Abram had, at Bethel, another supernatural manifestation, with a direction to look all around him, north, south, east and west; "for all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed for ever." But he was childless. His tent had none of the ringing joyfulness of young voices, and he now must have felt doubly his lonelinesscut off altogether from kinsmen, his nephew, the last of them, having just removed from him. His was indeed a very strange life, invested as it was with such a mysterious atmosphere, in which he heard intelligible sounds of promise, and through which "dim obscure" he was bid to see his posterity, in the far remote future, countless in number "as the dust of the earth." No wonder if he felt in a stuof wonder and awe and hope-perhaps at times also of

por

fear.

This region at Bethel had now painful associations with it, in consequence of the difficulties about the herdsmen and the separation; and he left the place, and went with his still large body of retainers again toward the south.

Twenty-seven miles in that direction was a rich tract of table land, which is to this day famous for its beauty and fertility, and of which travellers always speak in terms of the warmest enthusiasm. It owes its greenness and richness of verdure perhaps to the high elevation; for it is twentyeight hundred feet above the level of the Mediterranean, thirty-five miles distant, a view of which it commands, with also that of Kerak, a city on the mountain-side east of the Dead Sea. The mountains of Edom are also seen as far south as Mount Hor. A wady, or broad, shallow valley indents the table land from the north, and then, turning S.S.E. and deepening and narrowing, makes place for a city which existed in Abram's time, and dated back beyond Zoan, or Tanis, in Egypt, the latter now an extent of ruins, while this city in Palestine has continued to flourish and to be a favorite as in the ancient days. The hills around it are still

famous for their grapes and wine, and are the place from which the grapes of Eshcol were taken by the spies sent by Moses, long after this, to examine the land.

The city we are speaking of is Hebron, called also Mamre, and sometimes Kirjath-arba, from its founder Arba, of the race of giants. In the days of Abram, the region was in the occupancy of three brothers, Eshcol, Aner and Mamre, with whom he entered into friendly relations, as he quietly settled down there for a temporary home. It was indeed a charming country, where his flocks could find abundance of pasturage and water, and where trees of widespread foliage offered their shade. These latter were even then considered worthy of record,' and Robinson speaks of one of the same species at this place, an oak, by which he encamped, having a trunk seven feet in diameter and a circumference of foliage of about two hundred and sixty feet.

But, while living here and enjoying the comforts of his new residence and the feeling of quiet after so many removals, the Hebrew leader was one day startled by news brought in great haste from the vale of Siddim, where, as he knew, Lot had chosen his residence.

The events of thirty-eight hundred years ago seem much like those of yesterday, as we may see in the second chapter of our book, where the present habits and acts of people in those Eastern countries bear close resemblance to what we find in the Scriptures; in both cases, the population made up of distinct tribes, with little adhesion to places; and those tribes, either singly or combined, making raids on other tribes for the pleasure of excitement or for plunder, or both, incited to it and rewarded by bardic strains or by the eyes of women. The king Chedorlaomer, whose name appears to be on the cylinder so recently discovered at Mugeyer, had formerly subdued the princes of the five towns

1 See Gen. xxvii. 17.

in Siddim, and for twelve years they had been subject to his rule. Then they rebelled, and a year afterward came that monarch with three adjunct kings, plundering the whole region from a little south of Damascus down toward Mount Hor, a distance of one hundred and eighty miles. The rebellious citizens in Siddim would assuredly have fared even worse than the others; and their chiefs, in desperation, gave battle to the conquerors. But they were defeated; the cities were plundered, and Lot and his family were carried off, destined undoubtedly for slavery.

This was the startling news brought to Abram on the plains of Mamre; and it not only roused him up, but effected in him, for the time, an entire transformation. He who had been fearful in Egypt for his life, was at once changed into a hero. He got the three chiefs at Mamre to join him; armed from his own tribe three hundred and eighteen warriors; pursued the invaders as far north as near the foot of Hermon; divided his party so as to make a night attack in two separate bands; and in the sudden alarm occasioned, and in the darkness, was victorious. The flying hosts of invaders were pursued upward toward Damascus; and then the victors, collecting the plunder that had been carried off, and the captive women and children,Lot and his family among them,-returned toward Mamre.

