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Conversion does not by any means purport to create new powers of mind or to substitute new qualities of heart, but to direct aright the powers which are already the gifts of nature or creation - to direct them to right and worthy objects, and to fill them with right and worthy energy. So also inspiration does not purport to override natural sources of knowledge and natural gifts, so as to obliterate the prevailing marks of individual character and even individual peculiarity. So neither, once more, do what we often call special providences purport to make the forces of native character hide themselves, and supersede them by what is artificial and in a sense even superficial, though it comes from heaven. It is, indeed, doubtful whether we have a very happy phrase in the expression "special providence. Perhaps we rather mean that providence occasionally strikes us more because it does what is unexpected or what seems to us specially remarkable for some reason or another. In any other sense, there certainly was a time when the most "special" providence might have seemed to be found in the fact that "not a sparrow falleth to the ground without" God's "notice," or in the fact that "all the hairs of our head are numbered" of God. While, therefore, we may believe readily that Moses was "raised up" of God, "called of God," watched over and graciously trained by the providence of God, this will none the less yield us the opportunity of observing the illustrations of the born reformer which he affords, and of noticing, for important uses, how parallel they run to those of one whom we might hesitate to describe as in any similar sense at all events "raised" or "called of God." That we may, therefore, the more clearly feel how little of the mere made and artificial there was in Moses, we may stop and note how the very brief sketch before us reveals some of the plain marks of the born reformer, whether for the better or the less good.

I. A MOMENT ARRIVES, CHARGED WITH A STRONG IMPULSE TO FIND A NEW POINT OF DEPARTURE FOR LIFE AND WHATEVER IS ITS CHIEF MEANING.

1. The impulse comes. It "came into his heart." It comes, and it comes very much as matter of feeling - out of his heart as surely as into it.

2. It comes under some comparatively unpretentious guise. Moses has a prompting to "visit his brethren the children of Israel." Out of sight is not out of mind with him, where it would have been so in a million of cases to one. He does not despise, forget, or ignore as much as possible poor relations. His heart is toward them, and perhaps at the time conscious of nothing else, he will "visit" them and throw in his lot with them.

3. The impulse is of uncommon strength.

(1) It asked for the decision of a moral question, and "refusing to be called" what he was not (Hebrews 11:24); he quickly settled that.

(2) It encountered the adopting of a lot of "affliction," and a share of suffering, in place of pride, wealth, luxury, and power (Hebrews 11:25); and the choice was unhesitatingly made.

(3) It asked force and perspicuity of spiritual vision, and that far sight that can not merely see afar, but that will find "a hand to reach through time," to catch the "far-off interest of tears "-that genuine ,'recompense of reward" (Hebrews 11:26).

(4) Lastly, it dares to face the wrath of a foster father king, a despot, whose will, whose whim, whose passion, whose cruelty would not stop at anything that crossed his purposes; but "they feared not" (Hebrews 11:27), for "he endured as seeing" the King eternal, immortal, and "invisible." These things all help to speak a reality and a strength in the impulse, which promise well to make the prophet master of the man, and which will fit the theory of a born reformer, while yet it is matter of theory.

II. TWO SUCCEEDING DAYS REVEAL MOSES - THE ONE IN THE CAPACITY OF A WRESTLER, AND VERY SUCCESSFUL ONE; THE OTHER CLOTHING HIMSELF IN THE AUTHORITY OF A JUDGE AND ARBITER; IN BOTH CASES UNSOLICITED. His action on either day is spontaneous. It was doubtless as great a surprise to the brother he would befriend as to his adversary for the time. Yet in either case Moses steps into the various arena, as though to the manner born.

1. This stepping boldly into action is very noticeable. How wide often the gulf that separates thought, feeling, wish, conviction, and even resolution from action itself!

2. Much more significant is the stepping from Egypt's court and palace and lap of luxury into practical conflict of this kind. It meant something unusual, and something unworldly and of the right sort unusual. It was the kind of thing to hold men who didn't like it spell-bound for at all events twenty-four hours. It provoked the question, "From whence hath this man" this authority and these mighty deeds (vers. 22, 28)? It meant a "new man" (Luther's hymn) on the spot.

III. A GREAT MARK OF A BORN REFORMER APPEARS NOW IN MOSES, IN THE ABSENCE OF SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS WHICH HE BETRAYS. What he did, what he said, what he tried to work, all came to thought, heart, and hand, as things under existing circumstances the most natural in the world. He saw himself only in the light of an instrument in the hand of God, and took for granted that his brethren would see him and all else in the same light. Probably his eye did not look on himself at all at the time; probably at the time, even what "he supposed" about his brethren understanding his mission on their behalf, was an utterly unconscious supposing. For it is the historian afterwards whose language is here read, and it was probably when Moses first received a check, and was taken aback by it, that his "supposing" precipitated itself. Circumstances, opposition, persecution, do not fail soon to open the eyes of almost any reformer, specially of any reformer in matter moral, but it is of the born reformer to plunge prompt, fearless, nothing hesitating, in medias res. And Moses did just this. The pain and the smart and their useful lessons were yet to come.

IV. IT REMAINS NO POOR SIGN OF THE BORN REFORMER THAT AT FIRST MOSES OVERSTEPS THE MARK. For exceptions to this experience are few. Even in a delicious unconsciousness and simplicity and naturalness lurks that very thing nature, human nature, and too much of it; self, and too much of it. God would not have overstepped the mark - never does. All his work fits perfectly to time, to place, to issue. Yet he who holds the threads of all human things in his fingers, and rules the mysterious vicissitude of human history, makes allowance beforehand for their error in his most faithful, most willing servants. Their pace must be moderated, and his purpose will not be lost, nor so much as suffer. More haste, worse speed for Moses - for the precipitancy of two days relegates him to forty years' absence from the scene and the holy enterprise into which he had flung himself with zeal so passionate. What will forty years do for him? What will they make of him? They will temper him, subdue much the confidence of self, and will make him more meet for the Master's service, at the very time that he shall appear less zealous for it. - B.

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KJV: And when he was full forty years old, it came into his heart to visit his brethren the children of Israel.

WEB: But when he was forty years old, it came into his heart to visit his brothers, the children of Israel.