On the Desert - Recent Events in Egypt/Chapter 6
CHAPTER VI.
A SABBATH IN THE WILDERNESS.
No matter where a man may be — at home or abroad, in the city or in the wilderness — the week comes to an end, and brings the day of rest — blessed day — never more welcome than on the desert. Some travellers ignore it, claiming that the strict rules of Sabbath observance which obtain in Christian communities at home, have no place in the wilderness, where no man is. A caravan on the desert is like a ship at sea, which must keep on her voyage. Travellers are exposed to greater dangers here than on the ocean. Not only may they be overtaken by storms; they may be attacked by robbers, who would strip them of everything, and leave them to perish by exposure or by famine; so that it may be a matter of necessity and mercy to press on till the point of danger is passed. I presume not to judge those who so reason and so act. "I speak not of commandment," but of privilege; and only this I say, that they lose an experience which comes but rarely in a lifetime, and the loss of which they will always regret. Nowhere is the day more needed for the physical rest which it brings. A week on the desert is a great trial of strength and endurance, and one needs more time to recover from it than the few hours of night. Rest is needed for man and beast. As soon as we entered this oasis, even the camels seemed to have an instinct that a time of rest had come. Their Sabbath began, according to the Hebrew custom, with Saturday evening. No sooner were they unloaded of their burdens than the poor tired beasts were turned loose to wander by the brookside and drink at will, and to crop the herbage that grew somewhat luxuriantly in the valley. Our tents had been pitched on the margin of the stream, the very sight of which was cooling to eyes that had rested so long only on burning rocks and sands. The change was a relief both to body and mind, for the mind too had been under a constant tension, which needed to be relaxed. And so, when we came within the circuit of these hills, and under the shade of these palms, we said, This is our rest, for we have desired it. We felt the strain of the week taken off, and began to unbend, and soon sank down into delicious and undisturbed repose.
And when the morning broke, with returning consciousness came the blissful thought that we had not to stir this day. No voice from the desert whispered, Rise and march. That alone was enough to quiet our nerves; the heart beat regularly, and the blood flowed smoothly in our veins. Today, at least, no mortal care should seize our breasts; these long, golden hours were reserved for tranquil thoughts and sweet communings with our own hearts, with nature, and with God.
The Sabbath had come. We knew it as soon as we opened our eyes. Not by the unaccustomed stillness which in populous cities or in villages marks the change from the days of the week, for the silence of the desert is so profound that it cannot be deepened. But there was something which was not silence: it was Peace. There was something in the deep blue heavens that were bending over us, that seemed to say, This is the day that the Lord hath made. To enjoy it to the full, we sought for greater retirement than that of our tent. Dr. Post, looking round for the natural features of the oasis in which we were camped, espied across the stream a solitary tree, an acacia (the tree which furnished the shittim wood of which the Ark was made), which he pronounced the most fully proportioned tree he had seen on the desert. For a wonder, it was of considerable size, and offered a grateful shade. The air under it was cool and refreshing. To this spot we removed our camp-chairs and a table, and even our iron bedsteads, that, if need were, we might lie down and rest; and here we spent a long, sweet Sabbath, full of a heavenly calm, with which all nature seemed to be in sympathy.
Looking out from under our tree, it seemed as if all living things were enjoying the rest of the day. One must have been far in the desert to realize how sweet as well as strange it was to see two or three little birds, not bigger than sparrows, hopping about. They were very tame, at least they had not been scared by the frequent presence of men, and ventured quite near us, as if to make our acquaintance; and as they piped their feeble notes, it seemed as if they were trying to sing a song of home, to cheer the lonely travellers. But the creatures that enjoyed the day the most were the camels. They knew that it was Sunday, and enjoyed it as if it had been made for them. Just see them now! I have been watching them as they roam about at their own sweet will. They do not invade our privacy, for they do not seek the shade, but the sunshine. But sun or shade or water — all is free to them to-day. Here is an old tramper of the desert now standing before me. I hear a singular gurgling noise, as if a brook were running down his throat. He is sucking up the water out of the cistern which nature has provided as a reservoir within him, into his stomach. Who would not rest on such a day, when even the brute creation feel the blessedness of repose?
