weakened rather than strengthened by attempts to define it. All
definitions of an ultimate principle are vain, since everybody
understands what is meant by it.

No truly immortal man, no great benefactor, can go through life without
trials and temptations, either to test his faith or to establish his
integrity. Even Jesus Christ himself was subjected for forty days to
the snares of the Devil. Abram was no exception to this moral
discipline. He had two great trials to pass through before he could earn
the title of "father of the faithful,"--first, in reference to the
promise that he should have legitimate children; and secondly, in
reference to the sacrifice of Isaac.

As to the first, it seemed impossible that Abram should have issue
through his wife Sarah, she being ninety years of age, and he
ninety-nine or one hundred. The very idea of so strange a thing caused
Sarah to laugh incredulously, and it is recorded in the seventeenth
chapter of Genesis that Abram also fell on his face and laughed, saying
in his heart, "Shall a son be born unto him that is one hundred years
old?" Evidently he at first received the promise with some incredulity.
He could leave Ur of the Chaldees by divine command,--this was an act of
obedience; but he did not fully believe in what seemed to be against
natural law, which would be a sort of faith without evidence, blind,
against reason. He requires some sign from God. "Whereby," said he,
"shall I _know_ that I shall inherit it,"--that is Canaan,--"and that my
seed shall be in number as the stars of heaven?" Then followed the
renewal of the covenant; and, according to the frequent custom of the
times, when covenants were made between individual men, Abram took a new
name: "And God talked with him, saying, As for me, behold my covenant
is with thee, and thou shalt be a father of many nations. Neither shall