imperial souls as Isaiah and David, and Paul, and Shakspeare, and Newton, and Moses, the greatest of them all, it might be truly said, •'What hast thou that thou didst not receive? Now if thou didst receive it why dost thou glory as if thou hast not re- ceived it ?"— 1. Cor., 4:7. I trust that it may not be unprofitable to discuss the greatness of Moses in order to ascertain what were some of its marked elements. filoses and Washington. The First element which I notice is the strength and equi- poise of his mental faculties — and their perfect subjugation to his will. Here notice the strength of his faculties as contrast- ed with weakness. There is no point in his momentous histo- ry which does not illustrate the natural gifts of his mind. As a lawgiver, as a reasoncr, as the deviser of the largest plans as a civil ruler, as a military leader, as a poet, the man stands before us in all the grandeur of his rare powers. We look at him as a student in all the learning of the Egyptians, as a man choosing to suffer affliction with his people rather than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season, as an exile in the des- ert, amid the sublime silence of Sinai and Horeb communing with God, and his own spirit, as a prophet, demanding of Pha- raoh the release of his slaves, as the leader of the most sub- lime exodus known to history, as the founder of a new nation under circumstances of the greatest embarrassment, and yet from first to last we detect no sign of weakness in any mental faculty. One man is great as a mathematician, another as a linguist, a third as a statesman and a fourth as a military chieftain, and yet each one may show weakness in the qualities which distinguish the rest. Moses was great in every depart- ment — he was weak nowhere. And then the equipoise of his faculties was- so perfect. If we look at his reason alone we might say this is the lock of his strength, but when we pass to his conceptive faculties by which he brings up truth and combines it into forms and plans we might say surely this is his main power. Or we examine his imagination as displayed in his Psalm at the Red Sea, or in that as he was about to die, or the 90th Psalm written by him, or his final discourses to his countrymen as recorded in the Book of Deuteronomy, and we find that his imagination is the equal of his powers of reason and conception. Neither is su- perior to the other. Like three mountains of equal base and altitude towering side by side into the serene sky were the mental faculties of Moses. Each is great, and yet as compar- ing either one withthe- other the casual observer at first is de- ceived by the very equality of greatness which he observes. If only one were an ordinary mountain, in order touse it as a Moses and Washington. standard, we could mount up to the grandeur of the rest, but to have three Mount Blancs side by side is to deceive the be- holder at first into an impression that each is a mountain of ordinary size. Thus to illustrate his mental forces by the spheres in which they wrought, we look at him as a revolution- ist, as a dictator, as the organizer of a new government with a system of laws and religion previously unknown, as a historian and a man of letters, and Ave find an amazing equality among those forces. In the equipoise of his faculties he was truly one of the greatest of men. And not only in these respects was he great, but to the strength and equipoise of bis faculties, we must add their per- fect discipline, their entire subjugation to his will. Many a man has strong faculties but they are strong as the wild buffalo or horse which has not been subdued. Such was the severe discipline with which Moses had coerced his faculties into an entire obedience that they never failed him in the most trying emergencies, whether confronting his dispirited countrymen, or their insolent oppressors, whether enacting his sublime part at the Red Sea or passing sentence on the rebels who aimed their blows at God through him. In the strength, equipoise and perfect discipline of his facul- ties we have the foundation of that greatness in Moses of which I am now discoursing. There was no one-sidedness, no dis- proportion, no vagrant fitfulness in his intellectual parts. The Second element of his greatness consisted in his relig- ious faith and love. This is the splendid supplement to the element we have before considered. Faith as defining the relations of the soul to a real God has every variety of manifestation and every degree of power. I will not degrade this noble word by saying that the heathen who know not the true God, or those who know of God, but either reject or neglect him, have it. Oar liberal philosophers of the present day fancy they detect a real faith in the devo- tees of Brahma and Buddh, in the life of Socrates and Confu- cius, and the bloodless morality of David Hume and Humboldt. But the existence of real faith in these cases is impossible be- cause its first element is wanting, the knowledge of the true 31oses and Washington. God. Trust in Brahma or in some ideal being, in the cant phrase of modern sentimentalism called "the good God" or some such name, is not the faith of which the apostle discoursed in the eleventh' of his epistle to the Hebrews, when he spake of the holy confidence which Abel and Noah and Abraham and Moses reposed in the only living and true God. Moses had a knowledge of God by an inward experience of his power con- straining him to reject the golden bribes which sought to keep him loyal to the most polished and powerful court on earth. He must have felt that it was not by his own power he made that marvelous choice to ho 0113 with the slaves of the court he was abandoning. Besides this he had met God in the burning bush and had been filled with the deepest reverence for the actual God. Indee.l the God on whom his faith reposed was no mere creature of the imagination, an ideal being of the poet or the artist : God was as real and as true a being as was Mo- ses,, of whose presence, power, wisdom and goodness he had as real evidence as he had of his own existence. At the burning bush, at the Red Sea, in the mount, at the mercy seat, he talked with God, as one talks to his friends. In such a God