But we found beneath the shade more than mere physical rest. Our tree was but a little alcove in a great temple, of which the full proportions — walls and columns and domes — were in the mighty amphitheatre of the hills. Here we were in a deep valley, surrounded by mountains; while above us towered Serbal, like Mont Blanc above the Vale of Chamouni. Never did I realize before the full meaning, as well as beauty, of the words, "The mountains bring peace"; they are so great and strong, standing fast forever, that they preach peace to mortals vexed with petty cares. That peace encompassed us round to-day. We seemed to be in a place of prayer; and though there was no sound of the church-going bell to awaken these solitudes, yet we had found a sanctuary in which we could worship as truly as beneath the swelling dome or in the long-drawn aisle. Here we could sit and read our Bibles, and worship God.
We had not indeed forgotten this worship on any day of the week. Making a little family, we never forgot the blessed institution of family prayers. This it was not always possible to observe in our tent; but after we had begun the day's march, we found by the wayside "the shadow of a great rock," or some other quiet nook, where we could stop to read our Bibles. Dr. Post had always in his pocket his Arabic Bible, which is said to be very much like the Hebrew, from which he read the account of the wanderings of the Israelites in the wilderness. It was quite natural that an Eastern book, translated into an Eastern language, should preserve a certain couleur locale — a reflection not only of the natural scenery amid which, but of the manners and customs of the people among whom and by whom, it was written — not always retained in our Western version; and I found that the Bible so read and translated into English for my benefit, had a freshness and beauty which I had not perceived before. The story of the wanderings became more real since we were amid the very scenes through which the Israelites passed. And after reading this, how sweet to think that we could commit ourselves to the care of Him who had led them across these very deserts and through these very mountains, going before them as a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night! More blessed still was the privilege of committing to Him those dearer to us than our own life. Never in our prayers do we forget the loved ones far away. Across the desert and the sea our hearts go to them with a love and a longing that distance does but make the stronger. Perhaps He who is in every place, and whose ear is ever open, will hear our lowly cry from the sands of the desert, and fold them in His arms of infinite tenderness.
While enjoying the natural beauty of this valley among the mountains, we do not forget that it is a spot of great, historical interest. It was a scene of stirring events in the history of the Hebrews, and a centre of monastic life in the early Christian centuries. Here camped the Israelites. They fought to obtain possession of this valley; and standing here to-day, it is easy to see why they fought for it; it was simply to get water. They had marched across the desert; they had toiled wearily through barren mountains, where no stream or fountain quenched their thirst. Moses had struck the rock from which gushed forth water to keep them from perishing. But a little in advance of him was a valley watered by an ever-flowing stream. Access to it was barred by the Amalekites, and he fought to force a passage. I am well aware that there is a question among Biblical scholars whether the mountain pass through which we have just come is Rephidim, but such is the universal tradition; and so also has tradition fixed on the sharp peak which rises up right in front of us as the one which Moses ascended to pray while the battle was going on, and where Aaron and Hur held up his hands. Late in the afternoon we climbed this peak, and stood on the very spot where Moses knelt and prayed, and looked on the very scene on which he looked on that eventful day which was to decide the fate of Israel, when his hopes rose and fell, for the battle was long, and ended not till the going down of the sun. It was sunset when we stood there, and it required little imagination to conceive of the great Hebrew Lawgiver at that hour rising from his knees, his prayers turned to praise as he saw the Amalekites fleeing through the passes of the mountains.
Some I know would look on this scene with very different feelings. A popular lecturer has undertaken to expose the Mistakes of Moses, and in following the narrative of the Exodus, he denounces the entrance of the Israelites into the Peninsula of Sinai as an unprovoked invasion of the territory of a peaceful neighbor — an act which was not merely a mistake, but a crime. This censure of Moses is not new. There is nothing in the Bible which is a more frequent subject of attack than the alleged cruelty of the Hebrew leader in forcing his way among an unoffending people. But let not the critics be too hasty in judgment. We must take large views of things. The Exodus from Egypt was one of those great migrations of nations of which we read in history, movements accomplished by great suffering and great sacrifices, as when, in this very case, the whole Hebrew people perished in the wilderness, yet through which comes at last the deliverance of nations and the general progress of mankind. Colonel Ingersoll is an ardent advocate of liberty, and a fierce denouncer of slavery in every form. We presume he would think slaves justified in fleeing from bondage, and seeking their freedom, even if the end could not be gained except at the price of the sacrifice of precious lives — their own and their masters. If, in the times before our civil war, two millions of slaves had risen up in the night, and made an exodus from the South, their "house of bondage"; and if, in order to find a refuge far away — a lodge in some vast wilderness, where they could enjoy their freedom, with none to molest or make them afraid — they had started for some remote and almost uninhabited region of Northern Mexico; and, when marching on in great battalions, with their wives and little children, had been stopped in their progress by bands of Apache Indians; would it have been a great wrong for them to force their way?
