account.
Yet Abraham wielded a greater influence for the future welfare of
humanity than all the princes of Babylon. For, discontented with
Babylonian life, he was the earliest pioneer in a movement toward a
civilization of a different and better type. And the sons of Hammurabi
have yet to reckon with Abraham and his ambitions.

=Discontent among the shepherds.=--Many of Abraham's people, no doubt,
were discontented in Babylonia. A shepherd's life is monotonous and
hard. When they went to market they saw comforts and luxuries on every
hand. Yet the money they received from the wool merchants of Ur gave
no promise of larger opportunities in life for any shepherd boy. So,
at length when Abraham said to them, "Come, let us leave this
country," they were ready to answer, "Lead on, and we will follow!" So
it came to pass that Abraham's clan set out northwest, toward Haran,
in what is now called Mesopotamia, and finally after some years of
migration found themselves camping on the hillsides of Canaan,
southeast of the Mediterranean Sea.

=Ideals represented in Abraham.=--But it is not as a leader of fortune
hunters that Abraham is pictured in the Bible. No doubt he and his
clansmen hoped to better their condition. But Abraham was a dreamer
and a man of deep religious faith. He believed that he was being
guided by his God. And he believed that in accordance with God's plan
his descendants in the land to which they had come would become a
great nation. Best of all, it seems probable that he dreamed of a
nation different from Babylonia. Certainly he is described as a
different kind of a man from the typical Babylonian. In some respects,
to be sure, judging by our Christian standards, he had serious
shortcomings. He did not scruple to deceive a foreigner, nor to treat
harshly a slave. His ideas as to the character of God were far below
those revealed by Christ. Yet he had the Hebrew gift for home and
family life. He was a good father to his son. And he put a higher
value on personal friendship and kindly family relations than on
property interests. When his herdsmen quarreled with those of his
nephew, Lot, he said to the latter with dignified generosity and
common sense, "Let there be no strife, I pray thee, between me and
thee ... for we are brethren. Is not the whole land before thee?
Separate thyself, I pray thee, from me: if thou wilt take the left
hand, then I will go to the right; or if thou take the right hand,
then I w