ABRAHAM THE FAITHFUL

LUCIA C. COULSON

There are some things about the character of Abraham that are so remarkable that when remembering the age in which he lived, one finds himself marveling at his clarity of thought and desire. He was evidently a rich chieftain of the East, with great possessions. All the world had to offer must have been his, and yet the fervent, irresistible—one might say the compelling—motive of his life was to gain the right idea of God. He was not sick like Job, nor a homeless wanderer like Jacob, nor a prisoner like Joseph; but his longing to find God and worship Him aright was greater than that of these three. No wonder that to him was revealed the tremendous fact of monotheism, the truth that there is only one God.

At God's command, which was in response to the longing for Truth in the very depths of his being, he left his country and his kindred. As it says in Hebrews (11:8, 10), "He went out, not knowing whither he went," but "looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God." This sublime trust and faithful obedience is epitomized by Mary Baker Eddy in her definition of Abraham in the Glossary of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," which reads (p. 579): "Fidelity; faith in the divine Life and in the eternal Principle of being. This patriarch illustrated the purpose of Love to create trust in good, and showed the life-preserving power of spiritual understanding."

To Abraham nothing was too wonderful for God to do. "Is any thing too hard for the Lord?" (Gen. 18:14.) In reading the story of this patriarch and translating it metaphysically we must remember that when it says that God said this or commanded that, it was in Abraham's own consciousness that these thoughts and ideas of God were unfolding. He talked with God, we are told. This enabled him to be the one to end the practice of human sacrifice, then prevalent, but never practiced by the seed or offspring of Abraham. His supreme devotion to God made him willing to sacrifice his only son and even to go so far as to plan it all. At the last moment, however, the angel of the Lord, the right idea of worship, spoke to his consciousness and enlightened him. His intelligent thinking and his concept of God as Love showed him that such a deed could not be the will of God, the perfect God he knew.

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