ourselves up to God, fully and wholly.

In Colorado the superintendent of some works told me of a miner that was promoted, who came to the superintendent, and said:

“There is a man that has seven children, and I have only three, and he is having a hard struggle. Don’t promote me, but promote him.”

I know of nothing that speaks louder for Christ and Christianity than to see a man or woman giving up what they call their rights for others, and “in honor preferring one another.”

We find that Abram was constantly surrendering his own selfish interests and trusting to God. What was the result? Of all the men that ever lived he is the most renowned. He never did anything the world would call great. The largest army he ever mustered was three hundred and eighteen men. How Alexander would have sneered at such an army as that! How Cæsar would have looked down on such an army! How Napoleon would have curled his lip as he thought of Abram with an army of three hundred and eighteen! We are not told that he was a great astronomer; we are not told that he was a great scientist; we are not told that he was a great statesman, or anything the world calls great; but there was one thing he could do—he could live an unselfish life, and in honor could waive his rights, and in that way he became the friend of God; in that way he has become immortal. There is

NO NAME IN HISTORY

so well known as the name of Abram. Even Christ is not more widely known, for the Mohammedans, the Persians, and the Egyptians make a great deal of Abram. His name has been for centuries and centuries favorably known in Damascus. God promised him that great men, and warriors, and kings, and emperors, should spring from his loins. Was there ever a nation that has turned out such men? Think of Moses, and Joseph, and Joshua, and Caleb, and Samuel, and David, and Solomon, and Elisha. Think of Elijah, and Daniel, and Isaiah, and all the other wonderful Bible characters that have sprung from this man! Then think of Peter, of James, and John, and Paul, and John the Baptist, a mighty army. No man can number the multitude of wonderful men that have sprung from this one man called out of the land of the Chaldeans, unknown and an idolater, probably, when God called him; and yet how literally God has fulfiled His promise that through him He would bless all the nations of the earth. All because he surrendered himself fully and wholly to let God bless him.

IV

The last surrender is perhaps the most touching and the hardest of all to understand. Perhaps he could not have borne it until the evening of life. God had been taking him along, step by step, until now he had reached a place where he had learned to obey fully whatever God told him to do. I believe the world has yet to see what God will do with the man who is perfectly surrendered. Next to God’s own Son, Abraham was perhaps the man who came nearest to this standard.

FOR TWENTY-FIVE YEARS

Abraham had been in the Promised Land without the promised heir. God had promised that He would bless all the nations of the earth through him, and yet He did not give him a son. Abraham’s faith almost staggered a number of times. Ishmael was born, but God set aside the son of the bondwoman, for he was not to be the ancestor of the Son of God. God was setting Abram apart simply that He might prepare the way for His own Son, and now, at last, a messenger comes down from heaven to Hebron, and tells Abraham in his old age that he should have a son.

It seemed too good to be true. He had hard work to believe it; but at the appointed time Isaac was born into that family. I don’t believe there was ever a child born into the world that caused so much joy in the home as in Abraham’s heart and home. How Abraham and that old mother, Sarah, must have doted on that child! How their eyes feasted on him!

But just when the lad was growing up into manhood Abraham received another very strange command, and there was another surrender—his only son. Perhaps he was making an idol of that boy, and thought more of him than he did of the God that gave him. There must be no idol in the heart if we are going to do the will of God on earth.

I can imagine that one night the old patriarch retired worn out and weary. The boy had gone fast to sleep, when suddenly a heavenly messenger came and told him that he must take that boy off on to a mountain that God was to show him, and offer him up as a sacrifice. No more sleep that night! If you had looked into that tent the next morning I can imagine that you would have seen the servants flying round and making preparations for the master’s taking a long journey. He perhaps keeps the secret locked up in his heart, and he doesn’t tell even Sarah or Isaac. He doesn’t tell the servants, even the faithful servant Eliezer, what is to take place. About nine o’clock you might have seen those four men—Abraham, Isaac and the two young men with them—start off on the long journey. Once in a while Abraham turns his head aside and wipes away the tear. He doesn’t want Isaac to see what a terrible struggle is going on within. It is a hard battle to give up his will and to surrender that boy, the idol of his life. Oh, how he loved him!

I can imagine the first night. The boy soon falls asleep, tired and weary with the hot day’s journey, but the old man doesn’t sleep. I can see him look into the face of the innocent boy, and say:

“Soon my boy will be gone, and I will be returning without him.”

Perhaps most of the night his voice could have been heard in prayer, as he cries to God to help him; and as God had helped him in the past so God was helping him that night.

The next day they journeyed on, and again a terrible conflict goes on. Again he brushes away the tear. Perhaps Isaac sees it, and says:

“Father is going away to meet his God, and the angels may come down and talk with him as at Hebron. That is what he is so agitated about.”

The second night comes, and the old man looks into that face every hour of the night. He sleeps a little, but not much, and the next morning at family worship he breaks down. He cannot finish his prayer.

They journey on that day—it is a long day—and the old patriarch say: “This is the last day I am to have my boy with me. To-morrow I must offer him up; to-morrow I shall be without the son of my bosom.”

The third night comes, and what a night it must have been! I can imagine he didn’t eat or sleep that night. Nothing is going to break his fast, and every hour of the night he goes to look into the face of that boy, and once in a while he bends over and kisses him, and he says:

“O Isaac, how can I give thee up?”

Morning breaks. What a morning it must have been for that father! He doesn’t eat; he tries to pray, but his voice falters. After breakfast they start on their journey again. He has not gone a great way before he lifts up his eyes, and yonder is Mount Moriah. His heart begins to beat quickly. He says to the two young men:

“You stay here, and I will go yonder with my son.”

Then, as father and son went up Mount Moriah, with the wood, and the fire, and the knife, the boy turns suddenly to the father, and says:

“Father, where is the lamb? We haven’t any offering, father.”

It was a common thing for Isaac to see his father offer up a victim, but there is no lamb now.

Did you ever think

HOW PROPHETIC THAT ANSWER WAS

when Abraham turned and said to the son, “God will provide Himself a sacrifice?” I don’t know that Abraham understood the full meaning of it, but a few hundred years