Charlton Heston, the renowned actor, recounts his encounters with Moses on Mt. Sinai. In this story from October 1958, Heston reveals how he came to know Moses the man. If you're like me, the name 'Moses' summons up a stern, God-like figure with a long white beard. At least, that's how I used to think of Moses. Then something happened which for an instant whipped away the white beard and left me staring into the face of a flesh-and-blood man. It happened not once but three times. I'd like to tell you about the man I met on those three extraordinary occasions. My first glimpse of Moses came on Mt. Sinai, where we went to film scenes for the picture _The Ten Commandments_. It took us two days to drive to the mountain from Cairo over country so desolate that half way there all pretense of a road gave out and the drivers had to pick their way among the rocks. Then, suddenly it was there against the horizon: Mt. Sinai—to our Arab drivers, 'Gebel Musa,' the Mountain of Moses. What was there about that brooding shape that brought a sudden chill to the stifling day? Certainly it was the loneliest mountain I had ever seen: a vast rock against the desert sky. But there was something else about it, something that made me half-afraid to go nearer. In Moses' day, men believed it was certain death to set foot on Sinai—because, they said, it was the dwelling place of God. I told myself that modern men knew better. But as we lurched toward the foot of Gebel Musa, I could not rid myself of the feeling that in some mysterious way that mountain belonged to God and not to men. We camped that night at its base and the next morning set off on foot for the summit. After a few minutes of climbing, my breath was coming hard and my heart was thumping. The slopes were even steeper and more savage than they had looked from below. Sudden chasms dropped away to nowhere, ragged volcanic cinders slashed my boots and the hot desert wind filled my lungs. And all the while I had the haunting conviction that I was alone. It was nonsense, of course; there were a dozen men toiling up the mountain with me. But the mountain was all around us now, until I felt that I was alone here with the crumbling rocks. It was around one of these that I first met Moses. I saw him struggling up these same cliffs—sandals torn, hair blown by the desert wind, eyes wide with fear. Yes, Moses was afraid as he climbed this mountain; if it filled me with a nameless awe in this unbelieving century, what must it have done to the man who knew he was trespassing on the very dwelling place of God?