=Effect of the Wilderness Life Upon the Hebrews.= The spring of Kadesh is still a favorite resort of Arab tribes, but its waters are not sufficient to support permanently even a small Bedouin clan. It is only as the tribes wander from place to place, ever seeking new pastures for their flocks, that the inhabitants of this southern wilderness are able to subsist. If the Israelites remained in this region for a generation, as the later traditions state, they must have reverted to that nomadic life which still survives in the desert.^{(68-71)} This experience was not without value to a race which must work out its destiny in the face of great obstacles. It taught them to endure want and hardship. The presence of constant danger not only developed courage and skill in warfare, but also bound them closely together. At any moment they were subject to attack from hostile tribes. Their life and that of their families and flocks depended upon their finding from time to time springs of water and pasture lands among the rocky wastes that would supply the necessities for their strenuous existence. The constant deep sense of dependence developed those religious impulses which are very strong in the heart of the Semites. The long marches through the sombre wilderness by day and by night fostered habits of meditation and kept ever before their vision the God who revealed himself through the striking phenomena of nature. The sense of racial unity which bound together the Hebrew clans tended to develop the belief, not in many, but in one tribal God, who had delivered them from the land of Egypt, who was protecting them from ever-present dangers, and who was leading them on to the realization of their destiny. Their nomadic life, with its constant change from place to place, gave little opportunity for the growth of local shrines and institutions. As a result, their worship was freed from those elaborate forms and ceremonies which in more settled communities took the place of true religion. Thus during those desert wanderings, under the leadership of Moses, an ethical religion was born into the world that laid stress not merely on ritual, but on righteousness.