August 9

Now Moses kept the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian. - Exodus 3:1.

THERE is hardly an instance to be found recorded in Scripture, in which God appeared in the way of distinction and privilege to any who were not engaged at the time in some useful employment. Satan visits people when they are idle; God comes to them when they are employed. Matthew was called while sitting at the receipt of custom, and James and John while mending their nets. The woman of Samaria found the Saviour while drawing water. The angel of the Lord appeared to the shepherds while they were watching over their flocks by night. And Moses was here extraordinarily indulged when he was tending the charge of his father-in-law. Though learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians- though very delicately brought up in a palace as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, he does not think the employment beneath him. “I keep sheep-a man of my breeding, and education, and talent!” He says nothing like this.

Humility is a noble virtue; it enables us to accommodate ourselves to the will of Providence, and teaches us how to be abased as well as how to abound. There are many who know what it is to be abased as well as to abound; but they do not know how. Their minds do not come into harmony with their situations. They are humbled, but not humble; they would rather break than bend. How much more respectable is a trade or a profession, than idleness? What are hands given for? Are they to be folded, and to do nothing? The Jews have a proverb, that if a man brings up his son without business, he teaches him to be a thief.

Saul of Tarsus had a university education, yet he was taught the craft of tent-making; and we see in a particular emergency of what advantage it was to him. To this day no man can be the Sultan of Turkey unless he understands some mechanical business. Adam and Eve were placed in Paradise, not only to enjoy, but “to keep it.” Moses was neither degraded by this employment, nor miserable inconsequence of it.

There is no drudgery in the world which is not far preferable to the situation of men who have nothing to do. Oh, it is easily imagined that these were the happiest days of Moses’s life. There, by the side his innocent charge, he had time for reflection. There he could enjoy his poetical musings; for he was a poet of no mean order, if we may judge by the Divine songs which he composed. There he wrote the book of Genesis, and sang how the earth rose out of chaos; and there, probably, he wrote the book of Job, with its numberless beauties.