BIBLE HISTORY - Classic Works of Apologetics

174 SP/RITUAL ANALOGIES OF THE PLAGUES.
plants of a red color," making the water red,
is to miss the spiritual and perennial fact that,
whether these accounts are valid or not, even
the best idol- be it a constitution or a manwhen
it has been made to represent crowned
unrighteQusness, will inevitably be made a
curse by the first appearance of uncrowned
righteousness.
As much may be said of the spiritual truths
conveyed to any but the disobedient mind of
Egypt, in the other plagues visited upon the
land and people of Pharaoh. The frog had a
high place in the animalistic worship of the
realm. Probably the mud consequent on the
annual inundation of the Nile had produced
vast multitudes of these. Magicians could
imitate Moses to a slight extent. But only
Moses - only the supremacy of righteousness
-'-can ever make the life of man worth living
and the air he breathes pure. Again, God was
Jehovah.
Sir Samuel Baker informs us that, after the
rice harvest, it often seems that" the very dust
is turned into lice." But, in remembering the
plague of lice which followed the plague of
frogs in Egypt, he must not forget the fact that
Aaron's rod had touched the dusty earth.
"Beware," says Emerson, "when God lets
loose a thinker on the planet: then all things
are at a risk." Aaron's rod was full of the
divine vitality of truth, even to the point of
budding. One living idea, touching a world of
things out of harmony with its command,
turns them all into curses. The very dust becomes
lice. No magician can imitate this miracle,
as those of Egypt could not. It is of
God's true magic; only the genius of progressive
righteousness may perform it; and it is
performed all the while, whenever an unobeyed
truth comes into contact with recalcitrant untruth.
Oid saws of obsolescent wisdom roused
into a kind of life by a fresh, inherently supreme
purpose in history, are 'the lice whose
presence "hardens Pharaoh's heart." Even
the magicians of the dull-eyed time sometimes
say, as did those of Pharaoh's court, "It is the
finger of Elolzim." This is only part of the
truth. It is more sympathetic with the whole
truth to say, "It is the finger of Jehovah."
But Pharaoh had not been led far enough to
utter the new and memorial name: "Jehovah."
The very name involved a statesmanship
which meant ruin to his empire.
Another utterance of God - and other small,
pestiferous, winged creatures swarmed in the
air. This was a heavy stroke against the popular
worship. This plague infests the land to
this day; but it can never have such significance.
These insects were the nation's very
symbols of "the creative principle, its emblems
of the sun." The profanity was that
they had become noxious vermin. Every reformer,
perforce, by his iutroducing contrasting
justice into unjust life or society, is a Moses
whose power no Pharaoh suspects. Still the
tyrant cries, "It is Elohim." " Yea," Moses.
... "ould have added, "andJelzovalz!" "Let the·
Hebrews go," said Pharaoh, at last; but on the
cessation of the plague, he "hardened his:
heart" I again.
Following upon these, was the murrain, with.
its extensive desolation of death amongst the
cattle. This stroke against the religiousness:
of Pharaoh's nation was severe. The cow and
ox in Egypt were sacred; and, therefore, Isis
and Osiris were offended gods. By this immense
event, Apis and Mnevis had been insulted
and profaned. Deities of evil are always
dethroned by goodness; and the iconoclast
is thought a nuisance, insolent and rebellious.
And now man is touched. First, the tlzi1lgs he
worships, or prizes, are smitten by any progressive
truth to which man is disobedient - first,.
his profits, or his ancient and outworn institutions;
then the man himself is stricken. It is
the method of progress. Even the magicians
yielded before the nlcers and tumors of the
people. Political and ecclesiastical magic goes
down before realities. Liberty and truth cannot
hide unpleasant facts. 'When Moses and
Aaron threw into the air the ashes from the
huge furnaces, which were the emblems of
their slavery, the spirit of freedom used the
magic of their visible chains, as later, in writing
"Uncle Tom's Cabin," that spirit was able
to bring a nation to its better ideal. Still Jelzovah
was unacknowledged by the throne of
Egypt. Any victory without that acknowledgment,
Moses knew, was a spiritual defeat.
All real progress is by the ad vance of ideas.
The harvest.growing fields of Egypt were
swept with storm.
" For what avails the plough or sail,
Or land, or life, if freedom fail? "
Man is not made for grain - grain exists for
man; and at such crises, man untrue to his
destiny is worthless. Let the grain fail! "I
am Jehovah." 2
Again the humbled Pharaoh listened awhile
to the warning voices. Moses was instant upon
the essential thing: "Ye will not yet fear
Jehovah-Elohim." 3 It is significant that the
reformer tries to help Pharaoh from one step to
the next, using what he has acknowledged in
connection with what he ought to acknowledge
-"Jehovah-Elohim," he says. It was more
evident than ever that Moses could not afford,.
and was not seeking, a personal triumph. God
had said to Pharaoh through him: "How long
wilt thou refuse to humble thyself before
I Exodus \·iii, 2S-32. 2 Exodus vi, 2. :3 Exodus ix, 30..