Moses believed not with a kilting and half- hearted faith but with all his heart. His mighty mental facul- ties comprehending. God in all His glory, lie was ready to say as Job did, "I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear, but now mine eyu seeth thee, wherefore I abhor myself in dust and ashes." And thus it came to- pass that earth's peerless intellect became as a. little child in his relations to the Great I Am. There was no boastful impertinence in his approaches to God, but this Moses was not only the greatest but he was also the meekest of men. And what more admirable sight is there in the world than a man of great intellect resting on God with all the docility and confidence of a little child! Faith in God in the humblest is admirable, but there is no less temptation to a wicked self- sufficiency in one whose powers are feeble. It seems natural fur one who is weak to trust in one who is strong, but when a man is endowed with vast powers, having the gift of prophecy, understanding all mystery, and all knowledge, he is so flattered 3Ioscs and Washington. by his fellows, so deferred to by his dependents, so superior to those about him, that he is tempted to pride and self-sufficiency, and even to consider himself a sort of God. How many an intellect like La Place has said c * there is no God," or like Humboldt has felt that Christ's gospel was good enough for common folks, but folly to one so wise and good as he was in his own conceit ! Moses was as great in his faith as he was in his intellect. Both qualities shine with the most brilliant lustre in his life. But love was as conspicuous as faith in him. How gentle and forbearing he was to his froward countrymen ! When they sinned to their own peril, how tenderly does he intercede for them ! They were to him as children. To such good men as Joshua he was attached by a love too exalted for any mix- ture of meanness. But its dearest object was God. What fondness, what force of love is shown in all his relations to God. He had the most glorious gifts of mind, vast knowledge, faith that could remove mountains, he lived for the good of others, so that he gave not money but himself for their good, and yet with all these splendid qualities he had the crowning glory of charity, love to God and man. Thirdly and briefly I must add to these elements of Moses' greatness his executive talent. We have examples of this kind, in which we find great tal- ents, and great moral purity, but no distinguished executive talent. From the time Moses smote his first blow at a tyrant killing him, until he had led his people through incredible diffi- culties to the frontiers of the promised land, he manifested the highest talent in carrying great plans into execution, the talent of realizing in fact the ideas of theory. He never seemed to lack resources in conducting that sublime exodus which trans- formed a nation of dispirited slaves into a great intelligent na- tion, destined to be the wonder of all coming time, the marvel of history. Let us now look over our synopsis of the elements which enter into the greatness of Moses. His talents were of the highest order — they were strong, they were perfectly balanced, they were disciplined into the most complete subjugation to his 8 Moses and Washington. will; his faith 'in God was of that sort that it realized not merely the being but the presence of God in such a sense that all apparent odds against him were nothing at any time because God was on his side ; his love to God and to man like a blessed master passion controlled and characterized him in his motives, his words, and his actions ; and to conclude the enumeration, his executive abilities, his gifts, as the realizer of ideas into facts, his gifts as a leader, were of so distinguished a character that we are justified in averring him so far as these elements go to have been the greatest of men. Fourth. Moses had the opportunity for the exercise of his talents. In all practical greatness may be detected the element of opportunity. Had all the facts in astronomy been known as they are now known before Gallileo, Copernicus, Kepler and Newton demonstrated the principles of that science, these men might have possessed all the gifts which are credited to them, but the want of an opportunity to use these talents would have consigned them to a grave over which a grateful and admiring world would have raised no monuments more lasting than brass. The same is true of all distinguished inventors and discoverers. What would have been Franklin or Watt, or Stevenson, or Ful- ton, or Whitney, or Daguerre, with all their talents, but with- out that important faet which we call opportunity ? What would Alexander have been without a world to conquer? or Mirabeau without any revolutionary forces to be subdued and directed ? or Cromwell in the peaceful reign of Victoria ? Mere talent is nothing without opportunity for its exercise. This element of greatness was not lacking to Moses. He was born just at the day-break of the most thrilling events. Facts more wonderful than romance attended his early child- hood and education at a court on which he was to inflict the vengeance of God. He had the opportunity — rarely if ever accorded to another — to make that immortal preference of afflic- tion with God's enslaved people, over all the pleasures which a rich, polished, and powerful court could offer. He was able to take the side of the oppressed in a magnificent way sacrificing all he had in the noble work. Then came the opportunities to commune with nature, with God, and his own soul in the desert, Moses and Washington. in order to be ready for the crisis which in due time would come to his countrymen in bonds. These were only the prep- aration for the opportunity of his life. In due time God sum- moned him now in his ripened manhood to go to the Israelites and proclaim the hour of deliverance, and to confront the haughty king with command, with menace and with plague, to compel him to let his slaves leave the house of bondage. How he rises in dignity at every step ! What a worthy ambassador he was from the Great King to the tyrant! how incomparably superior docs he appear to the royal wretch whom he is lashing from one concession to