CHAPTER III.
ABRAHAM—THE FATHER OF THE FAITHFUL.
The people who lived four thousand years ago were very much like children who easily forget. They told their children about the great flood, but nearly all forgot to tell them of the good God who is the Father of us all, whom we should always love and obey. Yet there is always one, if not more, who remembers God, and keeps his name alive in the world.
Abram had tried to do right, though there was no Bible in the world then, and no one better than himself to help him but God, and one day He called Abram, and told him to go away from his father's house into another country.
"A land that I will show thee," said the Lord, "and I will make of thee a great nation."
He also made Abram a wonderful promise,—
"In thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed."
He meant that sometime the Savior should be born among Abram's children's children, and that He should be the Savior of all the nations of the earth.
Abram did just what God told him to do. He took Sarai, his wife, and Lot, his nephew, and some servants, and cows, and sheep, and camels, and asses, and went into the land of Canaan. When they rested at night Abram and Lot set some sticks in the ground, and covered them with skins for a tent, and near by they made an altar, where Abram offered a sacrifice, for that was the only way they could worship God when the earth was young.