Abraham the Friend of God

A VISIT to Italy is the aim of every artist. Ordinary travellers crowd its palaces, churches, and galleries, to gratify a common curiosity, or enjoy the pleasures their treasures yield to every cultivated mind. Artists seek that beautiful land for a higher purpose. To them it is what our schools and universities are to the student of languages or of science; and they regard a visit to Italy as such an important, if not essential, part of their education, that I have known a sculptor, on emerging from the straitened circumstances through which he had risen to fame, leave home, wife, and children to go there, and enjoy in mature years the benefits which the poverty of his youth denied him. By a long, careful, and ardent study of their works, the artist hopes, and not without good reason, to catch the spirit of the great masters. Thus he seeks to refine his taste; to form a high standard of excellence; and to acquire an eye and hand whereby to approach if not equal, to equal if not surpass, the triumphs of ancient art. The children of this world, as our Lord says, are wise in their generation. With a care to excel, which, in obeying the apostolic injunction, “covet the best gifts,” the children of light would do well to imitate, see how the sculptor surrounds himself, even in his studio, with copies of the most famous statues! He fills his mind with images of the sublime and beautiful; and provides objects for his eye, wheresoever it turns, adapted to kindle his ambition and improve his taste.

Man is so constituted that, even unconsciously, without either intending or attempting it, he imitates what he is familiar with. We speak, for instance, with the peculiar accent of our native district, and — a matter of much more consequence — learn almost certainly to copy in our lives the manners and morals of our ordinary associates. According to vulgar belief, the chameleon becomes red, blue, or green, with the ground it lies on; and, probably with the view of protecting them from their enemies, fishes certainly do take the color of the water they live in, whether it be clear or muddy. Man is endowed with a property akin to this. To that, so pregnant with good or evil, as much as to the pleasure people feel in associating with those of tastes similar to their own, we owe the well-known saying, ‘“‘ Tell me your company, and I will tell you your character.” Hence the wisdom of David’s practice, “‘I am the companion of all them that fear thee.” Hence also, on the other hand, it happens, to quote a scripture adage, that ““Evil communications corrupt good manners.”

This property, though many, especially of the young, owe their ruin to it, is not, necessarily, like the poisoned garment bestowed on Hercules, a fatal gift. It was given by our Maker for good purposes. It may be turned, though nothing can supply the place of Divine grace and a change of heart, to the holiest ends.: For as the artist who repairs to Rome, or Florence, to fill his eye with the works of the great masters, imbibes somewhat of their genius, and learns thereby to excel in sculpture, architecture, or painting, the Christian will derive a similar advantage from :.tudying those excellent models of piety and virtue which are found in the biographies of the Bible. Here is a gallery of admirable paintings. Here the student of holy and heavenly arts finds it as profitable as pleasant to pass hours of devout meditation. ‘All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.” But no part of it more so than the lives of the grand saints of old. While I was musing, says one of them, the fire burned; and it is not in the nature of things for a Christian man to sit down to his Bible, and turn to the history of its saints, and hold communion with them, without imbibing somewhat of their spirit. As he muses on their virtues and piety, he will feel in holy desires the fires that glowed in their bosoms kindling and burning in his own.

No doubt God’s people possess a perfect model in Jesus Christ. He is at once a Propitiation for our sins, and a Pattern for our lives. His is indeed the only life that presents such a faultless model — a complete illustration of the principles on which our lives should be framed. He was what no other man ever was — holy, harmless, and undefiled; separate from sinners; a lamb without spot or blemish; perfectly fulfilling all the duties man owes to God, and also to his neighbor.

For example, He made it his meat and drink to do his Father’s will; and also to bear it — the mighty load which by its immeasurable and unimaginable pressure forced the blood from his pores, till, crimsoning the flowers, it fell in great drops to the ground, forcing from his lips no complaint nor expression of impatience: groans, indeed, but with the groans that rent his bosom and astonished the dull ear of night, no other cry than this: “Father, if it be thy will, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not my will but thine be done, O Father!” His perfect obedience sprang from perfect love. He loved the Lord his God with all his heart, and all his mind, and all his strength, and all his spirit — doing what we shall never do till, seeing Him, we become like Him as He is. Again, He offered an equally perfect illustration of the second table of the law — of the love we owe to man, as of that man owes to God. In regard to this, the purest, kindest, tenderest, holiest, most generous of men, have never equailed nor approached Him. The pity which moved Abraham to plead‘with such bold urgency for guilty Sodom; the affection of Ruth when, throwing her arms around Naomi’s neck, she clung to her like a beautiful tendril around a hoar and aged tree, with tears, and kisses, and embraces, saying: “Entreat me not to leave thee ... for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God: where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried;” the matchless friendship by

ABRAHAM THE FRIEND OF GOD. Il

whose grave David stood with streaming eyes, moving the roughest of his soldiers with this plaintive cry, ‘I am distressed for thee, my brother Jonathan: very pleasant hast thou been unto me; thy love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women;” the heart which broke at the fall of Absalom, and as if that bad man had been the kindest, truest, most dutiful of sons, broke out inta this terrible and touching cry: ‘‘O my son Absalom, my son, ny son Absalom! would God I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son!” are grand and touching. Yet to the compassion that wept over the guilty city, saying: ‘‘O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how would I have gathered thy children as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, but thou wouldest not — now is thy house left unto thee desolate;” to the friendship which groaned at the grave of Lazarus; to the kindness which restored her only son to a widowed mother at the gate of Nain; to the mercy that shielded a poor trembling outcast, prostrate and penitent, in Simon’s house; above all, to the forgiveness that prayed for murderers, and the love that bled on Calvary, — these are as the shallow waters of a rocky pool to - the great ocean which has filled it with the spray’ of one of its breaking waves.

Who among the sons of the mighty can be likened unto the Lord? The perfect model of love to God, He also is the perfect model of love to man, who, rising above the old terms of the law, taking a higher flight, says, not ‘“‘ Love your neighbor as yourselves,” but ‘‘ Love one another even as I have loved you!”

It is true that with the sun shining we feel no

“need for those lesser orbs that lose their lustre in his overwhelming brightness. But it is not true that with a perfect model of every virtue and grace in Jesus Christ we have no need of any other. Children must creep before they walk: and on such as are only yet able to make feeble efforts in the direction of what is good, the very fact that Christ presents not merely a high, but a perfect model, may have somewhat of a depressing and deterring influence. To live like Him seems a hopeless task. What David said of knowledge, we are ready to say of such an attainment, It is too high for me — I need not attempt it. Who shall imitate the inimitable — the God-man who walked aloft and alone, leaving all who have attempted to follow Him, the greatest saints, far below, lagging far behind? Greatly superior to us as Abraham, and Moses, and David, and Paul appear, they resemble those lofty mountains to whose tops, though raised high above the level plain and piercing the clouds with their glistening snows, a brave cragsman may climb; but Jesus, occupying a higher region, seems like the star that shines above them — which, though we should mount up on eagle’s wings, it would be impossible to reach. It is not impossible. We are assured that when we shall see Him, we shall be like Him as He is. Yet there are times of defeat, there are periods of spiritual depression, there are moods such as Peter’s when he cried: ‘‘ Depart from me, O Lord, for thou art a righteous man;” when one, who might otherwise give up in despair, will attempt the imitation of an imperfect model, and find in its very imperfections encouragement to persevere.

