DEATH OF MOSES.
The Law-giver, when he had firmly established the two extensive empires
of Mexico and Peru, had it in his mind to found another kingdom in the
north of Mexico, which should include King George’s Sound, in the
Pacific Ocean, and stretch across the continent of North America till
it reached the Atlantic Ocean.
This immense tract of country was inhabited by savages, living like the
wild animals by whom they were surrounded. They knew not God, nor had
they any idea of religion, having no greater intelligence than that
possessed by the brute creation. It was, however, the intention of
Moses to visit these people, to teach them the knowledge of civilised
life, and to impart to them the blessings of religion and industry.
This, indeed, was the mission on which Moses was sent over the
different quarters of the habitable globe by his God, who spoke to him
on Mount Sinai, and who took him away from the camp of the children of
Israel at the ford of the river Jordan, viz. that he (Moses) might
carry the glorious tidings of salvation to nations that were living in
ignorance and superstition. He obeyed the sacred behest, and there are
ample proofs which attest the success of his mission and labour of love.
The route he took is marked by signs of flourishing empires, with
religion, learning, and laws, as far as the spot where the servant of
God was killed by savages—the very people whom he came to reclaim. He
visited the coast of North America in a boat made of copper, everything
on board of which was made of that metal. Of this the Indians are
passionately fond, and for the sake of it they killed the inspired
missionary.
But the sequel proves that they repented of their wicked deed—when it
was too late. In the hope of obtaining forgiveness from the murdered
old man, they paid him divine worship, and carved an image to represent
the visitant whom they so cruelly deprived of life. The memory of this
remarkable event was handed down to posterity from generation to
generation, even to the time when Captain Meares visited that coast in
his ship; and the story was related to him by one of the descendants of
those who committed the horrid crime. Captain Meares gives the
following narrative of what he heard:—[76]
“For a long time the English thought the inhabitants had no religious
belief whatever. To the huge mis-shapen images seen in their houses
they addressed no homage; they had neither priests nor temples, nor did
they offer any sacrifices; but an accidental circumstance led to the
discovery that, though devoid of all superstitious observances, and
wholly ignorant of the true God, they were not without a certain
species of mythology, including a belief of an existence after death.
This discovery arose from our inquiries on a very different subject.
“On expressing our wish to be informed by what means they became
acquainted with copper, and why it was such a peculiar object of their
admiration, a son of Hannapa, one of the Nootkan chiefs, a youth of
uncommon sagacity, informed us of all he knew on the subject; and we
found, to our surprise, that his story involved a little sketch of
their religion. When words were wanting he supplied the deficiency by
those expressive actions which nature or necessity seems to communicate
to people whose language is imperfect; and the young Nootkan conveyed
his ideas by signs so skilfully as to render them perfectly
intelligible. He related his story in the following manner:—
“He first placed a certain number of sticks on the ground, at small
distances from each other, to which he gave separate names. Thus, he
called the first his father, and the next his grandfather: he then took
what remained and threw them all into confusion together, as much as to
say that they were the general heap of his ancestors, whom he could not
individually reckon.
“He then, pointing to this bundle, said, when they lived an old man
entered the sound[77] in a copper canoe, with copper paddles, and
everything else in his possession of the same metal; that he paddled
along the shore, on which all the people were assembled to contemplate
so strange a sight, and that, having thrown one of his copper paddles
on shore, he himself landed. The extraordinary stranger then told the
natives that he came from the sky, to which the boy pointed with his
hand; that their country would one day be destroyed, when they would
all be killed, and rise again to live in the place from whence he came.
“Our young interpreter explained this circumstance of his narrative by
lying down as if he were dead, and then, rising up suddenly, he
imitated the action as if he were soaring through the air. He continued
to inform us that the people killed the old man, and took his canoe,
from which event they derived their fondness for copper; and he added
that the images in their houses were intended to represent the form,
and perpetuate the mission, of this supernatural person who came from
the sky.”
Thus ended the glorious life of the man of God. His death was as
mysterious to his followers in America, as was his disappearance and
supposed death to the Israelites in Asia. He was the first missionary
who carried the glad tidings of God’s good-will towards an erring
world; and he died the death of a martyr at the hands of the very world
that he came to enlighten.
At the time of his death Moses must have been very old, for he was
already one hundred and twenty years old when he left the Israelites.
To arrive at the exact age to which he attained, an acquaintance with
the chronicles of many kingdoms would be necessary, in order to know
the date at which he arrived, and what length of time he sojourned, in
each. But as most of the empires which Moses founded are now under the
government of various nations, who have wantonly destroyed every
vestige of the history and traditions of their former kings, this
knowledge cannot be attained in this age of the world.
