“And it came to pass in those days, when Moses was grown, that he went out unto his brethren and looked on their burdens, and he spied an Egyptian smiting an Hebrew, one of his brethren.

“And he looked this way and that way, and when he saw that there was no man, he slew the Egyptian, and hid him in the sand.”

Yet we are told a little farther on “Now the man Moses was very meek, above all the men which were upon the face of the earth.” But we haven’t anything to do with his meekness, and only mention the murder because thereby hangs the tale of Moses’ first love affair.

“Murder will out,” and so in due course of time the King heard about it and “sought to slay Moses.” “But Moses fled from the face of Pharaoh, and dwelt in the land of Midian, and he sat down by a well.”

Now when we read about the young men of the Bible hanging around a “well” we know what is going to happen. There is romance in the air and a love affair soon develops, for that seems to have been love’s trysting place. And I suppose he neglected no artifice of the toilet that might enchance his personal charms, that he donned the most costly and elegant of his Egyptian costumes, flung himself in courtly indolence upon the sand, and waited and watched eagerly for the rich girls to come down to the well to water their father’s flocks, just as one watches in the twilight for the first star to sparkle in the azure overhead, for the first sunbeam of the morning or the first rose of June.

“Now the priest of Midian had seven daughters, and they came and drew water and filled the troughs to water their father’s flock. And the shepherds came and drove them away, but Moses stood up and helped them, and watered their flock.”

And who can blame Moses if he happened to wear his best raiment? Everything and everybody knows, and always has known, that love loves the beautiful; and each one according to his light takes advantage of the fact. So the wild maiden, when love with magic finger touches her quivering heart, stains her teeth a blacker black, hangs more beads and shells about her dirty neck and ankles, and practices all her rude arts of coquetry. And her savage lover, charmed with her charms, sticks the gayest feathers in his hair, rubs a more liberal supply of grease upon his polished, shiny skin, and makes himself brave with all his weapons of war. So the birds only seek love’s trysting place in the springtime when their plumage is the most brilliant and their songs the sweetest, and the fishes when their colors are the brightest. And the woman of our day and generation, when love’s arrow “tipped with a jewel and shot from a golden string” pierces her vital organ, wears her dress a little more decollete, bangs her hair more bangy, clasps more diamonds round her throat, dispenses with sleeves altogether, smiles her sweetest smile and laughs her gayest laugh. And he, the modern man, caught in the snare, buys the shiniest stovepipe hat and nobbiest cane, dons his gaudiest neck-tie and widest trousers and after all, beasts and birds and fishes, savage and civilized, we are all alike and ruled by the same instinct and passion, and “why should the spirit of mortal be proud?”

I presume Zipporah, one of the priest’s daughters, had heard about the elegant and courtly Egyptian who was in the neighborhood, and she no doubt adorned herself with all her jewels, wore the finest finery in her wardrobe and wreathed her lips in smiles; for she knew that love lives and thrives on smiles and roses, coquetry and gallantry, on laughter and sweet glances, and faints and dies on frowns, neglect and angry words; and so she tripped down to the well, bent on conquest. Then she flung back the drapery to show her dimpled arms, and drawing water filled the trough; then the “shepherds came and drove them away; but Moses stood up and helped them, and watered their flocks.” Was he not gallant, and a striking contrast to the ugly shepherds?

And of course Moses told her that it almost broke his heart to see her performing such menial labor, and all such sweet fictitious stuff, and she glanced at him admiringly from under her long, curling lashes, and the “rebel rose hue dyed her cheek,” and he told her about the great court where he had been reared, and she whispered that her papa was the rich priest of Midian; then they clasped hands lingeringly and said a soft good-night.

It seems the old gentleman kept a pretty close watch on his girls and he doubtless had a steady job for he asked them how it happened that they had returned so soon. And Zipporah put her arms around his neck, and placing her cheek against his told him all about the gallant and courteous stranger. Having an eye to business as behooves a father with seven daughters on his hands he didn’t let this eligible young person slip, but sent and invited him to his house and deluged him with hospitality and kindness and Moses and Zipporah were married “and Moses was content to dwell with the man.”

But after a while, first soft and low and then in trumpet tones, ambition whispered in his ear that he could deliver the Hebrews from their enemies. “And Moses took his wife and sons and set them upon an ass, and he returned to the land of Egypt.”

And I suppose, though time was young and wore roses then, the days passed slowly to Zipporah and she grew tired of Moses and the Lord, tired of the rod that turned into a serpent, of the strife and the bondage and the river of blood; tired of the frogs and the lice and the swarms of flies; disgusted with the murrain of beasts and the boils and terrified at the thunder and fire and rain of hail and all the horrors of Egypt, and like the woman of to-day, when things get too awfully unpleasant, she made it uncomfortable for Moses, and “he sent her back” to her father’s house and she took her two sons with her.

Afterward when Moses became famous and illustrious she returned to him without asking his consent, or even notifying him of her intention, as far as we can learn from the official records.

She took her father, the priest Jethro, along to look after her and take care of her baggage I suppose, and we imagine he didn’t relish the task much, for we hear him saying, rather apologetically we think, “I, thy father-in-law Jethro, am come unto thee, and thy wife, and her two sons with her.”

I fancy Moses knew the condition of a man who was in the clutches of a woman, and that woman his wife, so he forgave the old man, for he had experience himself, “and went out to meet his father-in-law, and did obeisance, and kissed him; and they asked each other of their welfare.” But there isn’t any record that he kissed his wife, or even shook hands with her, and we infer that their domestic heaven was not all blue and cloudless.

Miriam, although a prophetess and a sister of Aaron, was’t very angelic, at least the glimpses we catch of her don’t impress us with the fact that she was. When the seashore was strewn with the dead, white faces of the drowned Egyptians, and the waves were flecked with their pallor and dashed their helpless arms about, Miriam “took a timbrel in her hand: and all the woman went out after her with timbrels and with dances.” And Miriam answered them, “Sing ye to the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously: the horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea.”

Now this may have been natural and all right for the times, only you know it don’t look well when compared with the action of our women of to-day, who drop tears and roses on the graves of their enemies.

Further on we find Miriam, womanlike, talking about Moses because he had married an Ethiopian woman, and saying seditiously to Aaron, “Hath the Lord indeed spoken only by Moses? hath he not spoken also by us?”

And the Lord heard it and his anger “was kindled against them,” and my lady “became leprous, white as snow.”

As she was the one punished for daring to talk rebellion against Moses, God’s chosen one, we suppose she was the ringleader and instigator, and Aaron was only the tool in this plot that budded but never bloomed.

“And Aaron looked upon Miriam, and behold, she was leprous,” and of course she threw her arms around his neck and with streaming eyes besought his aid, and Aaron turned the smoothly flowing river of his eloquence into resistless words of appeal and said unto Moses, while Miriam knelt at his feet: “Alas, my Lord, I beseech thee, lay not the sin upon us,” and “let her not be as one dead;” and Moses, moved, as men have always been moved, by woman’s tears, “cried unto the Lord, saying, Heal her now, O, God I beseech thee,” and after seven days the curse was removed.