Besides, while Jesus was, in a sense, tempted in all points like as we are, yet without sin, and while his life does certainly illustrate the grand principles of our duty both toward God and man, the saints are very valuable as models, since they teach us how to act in circumstances in which our Lord was never placed, but we often are. Though bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh, and as such having a fellow-feeling with all our infirmities, He was not a fallen man as we are, and the saints were. Animated by the same passions, placed in the same relationships, and called to endure the same trials as ourselves, their footprints teach us where to walk, and their triumphs how to conquer; their failings, into what sins we may fall; and their graces, to what attainments we should aspire. We look on Jesus, nor can hope to be altogether such as He was, till death’s strong hand break the mould of clay, and we are brought forth, to the admiration and joy of angels, a perfect image of our Lord and Master. But in the faith of Abraham and the chastity of Joseph, the meekness of Moses and the patience of Job, the piety of David and the fidelity of Daniel, the zeal of Paul and the love of John, we see what attainments others have reached, to what heights of grace we ourselves may aspire.

God’s hand is not shortened that it cannot save, neither is his ear heavy that it cannot hear; and there is no reason in the world, therefore, why, in any one heavenly grace we should stand second to these saints; why we should not be as good as they were. Indeed, since we live in happier circumstances than many of them did, walk ina brighter light, and enjoy a fuller revelation of the love of God in Jesus Christ, and a fuller dispensation of the Holy Spirit, I know of no reason why men of this age should not be better than they were, and climb to heights of grace the patriarchs never trod. There is a story told of a king of Israel who stood by Elisha’s death-bed, weeping and crying. ‘‘O, my father, my father, the chariot of Israel, and the horsemen thereof!” The dying prophet made him take arrows, and smite on the ground. He smote but thrice, and stayed; and the man of God was wroth with him, and said: “Thou shouldst have smitten five or six times; then hadst thou smitten Syria till thou hadst consumed it.” Like him, we lose much by not hoping for more, praying for more, and attempting more.

- What we at any rate may, and should therefore strive to attain, we read in the lives of these grand Scripture characters. Nor is it in the nature of things for a renewed man to contemplate without admiring, or to admire without desiring to resemble them. Such desires give birth to efforts, and every such effort in this holy as in other arts, is a step to success. It is here, as in the acquisition of a language or of a science, of a trade or of a profession — present failures lay the foundation of future triumphs. Certainly there is nothing either in our failures, or in the loftiest attainments of such men as Abraham, Moses, or David, to discourage us. The course to which God calls the humblest Christian is one grander than they attained — a career the grandest imagination can fancy. Should we reach their height, far above us as now they seem, we-are to be thankful, but not to rest. We have not yet attained, nor are already perfect.

There are heights beyond, above — that, where

Jesus stands kindly watching our progress and calling down to us, as, often on our knees, we climb the steep ascent, ‘‘Come ye up hither.” So leaving Abraham binding his son on the altar; Job, as, sitting amid the ruins of all his fortune and the graves of all his children, he says: ‘‘ The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord;” David, descending from a throne to tune his harp and fill a royal palace with sacred melodies; Daniel on his knees with a window thrown open to Jerusalem, within eyesight of malignant spies and earshot of the lions that roar ravening for their prey; Elijah on Mount

Carmel, with his back to the altar of God and

his face to a hostile world, — among the faithless, faithful only he ; — leaving these grand spectacles below, we are to toil upwards to Jesus. Forgetting the things which are behind, let us press forward to the mark of the prize of our high calling in Jesus Christ. The goal is this: ‘‘ Be ye perfect, as your Father in heaven is perfect.”

To address myself now to the direct purpose of this book. In Abraham I begin my sketches with one who, save our first father Adam, is in some respects the most remarkable man, the greatest character, in history. Not the mighty Nimrods, nor Pharaohs, nor Alexanders, nor Cesars, nor any other man, has left such a broad mark on the world — though he had no home on its surface but a tent, nor property in its soil but a tomb. His

name is known where the greatest emperors and conquerors were never so much as heard of. There is no quarter of the globe to which it has not been carried; and it is the only one which is venerated alike by Jews, and Christians, and Mahometans. For, whatever be their differences and jealousies, all of them, in one sense or another, claim an equal relationship with this distinguished patriarch, saying: ‘‘We have Abraham for our father!” Other men, of great statesmanship, or military powers, have founded nations; but since the days of Creation, or of the Bewee he is the only.man who was the father of a nation, the fountain from which a whole people sprang! The oldest of our families are but of yesterday compared with his. And as no house in the world is so ancient, to none has the world owed so much as to his. Through him the Saviour came. To his descendants God committed those great truths which have overthrown the most ancient idolatries, have tamed thegwildest savage, have emancipated the slave, have raised prostrate humanity, have dried up its bitterest tears and redressed its greatest wrongs, and are destined to overturn Satan’s empire throughout the whole bounds of earth, and establish on its ruins the reign of a holy and universal peace — restoring Eden to a defiled and distracted world, and, as if the days of primeval innocence, to humanity the image of its God.

The biographer of any distinguished man considers himself fortunate if he can present his readers in the frontispiece with a likeness of his subject. We are fortunate enough to possess one of Abraham; and in it a likeness more to be depended on than those of the Pharaohs the Egyptians have left us carved on their tombs, or the marble busts of the Czsars that adorn the galleries of Rome. We have pictures of Jesus, of his mother, and of his Apostles, before which Popish devotees are wont to kneel and worship. Like a coarse daub of the Virgin which I saw hung above an altar. in Brittany, with an inscription bearing that it was the work of St. Luke’s own hand, all these are impudent forgeries — lies through which Rome at once imposes on the credulity, and raises money from the superstition, of her followers. Our likeness of Abraham is a genuine one; he indeed being the only Scripture character, or rather the only character in all ancient history, of whose portrait so much can be affirmed. We have it not in any antique sculpture or painting, but in a form more true and faithful. He lives in the well-known and characteristic features of his descendants.

