up a large number of converts, without examining very closely how much alloy has mingled with the purity of their faith, must adopt this method. But those who are truly zealous for God and for the truth go right forward, are content with nothing short of the full demands of God, and prefer weighing their converts to counting them. What the result to themselves often is we are taught by the cross upon which Jesus died, because he would make no treaty with the world, and because his followers were therefore few in number. But just for that reason he became more than the founder of a church, he became the Saviour of the world.

One more general remark must be made about the stories of the patriarchs. Here, again, as was the case with the first eleven chapters of Genesis, we have the work of more than one writer before us. We have no difficulty in recognising here and there the style and the thoughts of the writers who told us of Adam and Noah, of Cain and Enoch, though we cannot always make out with certainty how the accounts of the two have been woven together, and then united with those of yet others.

Sometimes the writers do not agree together. An instance occurs quite at the beginning; for while the book of Origins makes Terah and his clan leave Ur of the Chaldees and go to Haran, where Terah himself dies, without assigning any religious motive to him, the older writer, without mentioning Terah at all, begins: "And Yahweh said to Abram." Whence he supposes the patriarch to depart is anything but clear. Since the departure from Ur of the Chaldees immediately precedes this narrative, it is natural to suppose that that is the place referred to here as well, as is stated indeed elsewhere; but in another passages Haran, that is Mesopo

tamia, is indicated as Abram's country.

When we come to

the stories themselves, we shall find other instances of mutual disagreement between the narratives.

The two writers, as might have been expected, show the same peculiarities in the stories of Abram and his sons that we have already noticed. The accounts of the later writer are rather colourless, but the older stories are full of life and variety, for in them the most ancient times are painted with all the traits and colours of a comparatively recent period; with the worship of Yahweh for instance, and most of the religious usages of the Israelites.

This is, to a great extent, what gives these narratives their charm. The deeper we penetrate into their meaning, the clearer is the insight they give us into the life of the people in whose midst they arose. But if this had been their only value they would certainly never have become so universally known and loved as they are, for this meaning is sometimes far enough below the surface, and escapes the ordinary reader. But they are precious even as sketches of character; for in the patriarchs, especially in Abraham and Jacob, we have before us the images of pious men after the heart of the writers, and since they are drawn by the hand of a warm affection, they often speak to our conscience as well as our imagination.

We shall therefore treat these stories chiefly as sketches of character. We shall indeed point out, whenever we are able, the interest that animated the compilers, and the objects they had in view in telling their stories; but for the rest, we shall speak of Abram, Hagar, Esau, Joseph, and all the others, as if they were men who really lived, and shall try to strengthen our moral life by marking their faith, and to take warning from the description of their sins.

CHAPTER XII.

ABRAM THE BELIEVER.

GEN. XII.

URROUNDED by his relatives and friends, in the plain

of Haran, in the northern part of Mesopotamia, dwelt Abram; and hard by his tents his friend and nephew Lot would often feed his flocks.

The two shepherd princes were rich in cattle, and a host of dependents obeyed them, while they were bound to each other by the closest ties of friendship. A striking proof of this friendship was given by Lot, when he lent an ear to his uncle, who urged him to accompany him on a distant journey he was about to undertake. He was going away south-west, across the Euphrates, and then as yet he did not know where next himself.

Why was he going to change his abode? Was he driven to it by necessity? Was there no more pasture for his cattle? Had enmity risen between him and his relatives? Or did love of change and hope of booty urge him on ? Had he forgotten that all kinds of unknown dangers threatened him on his way through the lands of strangers? Not at all. However poorly his country had been blessed by the beauties of nature; nay, however parched and dry it was during many seasons of the year, still it was dear to him, and he was on the best possible terms with his relatives, the men of Nahor, and even in religion was at one with them. He must go because Yahweh, his god, told him to go. Why he did so, and where he would take him, he did not know; his duty was but to obey.

1

So they started on their journey, these men of faith, sure that Yahweh would bring them to a good land. He had

1 Genesis xxiv. 31.

distinctly promised Abram that he would bless him and make him a great people. His friends should be blessed and his enemies cursed, and the fame of his prosperity should spread so far amongst all nations, that when anyone wanted to pronounce the greatest possible blessing, he would only be able to say, "God make you blessed as Abram!"1 They relied on the power of this god, who had given them such glorious promises.

They passed over the Euphrates and through the Syrian desert; through those wide steppes where only here and there a fruitful spot, such as those upon which Palmyra and Damascus were afterwards to rise, invited them to stay, still south-west, till they crossed the Jordan and came to the shores of the Mediterranean Sea, which they found thinly populated by certain Canaanite tribes. They passed through this land too, trusting in their good swords and the might of Yahweh. They felt that they had a right to be there, and no one asked toll of them.

The first spot at which they stayed for any length of time had a strange appearance. Two mountains, of moderate height, rear themselves over against each other there. Ebal, the more northern peak, is parched and barren, but Gerizim, the more southern, rather loftier than the other, has a somewhat more pleasing aspect. In the valley between these mountains, where Shechem was afterwards built, an oak of more than ordinary beauty raised its head; it was the oak of Moreh, that is, "the teacher's oak." There the wanderers pitched their tents, and Abram soon discovered that it was a holy spot, where Yahweh revealed himself and loved to receive the offerings of his servants; for here his god appeared to him and told him that he had now reached the goal of his journey, for this was the land that his posterity should receive as an inheritance. So Abram built an

1 Genesis xii. 3, after an amended version.

altar to Yahweh there, and the spot became a sacred place in Israel. The oak of Moreh, under the name of "the soothsayer's oak (Meonenim)," was destined to become famous in all the country round, and to be regarded as the sanctuary of Shechem; and there the worshippers bowed down before the deity who had chosen this tree for his dwelling place, as they approached him with supplications and with offerings, or listened to the whispering of the sacred leaves, and, full of awe, received from the lips of the soothsayers the interpretation of the sounds they had heard.

From Shechem the patriarch pursued his journey to the height of Bethel. Between this city and Ai he pitched his tents, and found again that Yahweh was with him there, and so built an altar in honour of him. This place, accordingly, the name of which means "god's house," was no less sacred to the Israelites than Shechem.

Still pursuing their way in the same direction, the Hebrews reached the most southern regions of Canaan.

So Abram had passed through the whole of his promised land, from north to south, when he discovered that it had indeed been promised to his posterity, but not to himself; for a famine compelled him to leave the barren region of southern Canaan for the fertile Egypt, and to sojourn in a strange land, instead of in the country, which his hopes had already taught him to regard as his home.

But even there he was to receive a wonderful proof of the faithfulness and power of his God; for when he drew near to Egypt his faith grew weak, and he was afraid. He came there as a stranger; and his wife Sarai, who was very beautiful, was with him. Suppose thought he-the inhabitants of the land cast their eyes upon her, they are sure to kill me, and then make her marry one of them. So he told his wife to say she was his sister, so that if they seized her they