But Jehovah recognised in Moses a human instrument too rare merely to
be entrusted with the redemption of an Arabian tribe from a state of
Fellaheen to Bedouin existence. And, therefore, he was summoned to be
the organ of an eternal revelation of the Divine will, and his tribe
were appointed to be the hereditary ministers of that mighty and
mysterious dispensation.
It is to be noted, although the Omnipotent Creator might have found, had
it pleased him, in the humblest of his creations, an efficient agent
for his purpose, however difficult and sublime, that Divine Majesty has
never thought fit to communicate except with human beings of the very
highest powers. They are always men who have manifested an extraordinary
aptitude for great affairs, and the possession of a fervent and
commanding genius. They are great legislators, or great warriors, or
great poets, or orators of the most vehement and impassioned spirit.
Such were Moses, Joshua, the heroic youth of Hebron, and his magnificent
son; such, too, was Isaiah, a man, humanly speaking, not inferior to
Demosthenes, and struggling for a similar and as beautiful a cause,
the independence of a small state, eminent for its intellectual power,
against the barbarian grandeur of a military empire.
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