- Types of Christ’s blood-bought Church, his race have suffered, and also survived, the changes of four thousand years — the saying that described their early being equally applicable to their later history: this namely, ‘‘ The more they were afflicted, the more they multiplied and grew.” With a tenacity of life unexampled in the history of any other people, and which proves them to have been God’s peculiar care, nor Babylonian, nor Assyrian, nor Grecian, nor Roman, nor long centuries of Christian oppression has been able to destroy, or even to absorb them. Clinging as tenaciously to each other as to their faith, they have lived, wedded, died, buried among themselves; mingling as little with other nations as oil with the water amid which it floats. We, for example, are a mixed race; so mixed that the blood of Britons, Romans, Saxons, Danes, Norwegians, meets and mingles in our veins. Not so the Jews. It is nigh four thousand years since Isaac and Ishmael met to lay their father in his rocky tomb, yet the blood of Abraham flows as pure in the veins of his Hebrew children as when it first sprang from its source. This is plain from the very remarkable similarity they bear to each other — a resemblance so remarkable, that whether he is an old clothes-man or a courtier, a distinguished singer or a dirty beggar, one who pants under an Indian sun, or wraps his shivering form in arctic furs, walks on ’Change a prince of merchants, or keeps a booth in the foul purlieus of London, or the still fouler Ghetto of Rome, there is no mistaking an Israelite. His features, if not his speech, bewray him. Not only so, but we recognize these features in the world’s old paintings, those which represent the manners of ancient Egypt, and the events of time — not far remote from Abraham’s own day — when Pharaoh, to use the words of Scripture, ‘‘made the children of Israel to serve with rigor, and made their lives bitter with hard bondage, in mortar and in brick.”

In all ages the Jews have been, and in all countries are still, so like each other, that we may safely infer that their original was like them. It is impossible to account for this identity of features otherwise than that they bear their father’s image; that Abraham’s features are repeated and multiplied in theirs. Any person, as I know from experience, by observing the remarkable resemblance among all the copies of some famous statue — the Apollo

Belvidere for instance, or Venus de Medici, is able to form, before seeing it, a very correct conception of the original. Even so, since with a few exceptions, all Abraham’s descendants, ancient and modern, in this and every other country, bear quite a remarkable resemblance to one another, we may certainly conclude that in the Jew we have a faithful portrait and a living likeness of his great progenitor.

This speculation may not seem very complimentary to the patriarch; associated in our minds as the Jewish features are with the selfishness, and insatiable avarice, and low cunning for which his descendants have been for ages a hissing and a by-word. These have begotten prejudices against their type of features as strong almost as those felt by many against the negro and colored races — of which I could not give a more striking illustration than is to be found in the paintings of the old masters. It is a remarkable fact that though our blessed Lord was a Jew, they never give Him the features of his race; but, as if they sought thereby to increase our horror of their crimes, reserve these for Iscariot who betrays Him, and for the priests, who eye the Man of Sorrows with scowling and malignant looks. Yet this is a mere prejudice; and, like that felt against the colored races, is due, as it becomes us to recollect, to circumstances more discreditable to Christians than to Jews, to those who feel the prejudices than to those who suffer from thein. The case of the Jews, in fact, is in many respects parallel to that of the negro races. Robbed for long centuries of their rights as men, regarded with undisguised aversion, treated with every possible indignity, and everywhere most cruelly oppressed, what is bad in their character’has been the inevitable result of circumstances, in which others, not their own choice, placed them; and for such as made either them or the negroes what they now are, to abuse and despise them for being so is to add insult to injury, and to cruelty the grossest injustice. Like their countryman in the parable, they have fallen among thieves; and such as cherish the prejudices with which they have been long regarded, resemble more the priest and Levite that passed on the other side than that godd Samaritan who took compassion on the bleeding wretch, and poured wine and oil into his cruel wounds. Where the Jews have got a fair chance, they who have kept separate have exhibited another property of oil — they have risen to the top. Brought under Christian influences, they who retain the features of the patriarch’s face have exhibited some of the noblest features of his character; by the one as much as by the other proving their honorable lineage, and their right to say, ‘‘ We have Abraham for our father!”

It may be noticed as a curious and interesting fact, that while Abraham is seen to this day in the features which characterize Jewish men, the very remarkable beauty of his wife often presents and repeats itself in Jewish women. Beauty, no doubt, is always a fading charm, and to its envied possessor, in many cases, a fatal one. Yet it is a good gift of God; and, whether found in human beings, or in the plumes of a bird, the colors of a flower, or the glowing tints of an evening sky, is a source of

ABRAHAM THE FRIEND OF GOn. 21

tnnecent pleasure; nor can it be wrong to notice that which men inspired of the Holy Ghost not unfrequently mention. They tell us, for instance, that “Rachel was beautiful,” and that “Esther was fair and beautiful.” They celebrate the charms of Abigail; and not confining their remarks to female beauty, they tell us that he whose appearance won the hearts of the maids of Israel, and whose brave battle with the giant formed the burden of their songs, ‘“‘ was of a beautiful countenance.”

What David gave to Absalom, his guilty and unhappy son, he probably inherited from his own mother. Any way, it is plain from Scripture that while some races are almost hideous from their ugliness — one of the fruits of sin — the Jewish women were remarkable for their personal charms; and indeed it is alleged that some of the finest specimens of female beauty are still found among them. This is more than a curious fact. It forms one of those indirect proofs of the truth and divinity of the Bible, which, though indirect, are not the less but the more valuable. The fountain corresponds with the stream: the ancient record with present physiological facts. For it would appear from the Bible that Sarah, the mother of those lovely women, was perhaps the greatest beauty the painter’s art has preserved, or poets have sung. Her charms were so remarkable that they dazzled the eyes of Egypt; and so enduring, that at an age whose wrinkles and gray hairs make other women venerable, she retained all the bloom and loveliness of youth.:

Water, whether it springs on the shore or bubbles in the mountain well, where the eagle dresses her plumes and the red deer slake their thirst, never rises higher than its fountain: and if, in like manner, children’s mental powers form a standard whereby to judge of their parents’, we must believe Abraham, judging from his descendants, to have been in mind, as well as in piety, one of the greatest of men. Take, for instance, a skull of each of the different races of mankind, and placing them at random on a table before an anatomist, ask him to select that which indicates the highest mental capacity. Without knowing anything whatever of their history, from what graves they were obtained, or to what branches of the human family they belonged, he lays his hand at once on the skull of the Jew. This, take it for all in all, is the best on the table. Vastly superior to those of the aborigines of Australia and ancient Peruvians, that, though separated by a great gulf from the animal creation, stand at the bottom of the human scale, it is visibly superior to the skulls of those Greeks and Romans that in ancient, and also of those Teutonic races that in modern, times have marched ‘at the head of civilization, and seem destined to rule the world. The star of Abraham is in the ascendant here. However morally debased, the Jew stands pre-eminent for his mental powers, and has retained his superiority in circumstances which have degraded other nations almost to the level of beasts. Amid the fire that has burned for ages, this bush remains unconsumed. Here, then, is a race which, after suffering oppressions and degradations sufficient to crush the very soul out of them, is mentally second to none, perhaps superior to any. This is a remarkable fact. It proves what the Bible leads us to believe, that a special Providence watches over the outcasts of Israel, preserving them for some great end. And it proves more — this namely, that Abraham, “the hole of the pit out of which they were dug, the rock out of which they were hewn,” their great progenitor, was no common man; but one who stood, as well in point of mental ability as of faith and piety, ‘‘ head and shoulders” above the mass of men.

