III.

THE FAMILY OF ABRAHAM.

AMONG the nations that overspread the earth after the flood, the families of the patriarchs stood separate and distinguished by the peculiarity of their religious faith. They were honoured by special revelations from time to time, and enjoyed the privilege of familiar intercourse with the Deity, being the chosen objects of his protection and blessing. They were called of God to be unlike those around them, and appointed for the preservation of the true knowledge and worship of Him, and the establishment of religion upon earth. The pastoral simplicity of their lives, and their migratory habits, were calculated to favour their state of immediate dependence upon Him by whose revealed will their movements were directed.

Abraham, the first and most eminent of the patriarchs, whose name has figured in Eastern traditions-and whose remarkable history is given in the simple narrative in the Book of Genesis— was one of a pastoral family dwelling in Ur of the Chaldees, a region which afterwards became the seat of the great Babylonian monarchy. The marriages of Abram and Nahor are mentioned as having taken place during their residence there; Haran, the father of Lot, dying before his father Terah in the land of his nativity. The migration of Terah and all his family from Ur of the Chaldees followed; and they fixed their new settlement at Haran, where Terah afterwards died.

The Bible does not inform us how Abram first acquired his knowledge of the unity and providence of the Deity, nor what was the belief of his tribe and family. The legends of other nations represent Terah as an idolater, and even as a maker of images.