IN the earlier chapters of Genesis our attention is attracted to Abram when he is told, "Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will shew thee." In those days families lived together, perhaps occupying large areas and tending their flocks side by side. Abram's spiritual intuition, or ability to listen for God's voice and obey its bidding, seems always to have been keen ; and so we first find him as one who, though devoted to his family, is willing to leave the country which has been his home and to go on a strange journey into unknown lands in obedience to divine directing.
The faith, humility, and love for spiritual things revealed in the simple statement that "Abram departed, as the Lord had spoken unto him," bring to us who are living in these later centuries a definite message of inspiration and admonition. That which led Abram forth into a strange and unknown country could not have been merely the desire to establish a nation of mortals which would exalt the earthly name of Abram. It was really the wish to separate spiritual thought from material belief. As the one to whom, in that age, had been revealed most clearly the truth that God is Spirit, he saw the necessity of establishing, apart from family custom and tradition, that which recognized God as first, as the one and only power.
During his long years of wandering, we find Abram frequently building "an altar unto the Lord." As his power and wealth increased, he was always using this primitive method of acknowledging God as the source of all that blessed him and his household. And the enemies of his household were, perhaps, very much like the enemies which to-day in more modern guise present themselves for lodgment in our own consciousness, the overcoming of which may give us, as it gave Abram, some realization of how unfailing is the protection of the Most High for those who obey.
