consciousness that he was to be the progenitor of a mighty and numerous
progeny, through whom all the nations of the earth should be blessed.
How far his faith was connected with temporal prosperity we cannot tell.
Prosperity seems to have been the blessing of the Old Testament, as
adversity was the blessing of the New. But he was certain of this,--that
his descendants would possess ultimately the land of Canaan, and would
be as numerous as the stars of heaven. He was certain that in some
mysterious way there would come from his race something that would be a
blessing to mankind. Was it revealed to his exultant soul what this
blessing should be? Did this old patriarch cast a prophetic eye
beyond the ages, and see that the promise made to him was spiritual
rather than material, pertaining to the final triumph of truth and
righteousness?--that the unity of God, which he taught to Isaac and
perhaps to Ishmael, was to be upheld by his race alone among prevailing
idolatries, until the Saviour should come to reveal a new dispensation
and finally draw all men unto him? Did Abraham fully realize what a
magnificent nation the Israelites should become,--not merely the rulers
of western Asia under David and Solomon, but that even after their final
dispersion they should furnish ministers to kings, scholars to
universities, and dictators to legislative halls,--an unconquerable
race, powerful even after the vicissitudes and humiliations of four
thousand years? Did he realize fully that from his descendants should
arise the religious teachers of mankind,--not only the prophets and
sages of the Old Testament, but the apostles and martyrs of the
New,--planting in every land the seeds of the everlasting gospel, which
should finally uproot all Brahminical self-expiations, all Buddhistic
reveries, all the speculations of Greek philosophers, all the countless
forms of idolatry, polytheism, pantheism, and pharisaism on this earth,
until every knee should bow, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ
is Lord, to the glory of God the Father?