promise that all the land is his, squabble with his kinsman about
pasture and wells? The herdsmen naturally would come to high words
and blows, especially as the available land was diminished by the
claims of the 'Canaanite and Perizzite.' But the direct effect of
Abram's faith was to make him feel that the matter in dispute was
too small to warrant a quarrel. A soul truly living in the
contemplation of the future, and filled with God's promises, will
never be eager to insist on its rights, or to stand on its dignity,
and will take too accurate a measure of the worth of things temporal
to get into a heat about them. The clash of conflicting interests,
and the bad blood bred by them, seem infinitely small, when we are
up on the height of communion with God. An acre or two more or less
of grass land does not look all-important, when our vision of the
city which hath foundations is clear. So an elevated calm and 'sweet
reasonableness' will mark the man who truly lives by faith, and he
will seek after the things that make for peace. Abram could fight,
as Old Testament morality permitted, when occasion arose, as Lot
found out to his advantage before long. But he would not strive
about such trifles.

May we not venture to apply his words to churches and sects? They
too, if they have faith strong and dominant, will not easily fall
out with one another about intrusions on each other's territory,
especially in the presence, as at this day, of the common foe. When
the Canaanite and the Perizzite are in the land, and Unbelief in
militant forms is arrayed against us, it is more than folly, it is
sin, for brethren to be turning their weapons against each other.
The common foe should make them stand shoulder to shoulder. Abram's
faith led, too, to the noble generosity of his proposal. The elder
and superior gives the younger and inferior the right of option, and