iven
in our English Bible no one could infer that in the
original every one of the eight verses in each section
begins with the letter after which it is named, thus
forming a very long acrostic.

* * * * *

In the account of the Call of Abraham given in the Book of Genesis, xii,
1-3, we are not told that his people were all idolaters; but in the Book
of Joshua, xxiv, 1-2, it is said that the great successor of Moses, when
he had "waxed old and was stricken with age," assembled the tribes of
Israel, at Shechem, and said to the people: "Your fathers dwelt on the
other side of the flood in old time, even Terah, the father of Abraham
and the father of Nachor; and they served other gods." The sacred
narrative does not state the circumstances which induced Abraham to turn
away from the worship of false deities, but the information is furnished
by the Talmudists--possibly from ancient oral tradition--in this
interesting tale of

_Abraham and the Idols._

Abraham's father Terah, who dwelt in Ur of the Chaldees, was not only an
idolater, but a maker of idols. Having occasion to go a journey of some
distance, he instructed Abraham how to conduct the business of
idol-selling during his absence. The future founder of the Hebrew
nation, however, had already obtained a knowledge of the true and living
God, and consequently held the practice of idolatry in the utmost
abhorrence. Accordingly, whenever any one came to buy an idol Abraham
inquired his age, and upon his answering, "I am fifty (or sixty) years
old," he would exclaim, "Woe to the man of fifty who would worship the
work of man's hands!" and his father's customers went away shamefaced at
the rebuke. But, not content with this mode of showing his contempt for
idolatry, Abraham resolved to bring matters to a crisis before his
father returned home; and an opportunity was presented for his purpose
one day when a woman came to Terah's house with a bowl of fine flour,
which she desired Abraham to place as a votive offering before the
idols. Instead of doing this, however, Abraham took a hammer and broke
all the idols into fragments excepting the largest, into whose hands he
then placed the hammer. On Terah's return he discovered the destruction
of his idols, and angrily demanded of Abraham, who had done the
mischief. "There came hither a woman," replied Abraham, "with a bowl of
fine flour, which, as she desired,