When Moses commenced his missionary life he was accompanied by his
Ethiopian consort,[78] and a son, by her, as there is evidence to prove
in the painting at Thebes, where there is a representation of the
Ethiopian princess with a boy on her lap.[79] There also went with him
Zipporah and her two sons, Gershom and Eliezer,[80] and their sons,[81]
and a large company of Jews, Egyptians, and Ethiopians.[82]
The doctrine that Moses preached everywhere was the same as that he
wrote and left among the Jews. It will, therefore, not be out of place
to rehearse it here, as he rehearsed it before the Israelites previous
to his departure from their midst:—
“Give ear, O ye heavens, and I will speak; and hear, O earth, the words
of my mouth. My doctrine shall drop as the rain, my speech shall distil
as the dew, as the small rain upon the tender herb, and as the showers
upon the grass: Because I will publish the name of the Lord: ascribe ye
greatness unto our God. He is the Rock, his work is perfect: for all
his ways are judgment: a God of truth and without iniquity, just and
right is he.
“They have corrupted themselves, their spot is not the spot of his
children. Do ye thus requite the Lord, O foolish people and unwise? Is
not he thy father that hath bought thee? hath he not made thee, and
established thee?
“Remember the days of old, consider the years of many generations: ask
thy father, and he will shew thee; thy elders, and they will tell thee.
When the Most High divided to the nations the inheritance, when he
separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the people according
to the number of the children of Israel. For the Lord’s portion is his
people; Jacob is the lot of his inheritance. He found him in a desert
land, and in the waste howling wilderness; he led him about, he
instructed him, he kept him as the apple of his eye.
“As an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young, spreadeth
abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings: so the Lord
alone did lead him, and there was no strange god with him. He made him
ride on the high places of the earth, that he might eat the increase of
the fields, and he made him to suck honey out of the rock, and oil out
of the flinty rock; butter of kine, and milk of sheep, with fat of
lambs, and rams of the breed of Bashan, and goats, with the fat of
kidneys of wheat; and thou didst drink the pure blood of the grape.
“But Jeshurun waxed fat, and kicked: thou art waxed fat, thou art grown
thick, thou art covered with fatness; then he forsook God which made
him, and lightly esteemed the Rock of his salvation. They provoked him
to jealousy with strange gods, with abominations provoked they him to
anger. They sacrificed unto devils, not to God; to gods whom they knew
not, to new gods that came newly up, whom your fathers feared not. Of
the Rock that begat thee thou art unmindful, and hast forgotten God
that formed thee.
“And when the Lord saw it, he abhorred them, because of the provoking
of his sons, and of his daughters. And he said, I will hide my face
from them, I will see what their end shall be: for they are a very
froward generation, children in whom is no faith. They have moved me to
jealousy with that which is not God; they have provoked me to anger
with their vanities: and I will move them to jealousy with those which
are not a people; I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation.
For a fire is kindled in mine anger, and shall burn unto the lowest
hell, and shall consume the earth with her increase, and set on fire
the foundations of the mountains.
“I will heap mischiefs upon them; I will spend mine arrows upon them.
They shall be burnt with hunger, and devoured with burning heat, and
with bitter destruction: I will also send the teeth of beasts upon
them, with the poison of serpents of the dust. The sword without, and
terror within, shall destroy both the young man and the virgin, the
suckling also with the man of gray hairs.
“I said, I would scatter them into corners, I would make the
remembrance of them to cease from among men: Were it not that I feared
the wrath of the enemy, lest their adversaries should behave themselves
strangely, and lest they should say, Our hand is high, and the Lord
hath not done all this. For they are a nation void of counsel, neither
is there any understanding in them.
“O that they were wise, that they understood this, that they would
consider their latter end! How should one chase a thousand, and two put
ten thousand to flight, except their Rock had sold them, and the Lord
had shut them up? For their Rock is not as our Rock, even our enemies
themselves being judges. For their vine is of the vine of Sodom, and of
the fields of Gomorrah: their grapes are grapes of gall, their clusters
are bitter. Their wine is the poison of dragons, and the cruel venom of
asps. Is not this laid up in store with me, and sealed up among my
treasures?
“To me belongeth vengeance, and recompence; their foot shall slide in
due time: for the day of their calamity is at hand, and the things that
shall come upon them make haste. For the Lord shall judge his people,
and repent himself for his servants, when he seeth that their power is
gone, and there is none shut up or left. And he shall say, Where are
their gods, their rock in whom they trusted, which did eat the fat of
their sacrifices, and drank the wine of their drink offerings? let them
rise up and help you, and be your protection.
“See now that I, even I, am he, and there is no god with me: I kill,
and I make alive; I wound, and I heal: neither is there any that can
deliver out of my hand. For I lift up my hand to heaven, and say I live
for ever. If I whet my glittering sword, and mine hand take hold on
judgment; I will render vengeance to mine enemies, and will reward them
that hate me. I will make mine arrows drunk with blood, and my sword
shall devour flesh: and that with the blood of the slain and of the
captives, from the beginning of revenges upon the enemy.
“Rejoice, O ye nations, with his people: for he will avenge the blood
of his servants, and will render vengeance to his adversaries, and will
be merciful unto his land, and to his people.
“And Moses came and spake all the words of this song in the ears of the
people, he, and Hoshea the son of Nun. And Moses made an end of
speaking all these words to all Israel.
“And he said unto them, Set your hearts unto all the words which I
testify among you this day, which ye shall command your children to
observe to do, all the words of this law. For it is not a vain thing
for you; because it is your life: and through this thing ye shall
prolong your days in the land, whither ye go over Jordan to possess
it.”[83]