times. Indeed, we are compelled now to recognize that in many respects the explanation is faulty.1 For the purposes of this meditation, however, we shall dwell on its religious rather than its scientific aspects. The story is told us in the book of Genesis by the same writer who penned for us the story of Lamech, and to his mind it taught the same lesson, viz:-that knowledge is dangerous, and should not be sought, even if it be knowledge of God. The element of truth in this position we have already recognized and appreciated. Knowledge without moral purpose is irreverent and wicked. When curiosity outruns spiritual insight and selfishness dominates the man, superior knowledge makes of him a superior demon. 2 Another aspect of this story of Babel should also claim attention. Its author has pathetically pictured an incident in the universal search of man for God. Laboriously 1 For example, there were different languages in the world long before the date he mentions, and long before men were civilized in Babylonia. His etymology of " Babel", too, is now known to be erroneous. See Ryle's, Early Narratives of Genesis p. 137 ff., and Worcester's Genesis in the Light of Modern Knowledge,p. 512 ff. 2 See above, ch. xvii. erected towers, weary pilgrimages, the distance of which is measured off by repeatedly stretching the length of the pilgrim upon the ground, forms crushed under the car of Juggernaut, and eager saints, standing in filth for years on the top of lofty pillars, attest the reality of the cry of the human heart: "Oh, that I knew where I might find Him!" This aspect of the story of Babel, which is voiced in so much of the Old Testament, and rings so pathetically through the book of Job, is only adequately met and satisfied when we come to the New Testament and hear its message. There we are taught that man is not engaged in a fruitless quest for a God who ever escapes him, but that God is as eagerly seeking man as man is seeking God. This truth is expressed in many parables that of the woman seeking her lost coin; that of the shepherd seeking the straying sheep; that of the father watching for the prodigal son. God has been engaged in the search much longer than man; His Spirit broods over each heart seeking an entrance into it. Man has missed Him because he sought Him wrongly. No one has to ascend up into heaven to bring Him down, nor to descend into the deep to bring Him up, nor destroy the body with ascetic excesses to discover Him, nor to compass the secrets of the universe to gain knowledge of Him. "Raise the stone and there thou shalt find me, cleave the wood and there am I," says Jesus in the long-forgotten verse recently recovered in Egypt.1 But we learn the lesson slowly. God comes to us in common things. He reveals himself in familiar faces, in the daily routine of life, in its little details, in its prosaic drudgery, in its little joys, and even in its sorrows. The still small voice of His Spirit speaks, and wherever one will listen, will bid Him welcome and will heed His voice, there God is found. Not the supreme effort of a Babellike tower, but the silent surrender of the life to God, is the one requisite. "Where meek souls will receive Him still, His presence is manifested in the fact that there the confusion of Babel is replaced by harmony, love, and a heavenly peace. 1 See Greenfell and Hunt's Sayings of our Lord, p. 12. CHAPTER XXII. THE CALL OF ABRAHAM. "By faith Abraham, when he was called out, not knowing whither he went went for he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God." Heb. xi, 8, 10. "Our Friend, our Brother, and our Lord, Nor name, nor form, nor ritual word, - Whittier. THE narratives of the life of Abraham are somewhat puzzling to the archeologist and the historical student. The reason for this is that while Ur of the Chaldees has been identified, and some discoveries made there, and while many documents have been found which bear upon the general period of Abraham, these documents not only do not mention Abraham himself, but raise some knotty questions concerning the historical period in which the Bible places him. Others1 have discussed these problems For discussions of these see the articles " Abraham" in Hasting's Dictionary of the Bible, the Encyclopedia Biblica, and the Jewish Encyclopedia. Also ch. iii, of Paton's Early History of Syria and Palestine. however, and in this little study we turn to a pleasanter task. No narrative in the Old Testament more strongly portrays in parable the high qualities and noble career of the idealist and the spiritual mystic than does this story of Abraham. He saw the vision of God, he heard the divine call to leave the rich valley of the Euphrates for a far-off land, and he obeyed. In that land he was a wanderer; for years the hope with which he started out, -the hope of founding an ideal state,—found in the outward circumstances of his life no objective support. Nevertheless he still held his faith, and pursued undaunted his high purpose. This picture is attractively presented, notwithstanding the fact, that there is here and there a crude moral touch, which partakes of the nature of the age in which the narrators of the story lived.1 The call of God comes to all. To the heart which has not yet found God, and which is tempted to live in accordance with the ideals of selfishness and expediency, the 1 Such, for example, as Abraham's denial of Sarah. Gen. xii, 12, 13, and xx, 2. |