divine voice leading him thither. We do not hear that he builded any
altar beside his tent there, as he had done in the happier days of
life by trust. His stay resulted in peril and in something very like
lying, for which he had to bear the disgrace of being rebuked by an
idolater, and having no word of excuse to offer. The great lesson of
the whole section, and indeed of Abram's whole life, receives fresh
illustration from the story thus understood, which preaches loudly
that trust is safety and wellbeing, and that it is always sin and
always folly to leave Canaan, where God has put us, even if there be
a famine, and to go down into Egypt, even if its harvests be
abundant.

But another lesson is also taught. After the interruption of the
Egyptian journey, Abram had to begin all his Canaan life over again.
Very emphatically the narrative puts it, that he went to 'the place
where his tent had been at the beginning,' to the altar which he had
made at the first. Yes! that is the only place for a man who has
faltered and gone aside from the course of obedience. He must begin
over again. The backsliding Christian has to resort anew to the
place of the penitent, and to come to Christ, as he did at first for
pardon. It is a solemn thought that years of obedience and heroisms
of self-surrender, may be so annihilated by some act of self-seeking
distrust that the whole career has, as it were, to be begun anew
from the very starting-point. It is a blessed thought that, however
far and long we may have wandered, we can always return to the place
where we were at the beginning, and there call on the name of the
Lord.

Note how we are taught here the great truth for the Old Testament,
that outward prosperity follows most surely those who do not seek