This may correct some erroneous notions, which many, misunderstanding the language of Scripture, entertain regarding the government of God. He had a great work to do on the earth, and in Abraham He selected a great man to do it: an instrument eminently adapted to accomplish his end. This is, so to speak, God’s ordinary rule. Anything else is exceptional. Having great ends to accom- — plish, did He not in old times select great men to do them in the cases of Moses, of Joshua, of David, of Daniel, of Paul; and in later times in the cases of Luther and Bishop Latimer, of Calvin and John Knox? Apart altogether from their piety, these all were men of pre-eminent natural abilities. They were the foremost of their time. No doubt God can work by many or by few: smite a giant with a pebble from a stripling’s sling, or scatter a host by the flashes of a lamp and the blare of an empty trumpet; and for the very purpose of reminding men that though Paul plant and Apollos water, the increase is with Him, in saving souls as well as in ruling the destinies of the world, He occasionally selects the weakest instruments to accomplish the greatest ends. But such is not God’s ordinary practice. They altogether misread, or misunderstand, his Word who think otherwise. How much such ideas are due to men’s greedy selfishness or their supineness, I will not undertake to say. But it is not true that any one will do for God’s work; and that, while great sacrifices are to be made for secular objects, and the most brilliant talents secured for secular offices, the service of the King of kings, the offices of the sanctuary, the pulpit, the missionary field, the Sabbath-school, may be left to pious weakness. Such an idea compliments God’s power at the expense of his wisdom — it being the part of Divine as well as of human wisdom to select the means best fitted for the end in view.

Before proceeding to the grand moral and religious features of the patriarch’s character, ] would draw an inference of considerable practical importance from the case of Abraham, and of almost all those men who have left a broad mark on their own and on future ages. These cases prove that God ordinarily works out his purpose by means, and not by miracles — not aside from, but according to, the regular course of nature. Therefore should his Church seek to enlist the highest genius on her side. Her duty is to remove, in the position or poverty of such as minister at her altars, those obstacles which unquestionably deter many entering who would adorn her pulpits, and prove of the highest service to the cause of Christ. To win souls and advance his cause in an indifferent and hostile world, let Hannahs give their Samuels, and Jesses their Davids. And acting with the wisdom of Saul, who, whenever he found a valiant man, took him into his service, let the Church, on finding talents associated with piety, take them into her service — enlist them in the sacred cause of Him who crowns all his other claims on us with this, He spared not his own Son to save us.

ABRAHAM’S CALL.

The history of infidelity, were it written, would present a succession of ignominious defeats; defeats due not to any want of ability in those who have assailed the truth, but to this, that its defenders have driven them out of all their positions. The history, the morality, the theology, the consistency, the authenticity, and genuineness of the Bible, the truth of its prophecies and the very possibility of its miracles, have been all attacked — each in its turn, and with the same result. We have seen the soldier return from the fields of war with scars as well as medals on his breast; but our religion has come out of a thousand fights unscarred, from a thousand fires unscathed. She bears no more evidence of the assaults she has sustained than the air of the swords that have cloven it, or the sea of the keels which have ploughed its foaming waves; than some bold rocky headland of the billows that, dashing against it in proud but impotent fury, have shivered themselves on its sides. With few exceptions the writings of infidels have sunk into entire oblivion. Their names, and those of their authors, are alike forgotten. Not so the name of Jesus, of Him Voltaire boasted he would crush; not so the Word of God — the blessed book which is the world’s most precious treasure, and often man’s only solace, as well in palaces asin cabins. While the works of once famous sceptics are left to rot on bookshelves, where the moth devours their memory and the spider wraps them in her web, every year sees the Bible translated into some new tongue, acquire a greater influence, and receive a wider circulation. Fulfilling its own glorious predictions, it is bringing nearer the appointed time when, rising over all opposition like a flowing and resistless tide, the knowledge of the Lord shall cover the earth as the waters the channel of the deep.

One wonders how the men who now assail our faith can hope for success where Hobbes and Bolingbroke, Voltaire and Rousseau, David Hume and Gibbon, giants in genius and in intellect, totally failed. Christians, possessing their souls in patience and peace, may calmly contemplate the puny assaults of modern infidelity. There is little in these to fill our camp with alarm, or make its Elis tremble for the ark of God. Assailing the faith from new ground, infidelity undertakes to prove the Bible false from its alleged discrepancy with the phenomena of Nature and the discoveries of science. But a few years, we doubt not, will show that though she has changed her ground, she has not changed her doom. He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh, the Lord shall have them ir derision. Science may, as science has already done, guide us to a sounder understanding of some things in the Word of God. While she corrects any mistake into which the interpreters of Scripture have fallen, there is nothing to dread. Why do the heathen rage? The only result of using the facts of science to undermine the foundations of religion, will resemble that wrought by some angry torrent when, sweeping away soil and sand and rubbish, it lays bare, and thereby makes more plain, the solid rock on which the house stands, unmoved and unmoveable.

The man who attempts to build a pyramid on its apex would not act more absurdly than some modern philosophers — so called. They base the most extravagant theories on grounds utterly-inadequate to support the ponderous superstructure. Propounding doctrines concerning our origin opposed to the Bible, and destructive of our dearest hopes, they ask us to embrace them on grounds such as no judge and jury would attach the least weight to in a court of law. On grounds so feeble and puerile, and in plain opposition to the facts related in the opening pages of the Scriptures, they assert that our origin was in a monkey, or rather in a monad. Believe them, and man reached his present condition by a process of development which required millions of years ere it carried him up through the stages of insect, fish, reptile, bird, and beast, to the supremacy he enjoys, the height he now stands on. Others, not prepared to commit themselves to such extravagant vagaries, but animated with a spirit of equal hostility to the Christian faith, assert on grounds equally weak, if not equally ludicrous, that though our first appearance was not in the form of a monad, an oyster, or a monkey, it was in the form of a savage. Believe them, and man’s primeval state was not one from which he fell, but from which he rose — one, in fact, of lowest savagedom. And, however widely these opinions differ, if either of them be true, farewell to our fondest hopes, and our faith in Scripture as the Word of God.

In regard to the latter of these views — for the first we may pass by as the ravings of philosophy run mad — it is opposed to the oldest and universal traditions of the world. These afford abundant evidence that the history of man does not present a being rising from a lower to a higher condition; but the reverse. Examine the legends of the rudest tribes; and they will be found to contain memories, though misty, of a past but higher and nobler state of being — of arts, of accomplishments, of a refinement of manners, and of, in many instances, a ‘purity of morals which only exist among them now in tales and songs. Not tradition only, but all history besides, proves that man, left to his own resources, has not risen but invariably sunk in the scale. The bias to this, which we explain by the Fall, may have been corrected in certain instances by providential and preternatural causes. But who examines the records of nations will find that the tendency of morals has always been to become more corrupt, and the tendency of religions to become more idolatrous and impure. They exhibit a constantly increasing departure from the truth. In proof of this I appeal to the history, among extinct rations, of Greece and Rome; and, among existing ones, of India and China. Trace their morals and religion upwards, and as we advance nearer to their source, we find the one becoming less impure, and the other less untrue, until a period is reached when the resemblance between these and the morals and religious belief of the patriarchs is striking, is indeed quite remarkable.

