But with all our ignorance of those ancient times. there is another fact we know about the call that came to Abraham. It~ came as a great promise. It founded itself on two pillars of his spiritual nature, his hope as well as his faith. Religion cupied the mind of Abraham not as a drab destiny to which he must surrender all his powers: it was warmed and coloured by his expectations of the issue: it was gladdened by the promise of God. Faith holds fast in the cloudy day and keeps us marching, but hope rejoices in glimpses of blue. that make the fect more buoyant. If the famous nomad's march were set to music it would have marked "allegro."" Religion whispered to him of a_ rich, abundant future, pictured fulness and harvest, reunion and satisfaction. Something better than had yet been was on the say becatise God's will was the secret of history.
The Christian Chutch is not its true self without hope, but that which is seen or calculated is not hope. A correspondent was late ly vexing himself because the Church does not accept a dating of the future. Confessing himself an atheist, he declares that the Christian documents commit the Church to such calculations. This is to confuse prediction with promise. The promise is ours with its call to hope, but the prediction with its assumption of knowledge is emphatically not for "Here faith is ours and heavenly hope, And grace to lead us higher."
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.