Such is the language of a true spiritual Caleb—language addressed to one whose heart was feeling the pressure of the difficulties and dangers which surrounded him. The spirit of God fills the soul of the true believer with holy boldness. He gives moral elevation above the chilling and murky atmosphere around, and lifts the soul into the bright sunshine of that region “where storms and tempests never rise.” “And the glory of the Lord appeared in the tabernacle of the congregation before all the children of Israel. And the Lord said unto Moses, ‘How long will this people provoke Me? and how long will it be ere they believe Me, for all the signs which I have showed among them? I will smite them with the pestilence and disinherit them, and will make of thee a greater nation, and mightier than they.’” What a moment was this in the history of Moses! Here was what nature might well regard as a golden opportunity for him. Never before and never since have we any occasion in the which a mere man had such a door open before him. The enemy and his own heart might say, Now’s your time. You have here an offer of becoming the head and founder of a great and mighty nation—an offer made to you by Jehovah Himself. You have not sought it. It is put before you by the living God, and it would be the very height of folly on your part to reject it. But, reader, Moses was not a self-seeker. He had drunk too deeply into the spirit of Christ to seek to be any thing. He had no unholy ambition, no selfish aspirations. He desired only God’s glory and His people’s good; and in order to reach those ends, he was ready, through grace, to lay himself and his interests on the altar. Hear his marvelous reply. Instead of jumping at the offer contained in the words, “I will make of thee a greater nation and mightier than they”—instead of eagerly grasping at the golden opportunity of laying the foundation of his personal fame and fortune, he sets himself completely aside, and replies in accents of the most noble disinterestedness. “And Moses said unto the Lord, ‘Then the Egyptians shall hear it, (for Thou broughtest up this people in Thy might from among them;) and they will tell it to the inhabitants of this land: for they have heard that Thou, Lord, art among this people; that Thou, Lord, art seen face to face; and that Thy cloud standeth over them; and that Thou goest before them, by day-time in a pillar of a cloud, and in a pillar of fire by night. Now if Thou shalt kill all this people as one man, then the nations which have heard the fame of Thee will speak, saying, Because the Lord was not able to bring this people into the land which He sware unto them, therefore He hath slain them in the wilderness.’” (Ver. 13-16.)