No man has ever performed a miracle except to deceive or delude another, who is ignorant of what he is performing, or how it is performed. Miracles are natural events occurring to those that are ignorant, or of little understanding; or they are intentionally performed with the intent to deceive, delude, or defraud. God himself, all believers should know, cannot perform a miracle, contrary to the laws of nature--whether it be the laws governing planets or the laws that govern the various phenomena that appear from time to time on earth. All are simply the result of some natural process. What shrewdness Moses used, whatever cunning, whatever diplomacy, whatever wisdom or courage, was the production of his own will power, the evolution of his own brain, acquired by education and training. He utilized these powers to gain his ends, to the best advantage and welfare of the people he was trying to organize. He may have fully believed in the oracles he invoked, the conception of his own powerful imagination. He may have inspired himself by a concentration of nervous force, stimulated by the immense responsibility that rested upon him. The solitude he enjoyed in the mountain was of great service to his reflecting mind. It gave him an opportunity to analyze every detail, think over every circumstance, form his ideas and his plans. That it was to him a sanctuary, a holy retreat, we can easily imagine, as every place that becomes a retreat for great thinkers is a sanctum to them, and where, when they are deliberating, communing with themselves, it is no place for strangers to intrude. We must, however, not lose sight of an important fact--that whatever may be the products of the brain, of the nervous system, however stimulated or inspired the workings of the imagination and the production of ideas, evolving powerful thoughts, and however sublime and beautiful they may be, they are the effect of the educated faculties; the result of the combined forces of the great nervous centers. Notwithstanding the sagacity and cleverness of Moses, the barbarism and brutality of the age in which he lived was predominant in all his actions towards his enemies. Neither God nor Jehova had any mitigating sentiment, neither pity nor mercy. The ark was a superstitious symbol, and the priest the ready tool to carry out any system to deceive and delude the masses. The ark, the creation of Moses, Aaron, Jethro & Co., was nothing more than an idol of another form. Whether the idol is in the image of somebody or a four-cornered box wherein lies the difference? For several centuries this wooden box plays an important role among these half-civilized barbarians. They were no better than their neighbors, and were not any farther advanced in civilization than the neighboring nations were--indeed, not so much.