It is like ascending a river whose waters are polluted by the towns and manufacturies that have sprung up on its banks — the nearer we approach the green hills where it springs from its fountains, the purer runs the stream. Man, unaided and left to his own resources, has never risen from a lower to a higher state. On the contrary, we find the vices which early ages discountenanced and foibade, becoming not only universally practised, but even shamefully deified; and the one God of man’s first pure faith multiplied into hundreds, in some cases into thousands, and in a few even into millions, of inferior and usually immoral divinities. These remarks, which are not inapplicable to the present times, and which may help to reassure the hearts of some seized with unnecessary alarm, have been suggested by the fact that Abraham’s immediate ancestors were idolaters. What a rapid declension this! and what a remarkable illustration of man’s tendency to sink rather than to rise in the scale of moral and intellectual being! Almost ere the gray fathers of the flood were dead, ere perhaps ‘the marks of its awful ravages had vanished from the face of the earth, mankind had forgotten its lesson, and begun to worship the creature in place of the Creator. Abraham certainly was the son of an idolater; and, if old Jewish and Mahometan traditions are to be believed, of one who was a maker as well as a worshipper of idols. ‘‘ Your fathers,” said Joshua to the people of Israel, ‘‘ dwelt on the other side of the flood, even Terah the father of Abraham, and the father of Nahor; and they served other gods.” Ur of the Chaldees was the home of the patriarch’s race; and the religion they professed was the Sabian — a faith of Eastern birth, and one which presents idolatry in its oldest and least offensive form.

No man becomes at once, and of a sudden, either a fiend or a saint. His descent into a lower, like his ascent to a higher condition, is gradual — always accomplished, though more rapidly in some cases than in others, step by step. Of this the history of idolatry presents a striking instance. Look back on Greece and Rome! There, in Bacchus, and in Venus, and in other divinities, we see how men, as they do still in India, made gods of the vices which they practised; not only glorying in their shame, but throwing the halo of religion around the grossest immoralities. But mankind had not sunk so low as this, nor become worshippers of stocks and stones, of birds, beasts, and creeping things, in the days of Abraham. That Sabian faith in which he was born, and which his fathers followed, and which still lingers on earth among the Parsees of Bombay, was the least gross of all idolatries; the one into which man first fell, and was most prone to fall. The idolatry of this religion began with the worship, not of false gods, but of Jehovah, the one, living, and true God — under the symbols of the heavenly host. That, man’s first declension, and downward step, was one to warn us; but not much to wonder at. Even in these last days, with God’s Word in our hands, amid the full blaze of Gospel light, we find it difficult to walk by faith and not by sight; and the corruptions which Popery has engrafted on Christianity, the eyes of her devotees turned on cross and crucifix, the walls of her churches crowded with images, prove how prone man is to lapse into a sensuous religion, and to seek by means of some visible object to fix his wandering thoughts and inflame his cold devotions. For this purpose the sun, moon, and stars — especially the first of these — were chosen as images, visible symbois of the invisible God. It was in this character that the sun at least in the first instance, was worshipped. And certainly if God was to be adored through symbols, none could be found so appropriate as that imperial luminary, the ruler of the seasons, the source of all light and heat, the very life of nature, which, clothing the forests anew each year with leaves, the pastures with grass, and the fields with corn, resumes his daily course with unabating vigor, shows no sign of growth or of decay, and -throned in heaven, shines down from its azure heights with resplendent, dazzling glory.

This, the earliest, was certainly the least gross of all idolatries. But that soon befell it which has happened to the images of the Roman Catholic and the pictures of the Greek Church. The sign came to usurp the place of the thing signified. Ere long it was not the Being symbolized, but the symbol itself, that was regarded as an object of adoration. And now, when the Church ot Christ has her course to steer between Rationalism on this hand and Ritualism on that, let not the Bible only, but the history also of this earliest and least gross idolatry, warn her against setting much store on symbols, or leaning towards a sensuous worship. The tendency of every such worship is to become more sensuous; to depart further and further from the simplicity of the Gospel.

It was out of the Sabian religion, as well as out of Ur of the Chaldees, that Abraham was called. The Jews, and the Mahometans also, have curious legends about his conversion and the sufferings he had to endure for the truth. They say that, when he was, according to some, fourteen, according to others, forty years of age, his mind took a religious turn. At this time, observing a star when night overshadowed him, he said, ‘This is my Lord!” but, keeping his eye on the luminary, and observing it sink ere long, he abandoned all faith in it, wisely remarking, “I like not gods which set.” As the night wore on and left him in painful perplexity, the moon rose up in silver splendor. He turned to her, with the delighted exclamation, ‘“‘ This is my Lord!” But following in the wake of the star, she also set; and when her bright rim dipped below the horizon, with her set his faith in her divinity. By-and-by, from the purple east, the sun leapt up, illuminating the heavens with splendor and bathing the world in light. All his dark doubts now scattered with the morning mists before its beams. “This,” exclaimed Abraham, throwing himself down to worship, ‘‘ This is my Lord!” But when hours had rolled on, the sun also began to sink; and when, following star and moon, it vanished from his gaze, old legends tell how Abraham rose from his knees to cast aside the faith of his fathers, and worship Him who alone rules both in heaven and in earth.

Nor is this all these old legends tell us concerning Abraham on his being converted from idolatry. He is said to have taken advantage of the absence of his people to enter their temple, and, sparing only the biggest of their idols, break,all the rest in pieces. Discovering, on their return, the havoc which had been wrought, the people were roused to frenzy. They cried, Who hath done this to our gods? and on being told that it was Abraham, they exclaimed, Bring him forth! Hast thou done this to our gods? they said. Nay, replied he in mockery, Nay, the biggest of them hath done it, but ask them! Thou knowest, was their answer, that these speak not. Abraham now had them in a corner. To this very point he had wished to lead them. So, turning on them, he demanded, Do ye then worship, besides God, that which cannot profit and cannot hurt you? fieon you! Burn him! burst from the lips of these early persecutors, these fathers of the Inquisition. And the old legends go on to tell how a fiery furnace was forthwith kindled; and how this bold witness for the truth was cast among the roaring flames; and how he came forth unhurt — God having spoken out of heaven saying, O Fire, be thou cold, and a prevention unto my servant Abraham!

