had thought only of his own prospects and position, he would not have gone near the Israelites at all, but lived quietly as an Egyptian priest in the palace of Pharaoh.  But, as the writer to the Hebrews says, he “refused, to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter; choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season."[353] Another instance of his generous and tender feelings toward his nation is seen in his behavior when the people made the golden calf.  First, his anger broke out against them, and all the sternness of the lawgiver appeared in his command to the people to cut down their idolatrous brethren; then the bitter tide of anger withdrew, and that of tenderness took its place, and he returned into the mountain to the Lord and said, “O, this people have sinned a great sin, and have made them gods of gold.  Yet now, if thou wilt forgive their sin—­; and if not, blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book which thou hast written.”  Moses did not make much account of human life.  He struck dead the Egyptian who was ill-treating a Jew; he slew the Jews who turned to idolatry; he slew the Midianites who tempted them; but then he was ready to give up his own life too for the sake of his people and for the sake of the cause.  This spirit of Moses pervades his law, this same inconsistency went from his character into his legislation; his relentless severity and his tender sympathy both appear in it.  He knows no mercy toward the transgressor, but toward the unfortunate he is full of compassion.  His law says, “Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, burning for burning, stripe for stripe.”  But it also says, “Ye shall neither vex a stranger, nor oppress him, for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt.  Ye shall not afflict any widow or fatherless child.”  “If thou lend money to any of my people that is poor by thee, thou shalt not be to him as an usurer.”  “If thou at all take thy neighbor’s raiment to pledge, thou shalt deliver it unto him by that the sun goeth down, for that is his covering.”  “If thou meet thine enemy’s ox or his ass going astray, thou shalt surely bring it back to him again.”

Such severities joined with such humanities we find in the character of Moses, and such we find to have passed from his character into his laws.  But perhaps the deepest spring of character, and its most essential trait, was his sense of justice as embodied in law.  The great idea of a just law, freely chosen, under its various aspects of Divine command, ceremonial regulations, political order, and moral duty, distinguished his policy and legislation from that of other founders of states.  His laws rested on no basis of mere temporal expediency, but on the two pivots of an absolute Divine will and a deliberate national choice.  It had the double sanction of religion and justice; it was at once a revelation and a contract.  There was a third idea which it was the object of his whole system, and especially of