WHEN humanity lingers in the shadows of materiality by basing all its conclusions on the belief of life and intelligence in matter, it necessarily errs and stumbles, because it is untouched by the divine; whereas, when humanity turns away from its futile faith in matter and its false testimony to faith in God, even though such faith be at first feeble and expressed only by a cry to Him for help, it emerges somewhat from the darkness and begins to respond to the touch of divinity, which is always at hand ready to feed the famine of the hungry heart.
The Bible, that great chronicle of spiritual history, reveals the progress of humanity, when touched by the divine, out of the desolation of the wilderness of materiality into the promised land, or that state of consciousness which has been awakened through faith to the fact that God's promises abound, here and now, and are ever available to mankind. Intelligent, consecrated study of the Bible brings to light many lessons, through the practical example of prophets and apostles who looked beyond the material senses in their hunger and thirst after righteousness, and listened for God's voice above the din of so-called mortal mind. In the ratio that the senses were silenced, these men were able to hear the "still small voice" of Truth, and thus were aroused to accept, in a degree, the great fact that spiritual law silences every claim to power and authority with which so-called material law would endeavor to invest itself; and this gave them the requisite courage to endeavor to fulfill their work and mission under divine law.
Moses, because of the hungering of his heart for God, was not satisfied to let his faith rest stupidly in sense testimony, but looked up through higher faith in the great I AM and consciously sought divine guidance. This served to awaken in him a higher sense of moral law, and thus prepared him to lead receptive humanity, typified by the children of Israel, out of bondage to their material beliefs. The children of Israel cried out to God in their extremity, and Moses was able to help them; for the call for divine help must be uttered before the answer comes. The Egyptians, encompassed with pride, staying within the frail walls of self-will, moved by the mesmerism of human tyranny and calling it power, were self-satisfied. Beleaguered by hosts of the worst enemies of mankind, they were content and did not reach out for better things; but they could not forever hold in bondage the children of Israel, whose thought reached out, even though feebly, for spiritual freedom.
