The Emancipation of Massachusetts Part 6

And Korah, on the morrow, gathered all the congregation against them unto the door of the tabernacle. And the "Lord" then as usual intervened and advised Moses to "separate yourselves from among this congregation, that I may consume them in a moment." And Moses did so. That is to say, he made an effort to divide the opposition, who, when united, he seems to have appreciated, were too strong for him.

What happened next is not known. That Moses partially succeeded in his attempt at division is admitted, for he persuaded Dathan and Abiram and their following to "depart ... from the tents of these wicked men, and touch nothing of theirs, lest ye be consumed in all their sins."

Exactly what occurred after this is unknown. The chronicle, of course, avers that "the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed them up, and their houses, and all the men that appertained unto Korah, and all their goods." But it could not have been this or anything like it, for the descendants of Korah, many generations after, were still doing service in the Temple, and at the time of the miracle the spectators were not intimidated by the sight, although all "Israel that were round about them fled at the cry of them: for they said, Lest the earth swallow us up also.

"And there came out a fire from the Lord, and consumed the two hundred and fifty men that offered incense."

Notwithstanding all which, the congregation next day were as hostile and as threatening as ever.

"On the morrow all the congregation of the children of Israel murmured against Moses and against Aaron, saying, Ye have killed the people of the Lord....

"And they fell upon their faces."

In this crisis of his fate, when it seemed that nothing could save Moses from a conflict with the ma.s.s of his followers, who had renounced him, Moses showed that audacity and fertility of resource, which had hitherto enabled him, and was destined until his death to enable him, to maintain his position, at least as a prophet, among the Jewish people.

The plague was always the most dreaded of visitations among the ancient Jews: far more terrible than war. It was already working havoc in the camp, as the death of the "spies" shows us. Moses always a.s.serted his ability to control it, and at this instant, when, apparently, he and Aaron were lying on their faces before the angry people, he conceived the idea that he would put his theurgetic powers to the proof. Suddenly he called to Aaron to "take a censer and put fire therein from off the altar, and put on incense, and go quickly unto the congregation, and make an atonement for them: for there is wrath gone out from the Lord; the plague is begun."

"And Aaron took as Moses commanded, and ran into the midst of the congregation; and, behold, the plague was begun among the people: ...

and made an atonement for the people.

"And he stood between the dead and the living; and the plague was stayed.

"Now they that died in the plague were fourteen thousand and seven hundred, beside them that died about the matter of Korah."

Even this was not enough. The discontent continued, and Moses went on to meet it by the miracle of Aaron's rod.

Moses took a rod from each tribe, twelve rods in all and on Aaron's rod he wrote the name of Levi, and Moses laid them out in the tabernacle.

And the next day Moses examined the rods and showed the congregation how Aaron's rod had budded. And Moses declared that Aaron's rod should be kept for a token against the rebels: and that they must stop their murmurings "that they die not."

This manipulation of the plague by Moses, upon what seems to have been a sudden inspiration, was a stroke of genius in the way of quackery.

He was, indeed, in this way almost portentous. It had a great and terrifying effect upon the people, who were completely subdued by it.

Against corporeal enemies they might hope to prevail, but they were helpless against the plague. And they all cried out with one accord, "Behold we die, we perish, we all perish. Whosoever cometh anything near unto the tabernacle of the Lord shall die: shall we be consumed with dying?"

As I have already pointed out, Moses was a very great theurgist, as many saints and prophets have been. When in the actual presence of others he evidently had the power of creating a belief in himself which approached the miraculous, so far as disease was concerned. And he presumed on this power and took correspondingly great risks. The case of the brazen serpent is an example. The story is--and there is no reason to doubt its substantial truth--that the Hebrews were attacked by venomous serpents probably in the neighborhood of Mount Hor, where Aaron died, and thereupon Moses set up a large brazen serpent on a pole, and declared that whoever would look upon the serpent should live. Also, apparently, it did produce an effect upon those who believed: which, of course, is not an unprecedented phenomenon among faith healers. But what is interesting in this historical anecdote is not that Moses performed certain faith cures by the suggestion of a serpent, but that the Israelites themselves, when out of the presence of Moses, recognized that he had perpetrated on them a vulgar fraud. For example, King Hezekiah destroyed this relic, which had been preserved in the Temple, calling it "Nehushtan," "a brazen thing," as an expression of his contempt. And what is more remarkable still is that although Hezekiah reigned four or five centuries after the exodus, yet science had made no such advance in the interval as to justify this contempt. Hezekiah seems to have been every whit as credulous as were the pilgrims who looked on the brazen serpent and were healed. Hezekiah "was sick unto death, and Isaiah came to see him, and told him to set his house in order; for thou shalt die, and not live.... And Hezekiah wept sore."

Then, like Moses, Isaiah had another revelation in which he was directed to return to Hezekiah, and tell him that he was to live fifteen years longer. And Isaiah told the attendants to take "a lump of figs." "And they took it and laid it on the boil, and he recovered."

Afterward Hezekiah asked of Isaiah how he was to know that the Lord would keep his word and give him fifteen additional years of life.

