"In thee shall all families of the earth be blessed."--_Genesis 12:3._
WHEN Noah's grandchildren and great-grandchildren came to be more and
more, and the world was being filled with people again, they still were
not all good, and the longer time went on the worse they grew.
At last God called to a very good man, whose name was Abram, and told
him that if he would come away from his home to a land God would show
him, then God would bless him and lead him, and by-and-by give the land
to his children, and that their children after them should be more in
number than the grains of sand on the sea-shore, or than the stars
in the sky: and that in his seed--that was, in a Son of his--all the
nations of the earth should be blessed.
It was strange to hear all this about Abram's children, for he was
growing old, and he and his wife Sarai had no children at all. But he
believed in God. He knew that God is Almighty, and can do whatever
He will; so he only did just as God told him, and went away from his
home, where God told him. He was obliged to take all his cattle with
him--quantities of cows, and goats, and sheep, and camels; and he had
many servants to drive them.
[Illustration: ABRAM SEES THE PROMISED LAND.--Gen. 12:3-7.]
When they came to a piece of grass and a fresh spring of water, there
they would stop. They had no houses--only tents, which were great
curtains woven of goat's hair and fastened up with poles, so that they
could be set up or taken down, and carried about. All his life Abram
lived in a tent, instead of staying at home in a city, and being at his
ease.
By-and-by he came to a beautiful country. There were high hills rising
up, and green valleys between, full of grass for the sheep and cattle;
and the wide sea spread out far away towards the sunset, all blue and
glorious. God told him to look at the land, for that was the place
which his children should have for their own; but in the meantime Abram
had not one bit of it, and was a stranger there; and he had no child
either.
[Illustration: MELCHIZEDEK BLESSING ABRAM.--Gen. 14:18, 19, 20.]
But still he was quite sure that God spoke truth; and that somehow,
though he did not know how, it would come about that his children
should have the land, and that in One all the nations of the earth
should be blessed. That was faith.