ires some sign from God. "Whereby," said he,
"shall I _know_ that I shall inherit it,"--that is Canaan,--"and that my
seed shall be in number as the stars of heaven?" Then followed the
renewal of the covenant; and, according to the frequent custom of the
times, when covenants were made between individual men, Abram took a new
name: "And God talked with him, saying, As for me, behold my covenant
is with thee, and thou shalt be a father of many nations. Neither shall
thy name be any more Abram [Father of Elevation] but thy name shall be
Abraham [Father of a Multitude], for a father of many nations have I
made thee." We observe that the covenant was repeatedly renewed; in
connection with which was the rite of circumcision, which Abraham and
his posterity, and even his servants, were required scrupulously to
observe, and which it would appear he unreluctantly did observe as an
important condition of the covenant. Why this rite was so imperatively
commanded we do not know, neither can we understand why it was so
indissolubly connected with the covenant between God and Abraham. We
only know that it was piously kept, not only by Abraham himself, but by
his descendants from generation to generation, and became one of the
distinctive marks and peculiarities of the Jewish nation,--the sign of
the promise that in Abraham all the families of the earth should be
blessed,--a promise fulfilled even in the patriarchal monotheism of
Arabia, the distant tribes of which, under Mohammed, accepted the One
Supreme God.

A still more serious test of the faith of Abraham was the sacrifice of
Isaac, on whose life all his hopes naturally rested. We are told that
God "tempted," or tested, the obedient faith of Abraham, by suggesting
to him that it was his duty to sacrifice that only son as a
burnt-offering, to prove how utterly he trusted the Lord's promise; for
if Isaac were cut off, where was another legitimate heir to be found?
Abraham was then one hundred and twenty years old, and his wife was one
hundred and ten. Moreover, on principles of reason why should such a
sacrifice be demanded? It was not only apparently against reason, but
against nature, against every sacred instinct, against humanity, even an
act of cruelty,--yea, more, a crime, since it was homicide, without any
seeming necessity. Besides, everybody has a right to his own life,
unless he has forfeited it by crime against society. Isaac was a gentle,
harmless, interesting youth o