guided by his God. And he believed that in accordance with God's plan
his descendants in the land to which they had come would become a
great nation. Best of all, it seems probable that he dreamed of a
nation different from Babylonia. Certainly he is described as a
different kind of a man from the typical Babylonian. In some respects,
to be sure, judging by our Christian standards, he had serious
shortcomings. He did not scruple to deceive a foreigner, nor to treat
harshly a slave. His ideas as to the character of God were far below
those revealed by Christ. Yet he had the Hebrew gift for home and
family life. He was a good father to his son. And he put a higher
value on personal friendship and kindly family relations than on
property interests. When his herdsmen quarreled with those of his
nephew, Lot, he said to the latter with dignified generosity and
common sense, "Let there be no strife, I pray thee, between me and
thee ... for we are brethren. Is not the whole land before thee?
Separate thyself, I pray thee, from me: if thou wilt take the left
hand, then I will go to the right; or if thou take the right hand,
then I will go to the left." Just what Abraham looked forward to, we,
of course, do not know. Probably his ideas were vague. Yet it seems
that such men as he must have dreamed of a nation great in faith as
well as in material wealth; a nation in which money would not be
considered more important than justice and kindness; in which home
life might be sweet and loving, free from the fear of want or the
blighting influence of greed; and in which the door of opportunity
would always be kept open even for the humblest.

At any rate, some centuries after the time when Abraham is supposed to
have lived, we find a group of shepherd tribes living in and around
Canaan, who believed themselves to be descended from the twelve sons
of Jacob, Abraham's grandson, and among whom there was the tradition