MOSELLE 



3962 



MOSES 



metropolitan, or official of the Church next in 

 authority to the czar, it was the center of the 

 Russian religious world, and by the fourteenth 

 century was also the capital of Muscovy. It 

 remained the capital of the Russian Empire 

 until Saint Petersburg (now Petrograd) was 

 founded in 1703. The chief event in its turbu- 

 lent history was the invasion by Napoleon in 

 1812 and the subsequent burning of the city to 

 defeat him. After the bolshevist regime began 

 in Russia (1918) the city of Petrograd became 

 untenable for the revolutionists and Lenine 

 moved the capital to Moscow, nearer the heart 

 of the country- Population of the city in 1910, 

 exclusive of the suburbs, 1,481,230. G.B.D. 



Consult Zabyelln's History of Moscow; Grove's 

 Moscow. 



MOSELLE, mozel', a river which rises in 

 the Vosges Mountains, in the extreme north- 

 eastern part of France, and follows a winding 

 course north and east, emptying into the River 

 Rhine at Coblenz. It is about 315 miles long, 

 and is navigable for small vessels for nearly 200 

 miles. The wines of the Moselle basin are famed 

 the world over for their delicate flavor. Twice 

 during the progress of the great War of the Na- 

 tions the Germans followed the Moselle for 

 nearly its whole length in their drives on Paris 

 (see WAR OF THE NATIONS). 



MO'SES, according to the Biblical account, 

 was the great leader who by uniting the He- 

 brew tribes into a confederacy ushered in their 

 national life. The story of Moses is told chiefly 

 in the book of Exodus. As in the case of all 

 great heroes of ancient times, legend has gath- 

 ered around the personality so that it is not 

 easy always to separate fact from fancy. Peo- 

 ple are fond of their heroes, and therefore, as 

 they move further away from them in time, 

 stories arise showing the strong attachment to 

 them and the impression made by their careers. 

 We cannot tell exactly when Moses lived be- 

 cause our means of calculating dates for the 

 early periods of mankind's history are still im- 

 perfect. We may say roughly that he carried 

 out his greatest work in leading the Hebrews 

 out of Egypt about 1250 B. c. 



The Hebrews belong to a large group known 

 as the Semites, and at various times in Egyp- 

 tian history Semitic tribes, whose home was in 

 Palestine or in Arabia, migrated to Egypt, at- 

 tracted by the high civilization that flourished 

 there and the good opportunities for pasturing 

 flocks. These foreigners were at times well 

 treated by the Egyptian rulers, but often were 



pressed into service to build the great pyramids 

 and the storehouses and other buildings in 

 Egypt. The Biblical story relates that at the 

 time Moses was born the Hebrews living in 

 Egypt were very sorely oppressed, both by 

 being obliged to do hard service and by living 

 under very serious restrictions. 



Childhood and Youth. The Bible story tells 

 us that the Pharaoh at the time that Moses 

 was born, fearing lest the Hebrews might in- 

 crease too rapidly, ordained that all male in- 

 fants should be cast into the Nile. The mother 

 of Moses, when the little child was born, hid 

 the babe for some months, and then, afraid of 

 being discovered, made a little box of bull- 

 rushes and placed the babe inside of it among 

 the reeds in the river. She asked her daughter 

 to watch the box and see what would become 

 of the boy. The daughter of Pharaoh on com- 

 ing down one day to bathe with her maidens 

 in the river, saw the little box and opened it. 

 Filled with pity for the Hebrew child, she de- 

 cided to save his life by raising him as her own 

 son. The sister of Moses, who had been watch- 

 ing the scene, then came to the princess and 

 said, "Shall I go and call to thee a nurse of the 

 Hebrew women, that she may nurse the child 

 for thee?" The princess agreed to this; Mir- 

 iam brought her own and the babe's mother, 

 to whom the child was thus returned home to 

 be weaned and after that to be brought up at 

 the court of Pharaoh. 



This is the kind of stories that were told 

 about Moses, and no doubt there were many 

 others besides those found in the book of 

 Exodus which have not been preserved. They 

 are intended to illustrate the special providence 

 that watched over the babe destined to be the 

 leader of his people. Another story told to 

 illustrate the sympathy and love of Moses for 

 his brethren related how one day his anger was 

 aroused by seeing an Egyptian beat a Hebrew. 

 He turned on the Egyptian and slew him. The 

 next day he saw two Hebrews fighting with one 

 another and tried to separate them, when one 

 of the two reproached him, "Dost thou wish 

 to kill me, as thou didst the Egyptian?" Moses 

 knew from this that his deed had become 

 known and fled for his life. He wandered to 

 the distant land of Midian and there took 

 care of the flocks of a priest in that country, 

 who was known as Jethro. He married Jethro's 

 daughter. 



Moses, the Leader. In order to explain how 

 Moses came to undertake the task of bringing 

 his oppressed brethren out of Egypt, a very 



