was an understood signal. This time it called for a response from Moses. The record says: "Moses spake, and God answered him by a voice." This time the accomplices dropped their trumpets and spake in audible voice. But more of this in the next Chapter.

CHAPTER XXII.

MOSES AND THE ISRAELITES IN THE WILDERNESS OF SINAITHINGS THERE SAID AND DONE, CONCLUDED.

SECTION 1. At the close of the last Chapter I stated that the thread of thought embodied in that would be continued in this. The subject there had under consideration was there dropped at the point where the narration says that "Moses spake, and God answered him by a voice." The record continues the narrative, and says: "And the Lord came down upon mount Sinai, on the top of the mount: and the Lord called Moses up to the top of the mount; and Moses went up." By referring to the extract from Moses' record, which stands at the head of the last Chapter, it will be seen that after Moses came down, the second time, from his selected place to cogitate, he set bounds to the people round about the foot of the mountain; and, that he enjoined it upon them that they should not pass the prescribed limits-that they should not go up into the mountain, nor touch the border of it, and whosoever should do either should surely be put to death; "there should not an hand touch it, but he should surely be stoned, or shot through; he should not live, whether it was man or beast" which should so do."

SEC. 2.

Notwithstanding the precautionary measures which were taken by Moses to prevent the people from getting a peep behind the scene," it appears, by the reading of the record, that so soon as Moses reached the top of the mountain, the second time, he found his Lord all in agitation, his suspicion was aroused, he was afraid that all was not right with the people below, he was fearful that

they would "break through and gaze at him." Moses had threatened every body, and every living beast, with arbitrary and summary punishment, if they, any one, should have the audacity to overstep his set bounds; death by stoning, or by being shot, was the prescribed penalty for their effrontery. By the reading of the record itself it is obvious that there was a portion of the people standing at the foot of the mountain who did not give full credence to all the stories which Moses was telling them; nor did they believe in his falsehoods which declared that what they witnessed on the mountain was a special entertainment gotten up for their particular benefit by the Most High God; hence, their anxiety to "break through, (over Moses' prescribed bounds,) unto the Lord to gaze." If all things had been as Moses had represented them to the people-since all were for their special benefit-is it a rational faith to believe that he, or his Lord, would have been so exercised about their getting an inside view of what was being transacted between them, at their secret consultations, held on the top of the mountain?

SEC. 3. It is evident from the language of the record that Moses had hardly arrived at the top of the mountain before he thought it advisable to return again to the people, and charge them over that they should not come up where he and his Lord were in consultation. His record says that the Lord told him to do this. But I have once before remarked, that the Lord who told him to do this, that, and the other, was none other than his own dear self. Moses now took counsel of his suspicions which were awakened through what he saw in, and learned of, some of the people. His judgment told him to haste away down the mountain, and charge them over, "lest they should break through unto the Lord to gaze"-lest they should come up where he and his Lord held their "dark circles" and test the matter by personal examination. This desire on the part of the people "to gaze' was stimulated by the Spirit of God. Moses knew that if the people made a free personal examination it

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would be sure exposure of his whole scheme of deception, and instant annihilation of his every hope of success in his impostures. It appears by the reading of the record that this time that Moses came down he was willing that the priests should come a little nearer unto him; provided, they should first wash themselves. "Let the priests also, which come near to the Lord, sanctify themselves, lest the Lord break forth upon them," says the text.

SEC. 4. "And the Lord called Moses up to the top of the mount; and Moses went up." So reads the record. It also appears, by the reading of the narration, that his going up was in the very midst of a raging thunder-storm. It was while the mountain was trembling, "greatly," by reason of the conflict of ethereal elements; while the vivid, and almost continuous, lightning-flashes, were causing the mountain to appear as if it was all on fire; and while the thick fog, like "the smoke of a furnace," enveloped the mountain, that the trumpeter which Moses had stationed on the mountain to aid him in giving to the wild storm of nature the appearance of possessing Intellectuality, and to assist him in carrying out his concocted scheme of fraud upon the people, sounded his trumpet, to which Moses replied by "speaking." The record says: the voice of the trumpet sounded long, and waxed louder and louder, before Moses spake, to which God answered him by audible voice, telling him to come up to the top of the mountain where he was. In commenting on this part of Moses' statement, one of the orthodox commentators says: "He, Moses, stood lower before, though not so low as the people: but now is called up higher, even to the very place where God was; and, consequently, entered into the midst of fire and smoke, wherein the mountain was wrapped, upon God's appearance there." Then, again, the same commentator, in alluding to the voice of the trumpet, says: The heavenly ministers, who were in attendance on the Divine Majesty, made a sound like that of a trumpet, to summon the people to come and appear before God, and receive his commands." Another commentator says: "A

voice, or sound, resembling that of a trumpet, made, as we must suppose, by some of the attendant angels."

SEC. 5. The evident intention of the writer, or writers, of the texts, commented on in this Chapter, was to convey to the mind of the reader, and imprint it there, the idea that all the things therein narrated were special exhibitions of God's power, or manifestations by attendants of his from the spirit-world. Now, no man, nor woman, in his, or her, sober senses, can, for a single moment, believe that the Father of universal spirit-life, or angels, or invisible intelligent spirits, were there on Sinai's top blowing trumpets for Moses' special bencfit, nor for a sort of interlude to the appalling bellowings of the peals of thunder; nor for the purpose of giving signals to a few agitated men and women -inviting them to come out of their tents and see one of nature's majestic performances. No, verily, Moses was playing the part of an audacious impostor-playing it in connection with one of the wars of the elements, the like of which he had often before witnessed. Moses had his accomplices in the deception; these he had stationed in the mountain, with which he could, and did, correspond by the trumpet, and by voice, the soundings of which were understood only by himself and his associates in the fraud.

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SEC. 6. The auto-biography of Moses says: "And the Lord said unto him, (this was the third time that he was up the mountain,) away, get thee down, and thou shalt come up, thou, and Aaron with thee; but let not the priests and the people break through to come up unto the Lord, lest he break forth upon them." It will be remembered by the reader that Moses had not only granted a license to every individual of the children of Israel to stone to death, or to shoot through, at their pleasure, all who should presume to disobey his injunction, by overstepping his described boundaries about the mountain, but the purport of his language enjoined all the people to do it, whenever they saw a hand or foot, save his own, press the mountain. Through this,