another, and from one agony to another, until we see him involved in the waters of the Sea, and his ad- versary with his mystic rod commanding the eager waves to spring upon him and his host. In all this Moses had the opportunity for the conspicuous display of his gifts, and yet when he raised that triumphal psalm on the shore of the Red Sea, his real work was only be- gun. See what he had in hand. He was the leader of three millions of people, six hundred thousand of whom were men. They were an immense mob of recently liberated slaves. They were not trained Avarriors, and yet with them he was to subdue several warlike and hostile nations. They were such children in knowledge that it Avas necessary for Moses to regulate their internal affairs on principles of equity, before the publication of statute laws. They were infected with the vices and idola- try of the Egyptians, and Moses had the tremendous work in hand first to purge them of these Egyptian taints, and second- ly to give them a divine religion in a form adapted to their wants during the journey and when they should be established in the promised land. Closely connected with this last and combined with it, constituting the most sublime work of his life, was the production of a law which should be the seed of all right laws, for all peoples, and times, and the adaptation of that law to the present and future wants of the new nation. Now trace him step by step from the desert to Pharaoh's court, thence to the Red Sea, thence to Sinai, and thence ''unto the mountain of Nebo, to the top of Pisgah " whence he saw with quickened vision the promised land, and you will 10 Moses and Washington. see how peerless was the opportunity which he had for the exercise of his peerless gifts. And so well did he exercise his gifts and embrace his opportunity that both gifts and opportunity conspired to place him without a rival on the highest summit of earthly greatness. His gifts, his opportunity and success, in all their magnificent details and aggregate, fully warrant the glowing eulogy with which some inspired pen closed the history which Moses him- self had almost finished. " And there arose not a prophet since in Israel like unto Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face." You will agree with me in admitting that when any high ex- igency arises the great man who is able to fill it is one of the greatest blessings. This is true in the domains of science, lit- erature, and especially in those crises which determine the fate of nations. It is true that God can work by feeble means, and that he sometimes does so. The noisy cackling of geese once saved Rome, but usually Rome was saved not by geese but by men like Fabius, or Brutus, or Sc ; pio, or Cicero. It is possible for God to have settled the doctrinal formulas of Christianity by the pen of an unlettered fisherman, but in fact He did it by the pen of the educated Saul of Tarsus. Occasionally great national deliverances are effected by some gifted soul who has had very little training for such a destiny. Such was that wonderful man, Toussaint Louverture, the hero of St. Domin- go. Such are the exceptions. The men whom providence designates to deliver nations usually are not only highly endowed by nature but by education also. The leader of the Jewish Exodus, and the expounder of the christian system, were men trained by divine providence for the work in hand. The gratitude of Israel to Moses as the great man who led them from the house of bondage to the promised land was so great as to be likely to run into idolatry. Hence his grave was concealed from them, and who ever heard of a Jew so rec- reant to the holy and stirring traditions of his nation at the time of the Exodus as not to pronounce the name of Moses with peculiar veneration as their greatest prophet, their great- est deliverer, their greatest man ? In this they do right. Moses and Washington. 11 No great man should be forgotten especially when exalted goodness was combined with that greatness, and most especially when such a man had the opportunity to do great things for a nation or mankind at large and successfully improved it. I am sure that no one in this intelligent audience will blame me for giving these remarks a bearing on the fact that to-mor- row is a day very precious in our American calendar, as the birth day of Washington. As the instructor of young men in such times as these, I am not willing to suffer such an op- portunity to pass without distinctly calling attention to the character of the Father of his Country. Not educated at a royal court he was schooled in the most exalted morality by his noble mother and by contact with the good people of his native land. His early training inspired him with a manly vir- tue and goodness. His mental faculties were strong by nature and they were thoroughly disciplined and subjugated. Patrick Henry before the war of Revolution thought him the greatest man in America. His faculties Avere in wonderful equipoise and harmony. In him were blended faith and love. The very places near his headquarters at Valley Forge, and, on the heights in New Jersey which overlook that magnificent scene of Avood and meadow, valley and mountain, river and bay, to- Avards NeAV York are pointed out Avhere in the darkest hours of the AA r ar he Avas accustomed to boAV before God, thence coming with that serenity which no calamity or reverse could disturb. And the very spot is still consecrated as in a sense holy, ground Avhere he partook of the Lord's Supper in a grove at the hands of good Dr. Johnes, the sign that his faith rested in Christ, the Avorld's Saviour. And Avhat a splendor there was in that benevolence which he displayed in serving his country, and in vindicating the freedom of man ! These qualities were made in the highest degree effective by his vast executive abil- ity. Great in mental faculties, great in faith, and in love, he AA-as also great in action. God allowed a man thus splendidly endoAved, to have an opportunity such as is rarely, if ever af- forded to any one. Our nation in the face of fearful odds was stru*» * ^ ^ a g* % ♦T*Kr i WERT BOOKBINDING ,o* , • Ul • ©. lifi^ JAN 1QRQ » ^ ^ 4 A ** ./7IUT7 ^r .veto*-. ■*<* ^ .\^«#Vo ^ 4 << ^