ged most beautifully the message which
we have come to love, as the Mizpah message: "The Lord watch between
thee and me while we are absent one from the other." We have
absolutely transformed and glorified the message. It was once the
calling down of the wrath of Jehovah upon one or other of two herdsmen
if either of them should fail to comply with the agreement to remain
within his own boundary. These men whose herdsmen were constantly
stealing each other's cattle agreed to separate because they could not
live in unity. They set up a heap of unhewn stone, and called upon God
to guard and to see that neither of them passed beyond the boundary of
the other. What was once a threat between warring herdsmen has become
a binding link between Christian brothers. No longer do we call upon
the Lord to guard in our absence lest our enemy encroach upon our
domain. Now we call upon him to bind our hearts together so that
neither time nor circumstance can bring division between us. The
menace of a herdsman's wrath has become one of the tenderest messages
of Christian love.

In the light of the principles stated above, what is the essential
truth that lies back of the earliest chapters of Genesis? First, that
there is one God. Slowly it had been borne in upon the Hebrew mind as
upon no other tribe in the world that the Lord God is one God. Nearly
all the world besides believed in many gods. Each nation had a God
peculiarly its own, each city had a minor god caring for it
particularly. There were gods of the woods, gods of the oceans, gods
of the streams. Gods and goddesses were everywhere. To this people
wandering through the terrible monotony of the sandy desert, the
"Garden of Allah," there came the inspired comprehension of the
eternal oneness of Almighty God. First, he was to most of them the God
of the Hebrew, stronger than the gods of the nations. After a while
under the teaching of prophet after prophet there finally came to the
entire nation the exalted conception that God is one and there is no
other God. This is one of the imperishable revelations of all time.
Beside this, all suggestions of fifth or sixth day, of hours or of
ages are absolutely insignificant. These are but the clothing of the
idea which makes it acceptable to its time. This clothing must change
with every age if it would reach thoroughly the minds of the age.
Underneath and forever lies the glorious truth that the Lord God is
one God.

The second truth