Isaiah told him that the shadow should go back ten degrees on the dial.

And Isaiah "cried unto the Lord," and he brought the shadow ten degrees backward "by which it had gone down in the dial of Ahaz." [Footnote: 2 Kings xx, 11.] And yet this man Hezekiah, who could believe in this marvellous cure of Isaiah, repudiated with scorn the brazen serpent as an insult to credulity. The contrast between Moses, who hesitated not to take all risks in matters of disease with which he felt himself competent to cope, and his timidity and hesitation in matters of war, is astounding. But it is a common phenomenon with the worker of miracles and indicates the limit of faith at which the saint or prophet has always betrayed the impostor. For example: Saint Bernard, when he preached in 1146 the Second Crusade, made miraculous cures by the thousand, so much so that there was danger of being killed in the crowds which pressed upon him. And yet this same saint, when chosen by the crusaders four years later, in 1150, to lead them because of his power to constrain victory by the intervention of G.o.d, wrote, after the crusaders' defeat, in terror to the pope to protect him, because he was unfit to take such responsibility.

But even with this reservation Moses could not gain the complete confidence of the congregation and the insecurity of his position finally broke him down.

At this same place of Kadesh, Miriam died, "and the people chode with Moses because there was no water for the congregation." [Footnote: Numbers xx, 8.] Moses thereupon withdrew and, as usual, received a revelation. And the Lord directed him to take his rod, "and speak ye unto the rock before their eyes; and it shall give forth his water."

And Moses gathered the congregation and said unto them, "Hear now, ye rebels; must we fetch you water out of this rock?"

"And he smote the rock twice: and the water came out abundantly."

But Moses felt that he had offended G.o.d, "Because ye believed me not, to sanctify me in the eyes of the children of Israel, therefore ye shall not bring this congregation into the land which I have given them."

Moses had become an old man, and he felt himself unequal to the burden he had a.s.sumed. He recognized that his theory of cause and effect had broken down, and that the "Lord" whom at the outset he had firmly believed to be an actual and efficient power to be dominated by him, either could not or would not support him in emergency. In short, he had learned that he was an adventurer who must trust to himself. Hence, after Hormah he was a changed man. Nothing could induce him to lead the Jews across the Jordan to attack the peoples on the west bank, and though the congregation made a couple of campaigns against Sihon and Og, whose ruthlessness has always been a stain on Moses, the probability is that Moses did not meddle much with the active command. Had he done so, the author of Deuteronomy would have given the story in more detail and Moses more credit. All that is attributed to Moses is a division of the conquests made together with Joshua, and a fruitless prayer to the Lord that he might be permitted to cross the Jordan.

Meanwhile life was ending for him. His elder sister Miriam died at Kadesh, and Aaron died somewhat later at Mount Hor, which is supposed to lie about as far to the east of Kadesh as Hormah is to the west, but there are circ.u.mstances about the death of Aaron which point to Moses as having had more to do with it than of having been a mere pa.s.sive spectator thereof.

The whole congregation is represented as having "journeyed from Kadesh and come unto Mount Hor ... by the coast of the land of Edom," and there the "Lord" spoke unto Moses and Aaron, and explained that Aaron was to be "gathered unto his people, ... because ye rebelled ... at the water of Meribah." Therefore Moses was to "take Aaron and Eleazar his son, and bring them up unto Mount Hor: and strip Aaron of his garments, and put them upon Eleazar," ... and that Aaron ... shall die there.

"And they went up into Mount Hor in the sight of all the congregation.

And Moses stripped Aaron of his garments, and put them upon Eleazar his son; and Aaron died there in the top of the mount: and Moses and Eleazar came down from the mount." [Footnote: Numbers xx, 22-28.]

Now it is incredible that all this happened as straightforwardly as the chronicle would have us believe. Aaron was an old man and probably failing, but his death was not imminent. On the contrary, he had strength to climb Mount Hor with Moses, without aid, and there is no hint that he suffered from any ailment likely to end his life suddenly.

Moses took care that he and Eleazar should be alone with Aaron so that there should be no witness as to what occurred, and Moses alone knew what was expected.

Moses had time to take off the priestly garments, which were the insignia of office and to put them on Eleazar, and then, when all was ready, Aaron simply ceased to breathe at the precise moment when it was convenient for Moses to have him die, for the policy of Moses evidently demanded that Aaron should live no longer. Under the conditions of the march Moses was evidently preparing for his own death, and for a complete change in the administration of affairs. Appreciating that his leadership had broken down and that the system he had created was collapsing, he had dawdled as long on the east side of the Jordan as the patience of the congregation would permit. An advance had become inevitable, but Moses recognized his own inability to lead it. The command had to be delegated to a younger man and that man was Joshua.

Eleazar, on the other hand, was the only available candidate for the high priesthood, and Moses took the opportunity of making the invest.i.ture on Mount Hor. So Aaron pa.s.sed 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 trespa.s.sed 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 att.i.tude of scientific optimists at the present day, who antic.i.p.ate 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 G.o.d"; 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 G.o.d, 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 a.s.sembled 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 ill.u.s.trated by the story of Uriah the Hitt.i.te.

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.