nent in the early scriptures; no faith in such a truth dwelt in the thoughts or influenced the life of the Hebrews in Abraham's time or long afterward, else we shonld hear of it from their lips, and it would be more fully expressed in their religious songs. At the most it was a hope, and the scriptures of the Jews do not draw motives from it for the present life.

Thus the food for the subjective religion, or the piety, of the patriarchs was drawn from but a few of those sources which are opened to believers in the Christian scheme. But notwithstanding the narrow range of their horizon, there is something very delightful in that religious character of which Abraham is the most sincere type. Theirs was an unspeculative creed; their curiosity was small, their circuit of thought restricted; but how charming is their native, childlike, simplehearted faith; how honest and full of reality their veneration, how unquestioning their obedience. Compare them with their progenitors, and you find them possessed of one new incitement to piety-the specific promises relating to their race and their dwelling-place, which brings them nearer to God. Compare them with their posterity, and you find more of affectionate confidence in God, more familiarity, more closeness of communion. How like a child with a father Abraham pleads with God that Sodom may be spared! "Shall not the judge of all the earth do right?" "That the righteous should be as the wicked, that be far from thee." And this, when the pleader feels that he is "but dust and ashes," and cries, "O let not the Lord be angry with me and I will speak." He was, in short, the friend of God. The law, with its punetilious observances and its threatenings, had not yet aroused that dread of God which was a necessary step in the education of the race towards a more noble religion. This religion of man's childhood, as we see it in the best of the patriarchs, was as far removed from what is called the childhood of heathenism as possible. That is marked by terror and guilt,

or by licentious indifference. This is marked by trust and steady obedience.

As has been already said, this religious character is purest In Abraham, and in the fourth generation we see before us another set of men, hard, cruel, common souls, the fit ancestors of a nation that seems to have become morally and spiritually degraded, and on whom only an imperfect impression was made by the institutions of Moses.

A word in regard to the ethical principles of the patriarch shall close our essay. Morality, like religion, in a world like ours must be progressive. Especially must progress be made from obscure or wrong conceptions upward in those departments of morality which have to do with the forms of social life. It is not strange therefore that polygamy and slavery existed, although in a very mild form, among the first ancestors of the Jewish people. But, besides this, truth was sacrificed when danger could be averted by the sacrifice, and in other respects character could not reach its full perfection. Yet an age which could produce, an age which could represent an Abraham, such an age was by no means degraded in its moral perception. The virtues of the first descendants of the "friend of God" must still-in spite of their imperfectionscommand the homage of a world enlightened by Christianity.

T. D. W.

SALEM AND SHAVEH.-A fruitful source of discussion has been found in the site of Salem and Shaveh, which certainly lay in Abram's road from Hobah to the plain of Mamre, and which are assumed to be near to each other. The various theories may be briefly enumerated as follows:-Salem is supposed to have occupied in Abraham's time the ground on which afterwards Jebus and then Jerusalem stood; and Shaveh to be the valley east of Jerusalem, through which the Kidron flows. This opinion is supported by the facts that Jerusalem is called Salem in Psalm lxxvi. 2, and that Josephus (Ant. i. 10, § 2) and the Targums distinctly assert their identity: that the king's dale (2 Sam. xviii. 18), identified in Gen. xiv. 17 with Shaveh, is placed by Josephus, and by medieval and modern tradition, in the immediate neighborhood of Jerusalem: that the name of a later king of Jerusalem, Adonizedek (Josh. x. 1), sounds like that of a legitimate successor of Melchizedek : and that Jewish writers claim Zedek-righteousness, as a name of Jerusalem. Jerome denies that Salem is Jerusalem, and asserts that it is identical with a town near Scythopolis or Bethshan, which in his time retained the name of Salem, and in which some extensive ruins were shown as the remains of Melchizedek's palace. He supports this view by quoting Gen. xiv. 18, where, however, the translation is questionable; compare the mention of Salem in Judith iv. 4, and in John iii. 23. Stanley is of opinion that there is every probability that Mount Gerizim is the place where Melchizedek, the priest of the Most High, met Abram. Ewald denies positively that it is Jerusalem, and says that it must be north of Jerusalem on the other side of Jordan. There too Dean Stanley thinks that the king's dale was situate, near the spot where Absalom fell.-Smith's Old Test. Hist.

THE PATRIARCHS.

ABRAHAM THE WANDERER.

ISAAC AND ISHMAEL.

JACOB, ESAU, AND JOSEPH.

DID THE PATRIARCHS LIVE TO THE AGE OF ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHTY?

II.

ABRAHAM THE WANDERER.

B. C. 1921.

THE CITY OF UR-TERAPHIM WORSHIP-THE VOICE-LOT-BETHEL THE FIRST SACRIFICE-THE HILLS OF JUDEA-EGYPT-'SHE IS MY SISTER-THE SECOND SACRIFICE-WE ARE BRETHREN HEBRON-CHEDERLAOMER-TAKE THE GOODS-MELCHISEDEK-WAVERING FAITH-HAGAR THE SLAVE-HOSPITALITY -ANGELIC STRANGERS-A CHILD IS BORN-SARAH-'CAST OUT THIS SLAVE' -THE TERRIBLE TRIAL-THE CHILD IS SAVED-SARAH THE PRINCESSMACHPELAH, 'THE FIELD I GIVE THEE '—THE FATHER OF THE FAITHFUL.

In the morning of life the voice of God is heard in the soul; so it was in the morning of the world. The voice of God was heard in the rolling thunders, in the whispering wind, in the still small voice of the soul. It was heard and it was heeded. When men become old and hardened, stupid and corrupt, they hear it no more; or if they hear, they heed it

not. So with nations; with age comes power and wealth, luxury and corruption, baseness and decay and rottenness, and then the voice of God is not heard-not in the rolling thunders, nor in the whispering winds, nor in the still small voice of the soul.

There was a beautiful young man in the city of Ur' of Chaldea, lying east of Damascus-beautiful because he was a man of perfect health. Then Teraphim were worshipped, for his father Terah worshipped idols and carried them with him to the new land of Haran. But in that new restingplace Abraham (Abram he was then named) heard the "Voice " saying

Abram, get thee out of thy country and from thy kindred and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will show thee; and I will make thee a great nation—I will bless thee and make thy name great-I will bless them that bless thee and curse him that curseth thee, and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed."

He heard, and he heeded; and Lot, his uncle's son, went with him. They took their wives and their children, and their cattle and servants, and went their way southward. They went forward among the Canaanites until they came to Sichem, and thence to a spot between Bethel (Luz) and Hai (Ai); there they pitched their tents; for henceforth they were not to build houses or to live in cities. Here Abraham raised an altar and did sacrifice, and called upon the name of the God whose voice he had heard, who was leading him on by ways he knew not of. He worshipped Jehovah.

But the hills of Judea were poor and the pastures thin, and clearly this could not be the Land of Promise, the land flowing with milk and honey, which he sought. He moved on southward into the more fertile country, but even here he was not secure; for that land becomes parched and barren. A famine came upon them; and Abraham and his people, his

1 The city of Or-fah, in Mesopotamia.