They have rebelled,
not against Moses, but against God; and not Moses, but God must
punish, and show that he is not a dead God, but a living God, one
who can defend himself, and enforce his own laws, and execute
judgment--and, if need be, vengeance--without needing any man to
fight his battles for him.
And God does so. The powers of Nature--the earthquake and the
nether fire--shall punish these rebels; and so they do.
'And Moses said, Hereby ye shall know that the Lord hath sent me to
do all these works; for I have not done them of mine own mind. If
these men die the common death of all men, or if they be visited
after the visitation of all men; then the Lord hath not sent me.
But if the Lord make a new thing, and the earth open her mouth and
swallow them up, with all that appertain to them and they go down
quick into the pit; then ye shall understand that these men have
provoked the Lord.'
Men have thought differently of the story; but I call it a righteous
story, and a noble story, and one which agrees with my conscience,
and my reason, and my notion of what ought to be, and my experience
also of what is--of the way in which God's world is governed unto
this day.
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