MOSES looked wholly to God for guidance, and was thus enabled to lead the children of Israel out of the land of bondage, where they had been the victims of tyrannical and oppressive laws. He was also able to show them how to take their first steps toward the land of promise. They could not have made the journey unaided, or unorganized, or in a multiplicity of small groups; so God met their need for a leader and an organizer, sending Moses to show them the way.
Moses was armed with a clear concept of moral law. He looked to God, good, and away from the carnal, mortal, or so-called evil mind, and found the moral qualities of courage, obedience, honesty, hope, and faith. His recognition of God as the source of all good brought to his waiting thought some understanding of the fact which the Master stated centuries later, "I can of mine own self do nothing,"—a saying which marks for all of us the point of departure out of the land of bondage to sense and self, and aids, through our appreciation of it, the breaking up of the earthly spell of the false belief of man as separated from God, a belief which underlies all the errors of the unenlightened human mind, awakening us to the fact that we can go forth into freedom only as we follow the way of God's appointing.
As Christian Scientists we are continuing the journey begun by the children of Israel centuries ago, striving to be faithful to the Ten Commandments. Through the ages intervening between their journey and ours, God has graciously bestowed more and more light with each advancing step out of the belief of life and intelligence in matter, until now a great light shines along our path. Our Master gave us, under God's guidance, the gospel of Love, the Lord's Prayer, and the Beatitudes, and he showed us plainly, through many signs and wonders, that recognition of and obedience to the law of God will equip us with power to remove mountains of difficulty from the pathway, and will enable us to say to sin, disease, and even death itself, "The Lord God omnipotent reigneth."
