of our lessons, 'Here a little, there a little,' which our teacher
gives His slow scholars. So, once more, Abram gets the promise of
posterity in still more glorious form. Before, it was likened to the
dust of the earth; now it is as the innumerable stars shining in the
clear Eastern heaven. As he gazes up into the solemn depths, the
immensity and peace of the steadfast sky seems to help him to rise
above the narrow limits and changefulness of earth, and a great
trust floods his soul. Abram had lived by faith ever since he left
Haran; but the historian, usually so silent about the thoughts of
his characters, breaks through his usual manner of narrative to
insert the all-important words which mark an epoch in revelation,
and are, in some aspects, the most significant in the Old Testament.
Abram 'believed in the Lord; and He counted it to him for
righteousness.'

Observe the teaching as to the nature and object of faith in that
first clause. The word rendered 'believed' literally means to steady
oneself by leaning on something. So it gives in a vivid picture more
instructive than many a long treatise what faith is, and what it
does for us. As a man leans his trembling hand on a staff, so we lay
our weak and changeful selves on God's strength; and as the most
mutable thing is steadied by being fastened to a fixed point, so we,
though in ourselves light as thistledown, may be steadfast as rock,
if we are bound to the rock of ages by the living band of faith. The
metaphor makes it plain that faith cannot be merely an intellectual
act of assent, but must include a moral act, that of confidence.
Belief as credence is mainly an affair of the head, but belief as
trust is an act of the will and the affections.

The object of faith is set in sunlight clearness by these words,--the