SUNDAY READING.

Taranaki Daily News, 3 February 1923, Page 9

SUNDAY READING.

BIBLE CHARACTERS, NO. IL—'ABRAHAM THE PIONEER. “Now the Lord said unto Abraham, let, thee out of thy country and from thy kindred and from thy father’s house, unio the land that 1 will show thee.” —Genesis, XII. 1. (By Rev. A. H. Collins, New Plymouth.) The first Jew was a Gentile. The first Hebrew was a heathen. The man who attained to the distinction of being called “the Father of the Faithful.” and the greater honor of being known as “the friend of God,” opened his eyes amid pagan scenes and was the /on of Idolitors. . The call of Abraham marks the opening of a new chapter in the story of the race, a chapter of absorbing interest. The influence of this man has been almost boundless. Ail succeeding generations have been affected by Abraham, as rivers are tinged by the strata through which they flow. He is a commanding figure to Jew and Mussulman and Christian, yet when we search for the sources of his power, where do they lie? His name is not associated with territorial possessions. He gave no fresh impulse to arts and

sciences. He init : ated no new l-gis’a tion and performed no military exploits yet of all the millions who have orc

ed the stage of action this man stands out a memorable figure, and the reason lies in his religious faith.

THE GREATEST OF ALL TRUTH.

Bom in a heathen land, the chieftain of a wandering tribe, familiar from childhood with the worship of sun, j moon and stars, it is to Abraham the j world owes its knowledge of the greatest of all truth, the unity, the personality, and the holiness of God, and he ave his life to the spread of this monotheism. In a word, it is the religious element in Abraham’s character that gives permanent value to his history and insures for him an everlasting renown. Further, this has to be noted, j With the com.rg of Abraham there appears a new element in religion. The confusion of Babel and the scattering of men was the preliminary step in the training of the race, and the call of Abraham was the next step. We claim William Carey as “the Father and Founder of Modern Missions,” but Abraham anticipated Carey by 3000 years, for Abraham was a missionary, j God is no respecter of persons. God is i for all. Hie glory -will not stay at home. Inclusion, not exclusion, breadth, j not narrowness, are the laws of the i Kingdom of God; and it was by the selection of a people with “a genius for religion.” and by their training. God prepared the world for the coming of Christ as Saviour of the world. Genesis is the porch to th? Temple of which the’ Gospels are the Holy Place. It was of the seed of Abr. ham Christ was born. That is the truth at the heart of Galvanism, with its doctrine of election. God called, and dowered a nation with x knowledge and gifts in order that through that nation God’s will should be known to all the ends of the earth. ELECTION MEANS SERVICE. Election means election to service. Abraham had the light, in order to scatter it. Every true Christian is a propagandist. “God does with us, as men with | torches do, Not light them for themselves.” But no man can be estimated justly, or his character interpreted aright, •apart from a knowledge of his homelife and training. Parentage counts. Home and school are /taping hands; they give tone and direction to after years. We ,carrv z the scars of childhood to th c gritve. The problem of heredity /Appears in the life of the patriarch./ Those terrible lapses into meanness and lying, and' his temptation /o offer human sacrifice, are what the 'students of science call “a throw baclt” or “a reversion to type.” To und>erstand these blots you must know soQhething of his early days in Ur of

Chaldees. Nor is there any reason wlAy we should not know. The material is available. Ur was one of the notable cities of the Chaldeean Empire, % nd on.- of the most splendid. Its pubTc buildings were solid and costly. The arts and sciences flourished to a degree we hardly realise. Sun dials measured the hours. The stone age has passed. The iron age has come. The smith and the jeweller pursued their craft and fashioned instruments and ornaments of rare beauty, some of which are being unearthed at Luxor to-day. Astronomers ecanned the heavens. Poets wrote hymns and epics- Scribes "wrote history on clay tablets, which are preserved in our national museums. Trade flourished. Stateseraft was highly developed. War made the people’s blood jump and tingle. It was a land of romance and splendor, and was bound to make impressions on Abraham as a boy. RELIGIOUS IMPRESSIONS. • But the deepest and most enduring impressions of childhood are religious impressions, and the chief landmark in Chaldeea was its pagan temples, crowned with observatories, where the oldest astronomers in the world watched the heavenly bodies and gathered, as they believed, guidance for king and people. Priests in gorgeous drees chanted ancient liturgies, drew omens, offered sacrifices, marched in procession and presided over the courts of justice. It was in this enchanted lahd and amid these weird and fascinating scenes Abraham spent his boyhood and from which he went into a land of which he knew neither the locality nor the character. We speak of Abraham’s call. What do we mean? How came the call? Was it a voice, an impression, a presentiment, a dream? No one knows. It may have been an instinct, such as swallows feel in spring. For, after all, we know little of the laws of mind and spirit, through which the eternal mind works. Have you never said that you “felt impelled” to take a course for which you could give no other reason ? Mozart said that whenever he saw a giant mountain or a fine landscape it said, “Turn me into music, play me on the organ - .” Mendellsohn, writing to his sister, said: “This is how I feel to-day; this is what I have to say to you today,” and then followed a bar or two of music which he asked her to play. Thus thc mountains spoke to Mozart and the piano or the organ to Jane Hensel. THE VOICE OF GOD. Why should we not hear the voice of ’ God in larks and lilies, and still more in

