"By sacrifices. Morning and evening, the priests offer up to God incense, and oblations, and sacrifices of lambs. Hence we have large flocks and herds. On great days, the king himself officiates, lays his hand upon the head of the victim, and asks the Almighty to take the life of the sacrifice instead of that of the people, and to visit upon its head the wrath which the kingdom had incurred." "Did Abram thus sacrifice?" "Not only Abram, but Noah, the first father, and all the fathers of the old world. Our worship, therefore, O prince, consists in offering the life of a victim, to preserve our own!" "Yes, if the great Lord of Heaven will so receive it! For who can weigh the life of a man with that of his lamb?" I said. "None but God, who, in His goodness and glory, wills it so to be!" answered the Midianite. "Hast thou ever heard, in Midian, of a Hebrew called Moses?" "Dost thou mean Moses the Egyptian?" he asked, quickly. "He was educated an Egyptian, and was supposed to be the son of Pharaoh's daughter, but was only adopted by her; and being discovered to be a Hebrew, he left Egypt." "This same Moses, once Prince Remeses, is now in Midian, where he hath been these forty years," answered the venerable chief-captain of the caravan. "He is son-in-law to our prince, who has made him ruler over all the companies of shepherds in the region that lieth between the city of Keturah and the sea, and even to the back of the desert, where, on the sides of Horeb and the valleys thereof, he feeds his flocks. Moreover, there also he meditates, and writes in a cave--for he is a man of vast learning, and greatly revered in Midian as a wise sage. He is married to the daughter of the Prince Ru-el Jethro, and by her hath had many sons, but two only--mere lads--remain, the rest having died early. Surely, what man in Midian knoweth not Moses, the wise shepherd of Horeb?"