Notes of a Sermon Preached by the Rev. C. E. Darwent in Union Church, Tientsin, on Sunday evening, June 25
Tent: Exodus LI. 1%.—"'And and when he saw that there was no hid him in the sand." LI, 17.—~ drove them away; but Moses watered their flock." he looked this way and that way, man, he smote the Egyptian, and "And the shepherds came and stood up and helped them, and What a position this man holds in the moral and spirit ta) history of the world! It overthrows all one's scales of moral and human values. Take only that one verse in the first chapter of the Gospel of St, John: For the law came by Moses; grace and truth came by Jesus Christ." Think of a man being linked up with the Saviour of the world like that! Moses did a work which, if it had not been done, the Saviour could not have come at all, for there had to' be a moral and religious preparation for Him. So that He only had to add elements, that none but He could add. Next to Jesus Christ is, as Milton says, "That Shepherd, who first taught the chosen In the beginning how the Heav"iie and Earth Rose out of Chaos."
Then again we have the story of our Lord's Transfiguration -on the (Mount. We read, "There appeared unto them Moses and Elijah talking with Him." It makes one wonder, when one reads, as I once did in the '"Hibbort Journal," that "Moses is not a historic person" and that "this mythical figure had his home in the land of Midian, while Aaron was an Edomitish god." It gives one a shock, as it would an American to be informed that Washington is a myth. If Moses is a myth, one an only marvel at the results of a myth, for three religions revere Moses as great.
We shall take the story as it stands. And we shall spend our time this evening trying to find out what Moses was, as a man, apart from his character as a great legislator, And here is a wonderful feature of the Bible; its pathetic candour. Seeing that Moses came fo reach so giddy a height, of fame and glory: seeing that Tews and Christians have accepted most of his legislation; seeing that his name was con-startly en cur Lord's lips, we might have thought that some attempts would have been made to hush up any deeds of his, that are questionable. But this old book does nothing of the kind. It hides nothing.. It paints its men, as Cromwell asked to be painted, "warts and all."
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.