living men? Perhaps we should if we were not so noisy and so engrossedThe author of "Painted Windows” tells how in a. Quakers’ meeting a woman eagerly besieged the Throne of Grace and implored God to manifest Himself to her spirit until at last she could find no further words of entreaty. Then she lizard a voice in her heart, saying: “Yes, I have something to say to you when you stop your shouting.” Tradition has been busy with this part of Abraham’s career and one of these traditions is worth recalling. It describes how he was dwelling in a cave, and when he left the cave he looked up and began to ask himself: \\ ho created these things? Wlien the sun rose in strength Abraham said: “This must be the maker of the universe.” •But when the sun sank he said: ‘“This {cannot be the creator.” Then the moon i appeared and Abraham said, “Surely the moon is Lord of all and thc stars are the host of his servants.” But the moon sank, the stars faded and the sun once ; more rase above the rim of the sky. I Then Abraham said: “Truly these. I heavenly bodies together could not have I created the -world; they listen to the ! unseen Ruler, to whom they owe their being. Him alone will I henceforth ■ worship." Such stories may seem like childish romancing, but they serve show an Eastern’s mind working about ! the life of one who heard the voice of i God amid gross material things and felt I rhe power of heavenly things tightening I their grip, until at last, casting prudence to the wind ho rose to follow the i Gleam. Separation from the worst, in order to ally himself to the best, became the passion of his life.

' Reflection Hpened into resolve. “Abraham obey«r'God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness ” But where i lay the virtue of this action? For taken by itself there was nothing very remarkable in the journey Abraham took. It -was a restless and migratory period. The Semetic nation were seeking new fields for thoir energies. There wore other pilgrims from the Euphrates ‘to Canaan, and. even though Terah’s son blazed the track, the journey he took was not so formidable and he had camp followers, an.l the promise of land, and children and renown. THE MORAL AUDACITY. New Zealand holds the dust of men who took a longer journey, involving graver risks and with no such promise as this man received. If wc praise the hardihood, thc endurance, the sacrifice, we shall praise the wrong things. The Bible says nothing of these. The quality it extolls is faith, the obedience, thc moral audacity of Abraham. What he did was not done under the impulse of adventure or g-in, but under conviction that it was (lod’s will. He stands on the edge of the 'dim past, a colossal figure, because at the call of God he turned his back on the thronging cities and glittering gain and marched out into the unknown to find a land of spiritual freedom and bless the world with a purer faith.

“He believed God.” Literally, ho built himself, on the Almighty as a house rests on firm foundations. He leaned on God as weakness loans on strengthills life was colored and ruled by the <• mmandments, the statues, the laws of the Most High. Faith is an act of courage. Faith is “betting your life there is a God.” It ia the soul at its best.

He was a pioneer. It is a small thing foj men to cross the Atlantic in a Cunar<l liner to-day: it was quite another matter, for Columbus to take the santfe journey in a cockle shell, and find the new world which others denied. Abra-* ham sailed stormy seas, weltering, mist wrapped, danger sown, with no light to guide save the light of heaven, till at length he met his Pilot face to face. We plough the same waters, but with this difference: t AVe-have charts anfl nTttps and harbor lights, and we owe those to the brave soul who burst into the unknown, because he ‘“believed in God.” To change the figure we arc all pilgrims, moving on from stage to stage, through unknown ways to the far, fair Canaan of the blessed and thc holy; hut here is a man wdio has gone ahead, and he assures us ’tis a good and pleasant land, and we’ shall arrive.

NO EXPERIMENT.

Religion is no experiment. Behind every promise of God stands the funded experience of generations of godly souls, who trusted .and were not confounded. But Abraham was a pioneer, and pioneering is trying work that calls for moral grit- Abraham not only led the way to new lands; he did. the more dangerous thing of leading the way to new conceptions of God and religion. The man who docs that takes risks. He will be called heretic; he will be shunned and maligned. The priests of Ur of the Chaldees thought Abraham dangerous and predicted disaster, and the modern priest will do the same for any man who dares do a bit of independent thinking. They will call you “unsound.” Don’t .fear a little thing like that. The greatest souls in the world have worn that badge, and you need not fear to walk in such high company. “With such ae they, wherever they stay May we be saved or lost.” We have to deny some things to the glory of God. We have .to disbelieve some things in order to be Christians at all. Now the sum of all I have been saying is this: The elements of r-eai greatness are the same from age to age. The primal duties of man do not vary from one generation to another. What we admire in Abraham'is due from us; Hie same loyalty to conscience; thc same obedience to the voice of God; the same surrender to Hi? holy will. The call of Jesus Christ is almost identical with the call addressed to Abraham. “Follow me,” says Christ, follow me here and now. And He says that when we feel the down drag of gross material things and when wp are tempted to sacrifice the eternal to the temporal, the’spiritual to Ihe sensual, and the treasures of heaven for the baubles of time. John Oxenham puts it well: Each man is Captain of his Soul, And each man his own Crew, But the Pilot knows the Unknown Seas, ?*nd He will bring us through. We break new seas to-day— Our eager keels quest unaccustomed waters, And, from the vast uncharted, waste in front, Thc mystic circles leap To greet our prows with mightiest possibilities. • Bringing us—What? Dread shoals and shifting bahks? And calms and storms? And clouds and biting gales? And wreck and 10-s? And valiant fighting times? And mavbe, death! —and so, the Larger Life! For. should the Pilot deem it best. To cut the voyage short, Ke sees 'beyond the sky-line, and He’ll bring us into p ort!