The Bible is silent as to the manner, and means, and time, of Abraham’s conversion. But, whatever these might be, the work was divine — wrought in his heart by Him who gave his servant grace to rise at another call, and go forth, he knew not whither; an exile from his native land, to wander in a land of strangers. Let it be remarked that in whatever manner he was called and converted, his case presents a remarkable example of the sovereignty of divine grace. We are to remember that the true religion was not altogether extinct in Abraham’s day. Like stars shining, one here and

- another there, through the clefts and openings of a cloudy sky, like those Alpine summits whose snows I have seen glowing in rosy sunlight when all the valleys lay wrapped in the sombre shades of evening, there were families at that time of general idolatry where God was worshipped, not only in spirit, but in truth. Such was Job’s, for instance. It is highly probable that he lived about the same period as Abraham. There is no allusion to be found in the Book which bears his name to any of those remarkable events which distinguished the exodus of Israel; and we may therefore conclude that his era was not coeval with that of Moses, but preceded it. But there are plain allusions in that Book to the Sabian worship, to the adoration of the heavenly bodies; and this makes it highly probable that Job lived about Abraham’s time, and among those whose religion corresponded with that of his compatriots. While that is highly probable, this is certain, that Melchizedec, whom Abraham met, and to whom he paid tithes, was a worshipper of the true God; and that those among whom this mysterious personage filled the office of a priest, must have been so likewise. Yet, passing by these, God repairs to a family of idolaters, and out of them selects a man to be the father of his people, and the great progenitor of his incarnate Son. Verily his thoughts are not as our thoughts, nor his ways as our ways. His grace is free, as the wind that bloweth where it listeth; and here, as in many other cases of conversion which present most unlooked-for results, we see that ‘the first are last and the last are first.” Abraham is a childless man, and God chooses him to be the father of a

ABRAHAM THE FRIEND OF GOD. Ne mighty nation; Abraham is an idolater, and God appoints him conservator of true religion and the ancestor of the world’s Redeemer. By this early, as by many other signal acts of free, sovereign, and almighty grace, how does God teach men never to despond, or to despair? His way is in the sea and his path in the mighty waters: nor can we know what purposes he intends to serve by us: what usefulness may be ours; what honors may await us; to what blessings and blessed work we may be called. ‘‘ He raiseth up the poor out of the dust,

and lifteth the needy out of the dunghill, that he may set him with princes, even with the princes of his people. He maketh the barren woman to keep house, and be a joyful mother of children. Praise ye the Lord!”

ABRAHAM’S TEMPER OR DISPOSITION.

In this aspect of his character Abraham was more like Jesus Christ, stood nearer the most illustrious of his descendants than perhaps any man; than any at least I have seen, or have read of. What a contrast he offers to those sour, selfish, narrow-minded, mean, greedy, grasping, ill-tempered, or ill-conditioned Christians who present religion in a repulsive rather than in an attractive aspect, ever reminding us of the saying, The grace of Gad can dwell where neither you nor I could!

Where, for example, shall we find such a pattern of Courteousness as Abraham offers for our imitation? It is the noon-tide hour, when, in hot southern lands, labor, which begins with the first blush of dawn, takes a pause and breathing-time.

Abraham sits in his tent-door enjoying its grateful shade, and looking out on the plain of Mamre, from which the sun’s fiery beams have driven men, bird, and panting beasts to such shelter as rocks, and trees, and tents afford. He descries three men approaching; making for his tent, toiling along under the broiling heat. Strangers, neither clansmen, nor neighbors, nor friends, they have no claim on him. He may wait their approach, leaving them to solicit his hospitality. Not he. Abraham rises, nay, he runs to meet them; and mingling respect with kindness, courtly manners with the most benevolent intentions, he bows himself to the ground. Not one who says, The favor which ts worth the giving ts worth the asking, he anticipates their request, and makes offer of his hospitality. But they may fear being burdensome to him. So, to remove any reluctance on their part to accept his kindness, he makes light of it — speaking of what he was about to offer as no tax on his generosity, as but ‘“‘a morsel of bread.” Nor is this all. With that delicate regard to others’ feelings which true kindness prompts, he would make it appear that they will oblige him more by accepting, than he does them by offering, his hospitality. ‘My Lord,” he says, addressing him who appeared the chief man of the three, “My Lord, if now I have found favor in thy sight, pass — not away, I pray thee, from thy servant; let a little water be fetched and wash your feet; and rest yourselves under the tree; and I will fetch a morsel of bread, and comfort ye your hearts — after that ye shall pass on.” And ina short while — for Sarah and the servants are hastily summoned from their different occupations to supply the wants of the strangers — the three are seated at an ample board, Abraham giving the finishing touch to his courtesy by respectfully standing beside his guests while they eat. Throughout the whole transaction, he presents a beautiful model of what was once understood by that excellent, though now much misapplied term, ‘“‘a gentleman.” This is what every Christian should be. Modern use has greatly perverted the words gentleman and gentleqwoman from their original and excellent meaning. What they indicate cannot be conveyed by a patent of nobility. It belongs to no rank. It is the ornament of the highest, and should be the ambition of the humblest. The temper and manners these terms express are compressed into this one brief exhortation of the Apostle, ‘“‘ Be courteous.” Courteousness is a Christian duty; and nowhere can a better example of it be found than in this story — the eight verses of Genesis which relate it containing a better lesson on true politeness than the whole volume of ‘‘ Lord Chesterfield’s Letters to his Son.”

Abraham’s Generosity, a still higher virtue, is equally remarkable. In proof of that, look to the manner in which he treated Lot, his nephew. Early deprived of a parent’s care, fatherless, if not also motherless, Lot is, I may say, adopted by Abraham — received into his nest, taken under his sheltering wing. Not so unhappy as some who have had no other return for such kindness as he rendered Lot than the basest, blackest ingratitude, whose lives have been embittered and their bosoms

stung by those they had kindly nursed. still Abraham’’s connection with Lot cost him much care and trouble. Quarrels arose between their servants, and matters at length came to this pass — that they must part. Now, there can be no doubt that Lot lay under the strongest obligations to Abraham. It was his part to accept his uncle’s judgment in this juncture, and leave to his decision their separate paths in life. The patriarch had been a father to him — a friend kinder than many fathers. Besides, Abraham was the elder of the two, and also the greater of the two: more than that, the land of Canaan, which was Lot’s only by sufferance, was his by promise. Abraham might have said to Lot,‘‘ You have no right whatever to this land, toa foot of it; go in peace, but seek your portion elsewhere. Such is my decision; and, remember, I have power to enforce it.” Yet the uncle generously bestows on the nephew a share of his own property; more than that, as if he were the younger and also the weaker of the two, as if the land of Canaan had been promised to the other rather than to him, as if he had been the party who had received rather than conferred favors, in determining their respective positions Abraham leaves the choice to Lot. He will take Lot’s leavings. ‘“Let there be no strife, I pray thee,” says this right noble man, ‘between me and thee. Webebrethren. Is not the whole land before thee? If thou wilt take the left hand, I will go to the right; or if thou depart to the right hand, I will go to the left.” What self-denial, self-control, self-sacrifice, in that speech! What liberal and magnanimous generosity his! What a model of a Christian this man!

Men often do wrong by insisting on their rights.