Let the assailants of Moses sneer as they will. The more I see of the desert, the more the miracle of the Exodus grows upon me, and the more profound the reverence I feel for that stern old Hebrew Cromwell, who was the leader of the Israelites in that great crisis of their history. In all our marches the past week, that presence has never been absent. The figure of Moses is the one great figure which gives supreme interest to this land of desolation. When we pass through deep mountain gorges, the cliffs on either hand take on a new interest as I think that they have looked upon Moses as he passed by, perhaps with a countenance grave and downcast, bearing the burden of a nation on his mighty heart. Often doubtless did he lie down in these dark mountain recesses, with only a stone for a pillow, and look up to the stars shining in this clear Arabian sky, and wonder if the God whom he worshipped would carry him through. In the battle which was fought on this ground more than three thousand years ago, it was not only the Israelites fighting with the Amalekites: it was the battle of civilization with barbarism. Never was a truer, as well as more eloquent saying than that of a great student of history, Bunsen: that "History was born on the night when Moses led the Israelites out of the land of Goshen." Egypt indeed had been an empire for we know not how many centuries or millenniums. But it had no history. Its record, preserved to us in monuments and inscriptions, is a mere chronology — a catalogue of successive dynasties, as utterly dry and dead as the mummies of its buried kings. That is not history. But the Exodus was the beginning of a series of events, unfolding through centuries, which marked a steady movement of the nations. When Moses fought with Amalek, he carried in his right hand the destiny of millions yet unborn. If he had perished on that fatal day, there would have been no Commonwealth of England, and no Commonwealths in New England; the dial of human progress would have been set back a thousand years.
This oasis has been made famous also in a history more recent than that of Moses. In the early centuries it was a great resort for monks. A Convent stood on a hill which is but a few hundred yards from our camp, where its ruins are yet to be seen; while all round the valley the sides of the hill are pierced with cells, in which the monks passed their lives. They were not, strictly speaking, hermits, for hermits live in solitude; but Cenobites, who live in communities. There must have been a large community here, to judge from the number of cells by which the mountains are honeycombed. We climbed up to some of them, and found them hewn in the solid rock, and but a few feet square. Yet these were the only homes of the monks, in which they passed their lives in prayer and meditation. Here they ate and slept and prayed and died — in little stone cells, hardly high enough for a man to stand upright in, though long enough for him to lie down; which indeed had more of the shape and dimensions of a sarcophagus than of a place of human habitation. Nor is one surprised to learn that the monks were buried at last in the same rock-hewn sepulchres in which they had passed a living death. For such a religion I have no sympathy. Such lives are of no benefit to anybody. Self-denial for the sake of doing good to others, is according to the law of Christ. But suffering endured as a penance, self-inflicted torture, is far away from the spirit of the Gospel. I can feel no admiration for that religion which thinks to merit heaven by making earth a hell.
But the day was drawing to a close, and we were in no mood to indulge in criticism even of the false piety of a former age. Rather would we give ourselves up to the tender associations of the place and the hour. To complete the charm of this perfect day, to-night the moon reached the full. The scene was unearthly as she rose above the tops of the mountains, and shone down into the deep, lonely valley. It seemed as if the peace of God were resting on the face of the earth — not
"The peace that sages in meditation found,"
but a peace from the Infinite Presence, which filled the spaces of the silent air; and as if more than one sleeper on the desert might have a vision in his dreams of a ladder whose top touched heaven, with angels ascending and descending upon it. How can we help serious thoughts in the strange scenes in which we are? Here we tarry but a night; to-morrow we resume our march. The wanderings of the Israelites are a type of that pilgrimage which we are all making through the wilderness of this world. If we are only marching in the right direction, we need not fear to move on day by day, glad to know that each day's march brings us nearer to the end:
"Here in the body pent,
Absent from Thee I roam,
Yet nightly pitch my moving tent,
A day's march nearer home."