In presence of such facts, with this association of God and man in the same work, the opponents of the Supernatural still clamour: "Why," ask they, "this confusion of divine action and of human action? Has God need of man's concurrence? {178} Can He not, if He will, accomplish all his designs by himself, and through the fulness of his omnipotence?" In my turn, I would ask them if they know why God created man, and if God has put them into the secret of his intentions towards the instrument whom He employs for his designs? There precisely lies the privilege of humanity: man is God's associate, subject to Him, yet a free agent independent of Him; he intervenes by his proper action in plans of which only an infinitely small part is revealed to his intelligence and reserved for his execution. Western Asia and its history are full of the name of Moses: Jews, Christians, and Mahometans style him the First Prophet, the Great Lawgiver, the Great Theologian; everywhere, in the scene of the events themselves, the places retain a memory of him: the traveller meets there the Well of Moses, the Ravine of Moses, the Mountain of Moses, the Valley of Moses. {179} In other countries and other ages, this name has been given as the most glorious that the saints could receive: St. Peter has been styled the Moses of the Christian Church; St. Benedict, the Moses of the Monastic Orders; Ulphilas, the Moses of the Goths. What did Moses do to obtain a renown so great and so enduring? He gained no battles; he conquered no territory; he founded no cities; he governed no state; he was not even a man in whom eloquence replaced other sources of influence and power: "And Moses said unto the Lord, my Lord, I am not eloquent, neither heretofore, nor since thou hast spoken unto thy servant: but I am slow of speech, and of a slow tongue." [Footnote 45] [Footnote 45: Exodus iv. 10.] There is not in this whole history a single grand human action, a single grand event, proceeding from human agency; all, all is the work of God; and Moses is nothing on any occasion but the interpreter and instrument of God: to this mission he has consecrated soul and life; it is only by virtue of this title that he is powerful, and that he shares, as far as his capacity as a man permits, a work infinitely grander and more enduring than that accomplished by all the heroes and all the masters that the world ever acknowledged. {180}