The whole history reads as if it might have been in our own time; as we have before us the patriarch, like a true Arab sheikh, easily fired up; and him who had lately, in Arab style, told a lie through cowardice, now made a hero under strong and generous impulse; also of the straggling flight of loosely-cohering people, leaving their plunder as they fled; and lastly the strangely-mixed nature of the Hebrew chief, as we still see it in Arab sheikhs; for Abram, who readily accepted gifts from Pharaoh, though they were the price of shame and filled with disgraceful remembrances, now, on his way back, utterly refused any part of the

recaptured goods. All were proffered to him, but with an oath seemingly uncalled for (in this too, like an Arab, for no people abound so much in oaths as they), he declared to one of the rescued kings offering them, " Iwill not take from. a thread even to a shoe [sandal] latchet. I will not take anything that is thine, lest thou shouldest say, I have made Abram rich." With regard to the booty, he allowed only that his three confederates should have their share.

On his way back he was met at Salem, near what was afterward Jerusalem, by Melchizedek, "a priest of the most high God," who presented to him refreshments and gave his blessing, and to whom he offered gifts. There is much obscurity about this man, who seems to have been, according to the custom of those times, the priest as well as the ruler of his people, and who appears to have held to a knowledge of the Most High. We shall see, when in another chapter we come to look at the religion of the Egyptians, that the idea of a Supreme Being was not quite lost, though often designedly mixed up with fables and purposely hid from the multitudes. It must have been cheering to the Hebrew stranger in Canaan to meet such a recognition of his faith in this isolated case, and he gave to Melchizedek "tithes of all."

He himself returned to his tents at Hebron, and continued on in his quiet pastoral life. His circumstances were flourishing, his flocks increasing, his own people and his neighbors kind; the late warlike events had given him a high position for bravery and energy in action, and for sound practical sense. He was respected and loved; but still there was a canker at his heart. He was childless. Very strange to him, in such a condition of life, sounded all those divine assurances of future greatness and wealth to his posterity; for many years had passed over his childless. home, and he and his wife were already becoming old. The strangeness of the mysteries about him made him sensitive

and anxious and restless; the questions put by others respecting his expectations and the divine manifestations must still have greatly perplexed him; he was perplexed even by the divine assurances; and now, when another of them came to him, "Fear not, Abram; I am thy shield and thy exceeding great reward," his perplexity took words and spoke out in anxious inquiries. In return he was bid to go out of his tent-it was at night-and look up: "Tell the stars, if thou be able to number them; so shall thy seed be." He bowed his head humbly and meekly; it was the divine word; he believed the Lord; and it was "counted to him. for righteousness." Simple as a child he was, this man, just so bold in battle, so manly in his bearing after the victory, so strong in all practical sense, yet when God spake to him, simple and full of trust. The extreme singleness of his life in this matter of trust in God is his high claim to greatness, and fully entitles him to the title he still bears all over that country, "El Khalil," the friend of God. As we look at that singleness, we do not wonder at the distinction put upon him by the Deity, who had through him the greatest of purposes to accomplish.

We are to record now an event which may have given rise to a custom generally prevalent afterward among the Gentiles as well as Jews, or which more probably was in accordance with the custom already existing, and which had a powerful significance. This custom, as we find it in the ancient authors, was, when a covenant was to be made, for the contracting parties to procure an animal for sacrifice; to separate it longitudinally exactly into halves; to place them opposite to each other; and for the contracting parties to pass between them, either meeting in the middle, and there confirming the contract, or doing so immediately afterward. It was the most solemn form of contracting, and had significance not only from the shedding of blood, but from the cutting in two of the body, as if meaning that the