Far be that from Abraham. He seeks not his own, but the things of others; and here offers one of the costliest sacrifices ever laid on the altar of peace. This sacrifice, be it remarked and remembered, did not go without its reward. Abraham found it; as, I cannot doubt, he very sensibly and very gratefully felt on that eventful morning when, standing on Bethel’s rocky heights, he turned his gaze from the plain — Lot’s choice — all smoking like a burning furnace, to the green hills around dotted with his flocks, to his herds safely browsing on the dewy pastures, and to the tents below, where his family were reposing beneath the shadow of the shield of God — every head laid on its pillow of sweet sleep and peace. Still, as then, let me add, good men will, and shall sooner or later, profit by every sacrifice they make for peace. Let us “seek peace and pursue it.”

But never did Abraham, or any one else, present a finer model of disinterested generosity and true nobility of mind than he, amid scenes that usually inflame the worst and most selfish passions of our nature. He stands on a field strewn with the ghastly dead; the air is filled with the shouts of conquerors and the groans of captives; a rich spoil lies scattered at his feet; his cheek is still red with the flush, and his sword with the blood of battle — and his bearing there offers an example of one of those bright gleams which occasionally relieve the horrors and gild the lurid clouds of war. A man of peace, the battle was not of his seeking. But the news had reached his tents that Lot and his family are prisoners. The tidings awaken all his old affections. His trumpet sounds to arms. Lot must be rescued. With more than three hundred retainers following his banner, he pushes on at their head; overtakes the foe; and, throwing himself on their ranks, achieves a surprise, a rescue, and a signal victory. By the rights of war the spoil, at least the greater part of it, falls to him; and therefore the King of Sodom, content to get back his subjects, and perhaps the captives to boot, says, “‘Give me the persons and take the goods to thyself.” He might have done so. Many would have done so — all, indeed, who, taking advantage of forms of law, and regardless of justice, gratitude, and the claims of others, insist on their legal rights. Not so did Abraham. What a rebuke his conduct administers to such mean and mercenary spirits! What an example his of that high Christian principle that sets humanity and justice above mere legal claims — the law of God, in fact, above the law of man — and scorns to touch what the latter may through its imperfections grant, but a higher law, the golden rule, “As ye would that others should do unto you, do ye also unto them,” forbids a man to take. With a single eye to the glory of his God and the just claims of the unfortunate, Abraham gives up his legal rights; and to the King of Sodom returns this magnanimous answer, ‘‘I have lift up mine hand unto the Lord, the most high God, the possessor of heaven and of earth, that I will not take from a thread to a shoe-latchet, lest thou shouldest say, I have mace Abraham rich.” Here is a pattern to copy! Playing as high-minded a part as this grand old patriarch, equally well illustrating the Christian maxim, ‘‘ Whether ye eat or drink, or whatsoever

ye do, do all to the glory of God,” how would we adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour?

The Tenderness of Abraham’s heart is as remarkable as the loftiness, purity, and sternness of his virtue. Sodom was a sink of iniquity. Abraham could not but know that, and could not but hold the habits of its people in unutterable abhorrence. Yet see how he mourns its doom: regarding its sinners with such pity as filled the eyes of Jesus, and drew from his heart this lamentable cry, ‘‘O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how would I have gathered thy children as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, but thou wouldest not!” There have been men, even women, who went sternly to the work of executing God’s judgments — cutting away the foul cancer from the breast of society with unflinching nerves, with an eye that knew no pity and a hand that did not spare. ‘Blessed above women,” sung Deborah, “shall Jael, the wife of Heber, be. She put her hand to the vail, and her right hand to the workman’s hammer, ind with the hammer she struck Sisera, and smote off his head; and so let all thine enemies perish, O Lord.” What a contrast to that strong iron heart the tenderness of Abraham’s! Sodom awakens all his pity. Considerations of its enormous guilt are swallowed up in the contemplation of its impending joom. Truest, tenderest type of his own illustrious 5on, with the spirit that dropped in the tears and flowed in the blood of Jesus, he casts himself between God’s anger and the guilty city. He asks, he pleads, he prays for mercy — not that the righteous only be saved, but that the wicked be spared for the sake of the righteous. In his anxiety to save their lives, he imperils his own; stands in the way; braves and encounters the danger of turning the Avenger’s sword on himself. Once, and again, and again, he puts God’s long-suffering patience to the trial. He detains Him; keeps Him listening to new pleas and requests. Like the gallant crew who, moved by the sight of drowning wretches that hang in the shrouds and stretch out their hands for help, after repeated failures to make the wreck, venture life-boat and lives once more amid the roaring breakers, Abraham cries, ‘‘Oh, let not my Lord be angry, and I will speak yet but this once; peradventure ten shall be found there?”

Like some tall mountain whose top catches the beams of the morning sun ere he rises on the lower hills and sleeping homesteads of the winding valleys, this patriarch, as he saw Christ’s day, seems to have caught Christ’s spirit, afar off. Surely his was the Spirit of Christ — that mind of which it is said, ‘‘ Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.” Compassion, pity, love for sinners, than these there is no surer mark and test of true religion. May they be found in us as in Jesus Christ ! — as in Abraham ! — as in him, perhaps the greatest of all the patriarch’s merely human descendants, who, penetrated with compassion for his guilty, unhappy countrymen, wrote, “I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness, that I have great heaviness and sorrow of heart, for I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren |”

ABRAHAM’S FAITH AND PIETY.

In a clear wintry night, when planets, contellations, and all the orbs of heaven are sparkling through the frosty air, we see how, as Paul says, “one star differeth from another star in glory.” But though some are larger and much more luminous than others, which, now caught, now lost, seem but points of light, not a few appear equally brilliant. Of these rivals that are flaming and wheeling in different quarters of the firmament, it were hard to say which is pre-eminent — the biggest, brightest gem in the dusky crown of night. This difficulty is one we do not meet on opening the Bible at the eleventh chapter of St. Paul’s Epistle to the Hebrews. With examples of faith, extending all the way down from the remote days of Abel to those last times when the saints of God were stoned and sawn asunder, tempted, and slain with the sword, it presents a bright and glorious spectacle. We gaze on that firmament, if I may so speak, which shines above the Church through the long dark night of time; and which, as the night wears on, grows more and more resplendent with those whom God is calling up to * shine in heaven as the stars forever and ever. History contains no catalogue of equally illustrious names. It relates no such famous deeds as stand recorded in that grand chapter. But though these stars of the Church resemble those of the material heavens in this, that one differeth from another in glory, they differ in this, on the other hand, that for the power, grandeur, and, in whatever aspect indeed it be regarded, for the greatness of his faith, the severity of its trial and the brilliancy of its triumphs, Abraham shines pre-eminent. He has no equal, no rival. To change the figure, he holds such pre-eminence among these grand exemplars of trust in God and faith in his unfailing word, as does the centre mountain among the group above whose rocky pinnacles and snow-clad summits it rears its imperial dome.

