oice out of
heaven telling her not to be afraid.

[Illustration: Hagar in the desert]

"Arise, lift up the lad," said the voice, "for I will make him a great
nation."

And God opened her eyes to see a well of water near. Then she filled
the empty bottle, and gave the boy a drink, and God took good care of
them ever after, though they lived in a wilderness.

Ishmael grew up to be an archer, and became the father of the Arabs,
who still live in tents as Ishmael did.

But the Lord let a strange trial come to the little lad Isaac, also.
His father loved and obeyed God, but there were heathen people around
them, who worshipped idols, and sometimes killed their own children as
a sacrifice to these idols. Abraham brought the best of his lambs and
cattle to offer to the Lord; but one day the Lord told Abraham to take
his only son Isaac and offer him upon a mountain called Moriah as a
burnt sacrifice to God. Abraham had always obeyed God, and believed
his word, and now, though he could not understand, he rose up early in
the morning and took his young son, with two servants, and an ass
loaded with wood, to the place of which God had told him.

They were three days on the journey, but at last they came to the high
place, where the city of Jerusalem was afterward built, and to the very
rock upon which the temple was built long afterward, with its great
altar and Holy of Holies.

[Illustration: On Mount Moriah]

Abraham had left the young men at the foot of the mount, and went with
Isaac to the great rock on the top of the mount.

"My father," said Isaac, "where is the lamb for a burnt offering?"

"My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering," said
his father, still obeying God, and believing His word, that Isaac
should be the father of many nations.

Abraham made an altar of stones, and bound Isaac and laid him upon it,
but when his hand was lifted to offer up the boy, the Lord called to
him from heaven. "Lay not thine hand upon the lad," said the voice,
"for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld
thine only son from me."

Then Abraham turned and saw a ram with its twisted horns caught in the
bushes, and he offered it to the Lord instead of his son. How glad and
grateful Abraham must have been that morning, when he came down the
mountain, with Isaac walking beside him, to think that he had still
obeyed God when it was hard to do so.

Abraham was an old man when Sarah