part to put the fearful command in execution. This is explained by the Apostle, who says, Abraham believed God could raise his son from the dead; and that he expected this is evident from the expression to the young men, that he and Isaac would return to them after their worship. He did not doubt the ultimate fulfilment of the promises; and the miraculous restoration of his son seemed a matter of course, since He who could not lie, had said

"In Isaac shall thy seed be called." When it became necessary to communicate to Isaac his fatal purpose, no resistance was offered by the destined victim; no shudderings of nature prompted to avert the blow. How strikingly does this circumstance show the strict religious training of the child of promise by Abraham! The youth might have remonstrated against his father's incurring the guilt of murder; he might have urged the illegality of human sacrifice, or even questioned the right of the prophet-patriarchon the authority of a vision seen by none but himself to immolate his son. Isaac was grown to manhood, and would probably have surpassed his aged father in strength, had he chosen to escape or defend his life. But he had been educated in the principles of obedience and absolute submission to heavenly ordinances. The instructions received from his father's lips had fitted him to understand the obligations of the command; and it is reasonable to suppose that Abraham communicated to him his own hopes of his restoration. He yielded himself voluntarily, to be bound and laid on the altar, as did the "Lamb of God," whom, by the act, he typified.

Not only was Abraham thus worthy in his family relations of being the great example of faith and obedience to his posterity and the world, but he appears equally exemplary in other situations. What can be more sublime than his expostulation with the Deity to avert the impending fate of the Cities of the Plain! And how exalted is the idea of the justice and mercy of the Infinite conveyed by the scene! His position among the princes of adjoining territories was a highly honourable one. He was a mighty prince

among them, and their esteem was often testified by gifts. Abimelech, the king of Gerar, sought to form with him a treaty of amity, to continue inviolable to his descendants; for he says— "God is with thee in all that thou doest." He had not forgotten, in his abounding prosperity, to ascribe all to the favour of Him from whom cometh every good thing; and it is not unlikely that from him many of the neighbouring chiefs learned the worship of the true God.

The expression so often used in Scripture, "gathered to his fathers," appears to have a meaning which throws light upon the customs of primitive ages. We learn that each tribe or family had its own place of burial-sometimes a spacious sepulchre, hewn from the rock, and divided into several chambers, where the dust of many branches of the clan might be deposited. The chief had here his appointed place, and round him were assembled the children who came one by one to moulder at his side. Thus the family union was preserved even in the grave. No stranger-dust was permitted to mingle with the kindred remains; and from generation to generation the descendants of the same progenitor occupied their last resting-place together. Thus Abraham, when Sarah died, applied to the chiefs of the clan of Heth to purchase a cemetery; for as yet he had been a stranger and a sojourner, and in his wandering life had possessed no place to bury his dead. His home was fixed now in the land of Canaan; and there was to be the sacred deposit, which he would guard with jealous care from foreign intrusion. He declines the complimentary offer of the chiefs, of permission to bury his dead in the choicest of their own national sepulchres; he refuses to accept as a gift from Ephron the cave and field he had selected as suitable for the purpose, though it was proffered publicly, as a mark of high respect. He will have this sacred possession isolated from all others, and takes it only on condition of being permitted to pay the price to its owner. The bargain is ratified, and the field

secured to him, with its rock, and the trees that were to shade the graves of his household.

In widowed estate lived the patriarch after the death of his wife, occupied with the care and education of his son. When the time came that a wife should be provided for Isaac, the same determination to keep his stock separate from the surrounding tribes, by avoiding their alliance, is manifested. In the ancient Mesopotamian settlement, the children of his brother Nahor yet live, and among his kindred there the patriarch determines to choose a wife for his son. His eldest and chief servant-supposed to be Eliezer of Damascus, the next in rank in the tribe, who was once his heir-presumptive-is directed to depart on the mission, and is required to pledge a solemn oath that in no case shall the wife be chosen from the daughters of the Canaanites. Almost equally strong is his repeated command, that Isaac shall not be conducted back to the land of his own birth, even though the kinswoman selected should refuse to come and meet him in Canaan. In obedience to the Heavenly mandate, he had quitted the country of his nativity and his father's house: Palestine, by Divine grant, was the patrimony of his descendants; and the merging of his family with those of his kindred, which would be the consequence of return to Mesopotamia, was not less to be dreaded than a heathen alliance. In this anxiety for the seclusion and isolation of his own stock, it is not possible to say how much of the pride of an independent chieftain mingled with Abraham's regard to the commandment intrusted to him. A desire to maintain his own dignity as the parent of a nation, may have had some influence; but his chief motive was the conviction of his duty to preserve integrity of descent in a line from which was to spring the mysterious Seed promised to the first mother. That this was so is evident from the confidence he expresses in the success of the mission: "The Lord God of Heaven-He shall send his angel before thee."