However pure
and disinterested the motives of such persons may be at the outset, and
however thoroughly they may believe in themselves and in their mission,
sooner or later, to compass their purpose, they must resort to deception
and thus become impostors who flourish on the credulity of their dupes.
Moses, from the nature of the case, had to make such demands on the
credulity of his followers that even those who were bound to him by the
strongest ties of affection and self-interest were alienated, and those
without such commanding motives to submit to his claim to exact from them
absolute obedience, revolted, and demanded that he should be deposed. The
first serious trouble with which Moses had to contend came to a head at
Hazeroth, the second station after leaving Sinai. The supposed spot is
still used as a watering-place. There Miriam and Aaron attacked Moses
because they were jealous of his wife, whom they decried as an
"Ethiopian." And they said, "Hath the Lord indeed spoken only by Moses?
hath he not spoken also by us?" Instantly, it became evident to Moses that
if this denial of his superior intimacy with God were to be permitted, his
supremacy must end. Accordingly the Lord came down "in the pillar of the
cloud, and stood in the door of the tabernacle, and called Aaron and
Miriam: and they both came forth.
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