Moses, from whom that theocracy first emanated, or, rather, with whom it commenced, was not himself the High Priest. His brother Aaron enjoyed that dignity. He neither wished nor had a title to hold it. He had no hereditary claim to it, neither was he elected to it by the people. And yet he stood in no man’s place, nor did he forcibly dispossess any one of his right. And so even, if for a while we dismiss the theological view entirely from our regard, and, forgetting it for a moment, judge of the matter by the strictest juristic notions, we can not call him a usurper, even in that sense of the term which comprises the demagogue’s character. At an earlier period of his life, he appeared likely to become a mere liberator in the usual sense of the word. In this character, however, he does not appear unjust, even though he allowed himself to be hurried into an act of violence against a petty tyrant among the oppressors of his countrymen. And at a later period, when he had received his call, we can not in his conduct toward the Egyptians discover any trace of injustice, even judging him by the strictest legal notions. Now, the authority which Moses exercised over his own people, while he led them through the wilderness, rested on the immediate exercise of the divine powers which were lent to him from above, and which were immediately acknowledged as such, and nowhere met with any considerable resistance. And, accordingly, properly speaking, no question was ever raised against a right which was based entirely on those imparted powers, although they were totally devoid of any formal or distinct act of legal sanction. The office he held was prophetical. But by this term I do not mean merely according to its later and more obvious meaning, the function of warning or promising, of teaching or predicting, but all this, and something more--a higher and divine power, which vividly and persuadingly displayed itself in life and deeds. Looking at it in a general light, and as applied to a case which, at least, we can think of as not impossible, of the Almighty having sent, or purposing to send, a second Moses to some other people, then the circumstance we lately mentioned, that this Moses forcibly dispossessed no one of his rights, and had made no unrighteous revolution, must be taken into consideration, even if it might not simply by itself serve as the characteristic or distinctive test of the genuineness of the vocation in question.