Compare Abraham with some, or with any one, of the worthies whose names are embalmed in that chapter. Take Moses. Who am I that I should go unto Pharaoh? he said. With the rod in his hand that he had already seen changed into a living serpent, and that was hereafter to change rivers into blood and the bed of ocean into dry land, Moses shrank from the dangerous task; he hesitated, conjuring up difficulties and urging objections till the Divine anger was kindled against him. Take Gideon. Oh, my Lord, wherewith shall I save Israel? he cries. Behold, my family is poor in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father’s house And saying so, there he stands on the threshing-floor, nor leaves it for a nobler sphere till miracles strengthen and sustain his faith — till a bowlful of water is wrung from the fleece around which all the ground lay dry; and on another morning the fleece lies dry on meadows sparkling with dew, by bushes hung thick with diamonds. And to mention but one other, though not the least of the worthies enrolled in that chapter, take David. See how he staggers beneath his load! Look at him repairing for safety and shelter to the Philistines, as if God had ever given his enemies occasion for the taunt, Where is now thy God?

Yet, trusting them rather than Him who had delivered him from the paw of the lion, and the paw of the bear, and the hand of the giant champion whom he encountered with no other weapon than sling and pebble, he flies to the country of the Philistines, and throws himself into their arms — distrusting God, and crying, I shall now perish one day by the hand of Saul!

Look now at Abraham’s Faith! It stood the test of much severer trials. He is called to leave his country and his kindred — called to go he knew not where; called to be he knew not what. Nor does he hesitate. He instantly responds; repairs to Canaan; and lives and dies in the confident belief that it shall belong to him and his. Yet he found no place there to rest the sole of his foot — his weary foot — but was tossed about during a long lifetime here and there, like a sea-weed which is floated hither and thither on the wandering billows, cast on the shore by this tide and swept away by that. Looking not at the things which are seen but at the things which are not seen, the life of all pelievers is more or less one of faith. But of Abraham and his whole life in the land of Canaan, xf every journey he undertook, every march he made, and every footprint he left on its soil or on its sands, it might be literally as well as figuratively said, it was true of him in respect of this world as well as of the next, as it never was of any other man, ‘He walked by faith and not by sight.”

This faith culminates on Moriah — the Mount where, laying Isaac on the altar, it endures its greatest trial, and achieves its greatest triumph. It furnishes the only key to the questions that rise, unbidden as we read the story — a fond and doting father, how could Abraham undertake the dreadful task? how was he able to contemplate embruing his hands in the blood of his son? how did his reason withstand the shock? how did his heart not break? how had he nerve to disclose the dreadful truth to Isaac, to kiss him, to bind his naked limbs, to draw the knife from its sheath, and raise his arm for the blow? how did not the cords of life snap under the strain, and Abraham, spared the horrid sacrifice, fall dead on the altar — a pitiful sight, a father clasping within his lifeless arms the beloved form of his son? It is by the power of faith he stands there, the knife glittering in his hand, his arm raised to strike — the conqueror of nature. The blow shall make him childless, yet he believes that he shall be the father of a mighty nation; that when the flames have consumed the loved form at his side, Isaac shall rise from their ashes; and that after this bloody tragedy and greatest act of worship, with Isaac restored to his arms, as they climbed, they shall descend the Mount together. Who can help exclaiming, O Abraham, great is thy faith!

“By faith,” says St. Paul, “Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac; and he that had received the promises offered up his only-begotten son, of whom it was said, In Isaac shall thy seed be called — accounting that God was able to raise him up even from the dead.” It is thus he explains the scene, on that mysterious and awful Mount where, in the victim unbound and a divinely provided substitute bleeding in his room, Abraham saw Christ’s day afar off. and was glad. Thus the

Apostle, magnifying the power of faith, and showing how to him who believeth all things are possible, teaches us to cry, Lord help mine unbelief! increase my faith! It is certain that in respect of this crowning grace, Abraham offers us the grandest model, presents an all but perfect exemplar. In Paul’s catalogue of immortals he shines the star of greatest magnitude; and with a change of sex, to him we may accord this palm, this highest praise, “‘Many daughters have done virtuously, but thou excellest them all!”

Yet the patriarch had his failings — as who has not ? — and they are written to warn “him who thinketh he standeth, to take heed lest he fall.” If thou hast run with the footmen and they have ‘wearied thee, how, asks the prophet, canst thou contend with horsemen? Yet, strange to say, though Abraham contended successfully in the race with horsemen, distancing them all, he was outstripped by footmen. He trusted God to restore the life of his son, yet did not trust Him to protect the honor of his wife. Telling a lie about Sarah, he failed in the very grace for which he was most distinguished. Should not these things teach us to watch and pray that we enter not into temptation; and never under any circumstances to forget the warning, “Be not high-minded, but fear”? When Nehemiah, bold as a lion, said, ‘Shall such a man as I flee?” how much more might we have expected Abraham to say, “Shall such a man as I lie?” His faith failed him. This great and venerable patriarch stands convicted of a mean equivocation. And who that sees him vainly trying to gloss over his shame, can help exclaiming, Lord, what is man? Surely the best and worst of men have but one refuge — the blood and righteousness of Jesus.

Another practical and equally important remark we may draw from Abraham’s history, ere he leaves the stage to give place to his servant — whom we shall next introduce. Paul explains the patriarch’s pre-eminent triumph by his pre-eminent faith. But what explains it? What fed the faith wherein his great strength lay? Challenging comparison with any, and excelling all, in that grace, we may justly apply to him the glowing terms and bold figures of the prophet — ‘‘ He was a cedar in Lebanon, with high stature and fair branches, and shadowing shroud — the cedars of God could not hide him — the fir-trees were not like his boughs, and the chestnut-trees were not like his branches, nor was any tree in the garden of God like unto him for beauty: his root,” he adds, explaining how this cedar towered above the loftiest trees, giant monarch of the forest, ‘“‘his root was by the great waters.” And what that root found in streams which, fed by the snows and seaming the sides of Lebanon, hottest summers never dried and coldest winters never froze, the un€qualled faith of Abraham found in close and constant communion with God. Like Enoch, he walked with God. Each important transaction of life was entered on in a pious spirit, and hallowed by religious exercises. His tent was a moving temple. His household was a pilgrim church. Wherever he rested, whether by the venerable oak of Mamre, or on the olive slopes of Hebron, or on the lofty, forest-crowned ridge of Bethel, an altar rose; and his prayers went up with its smoke to heaven. Such daily, intimate, and loving communion did this grand saint maintain with heaven, that God calls him his “friend;” and honoring his faith with a higher than any earthly title, the Church has crowned him “Father of the Faithful.” He lived on terms of fellowship with God, such as had not been seen since the days of Eden. Voices addressed him from the skies; angels paid visits to his tent; and visions of celestial glory hallowed his lowly couch and mingled with his nightly dreams. He was a man of prayer, and therefore he was a man of power. Setting us an example that we should follow his steps, — thus, to revert to language borrowed from the stateliest - of Lebanon’s cedar, thus was he “fair in his greatness anda in the length of his branches, for his root was by the great waters.”

50. §TUDIES OF. CHARACTER.