His was a practical faith--a real and
complete venture, and it involved gratitude and loyalty and love.
Abraham's childhood had been spent in the home of an idolatrous father;
for Shemite as well as Aryan had departed from the worship of the true
God. In Chaldea, as in India, men had come to worship the sun and moon
and the forces of nature. But while the Hindu wandered ever farther away
from Jehovah, Abraham restored the faith which his ancestors had lost.
He had no recourse to Indra or Varuna, he sought no help from devas or
departed spirits. He looked to God alone, for he had heard a voice
saying, "I am the Almighty God, walk before me and be thou
perfect."[220] Under the inspiration of such a summons Abraham became
"the father of the faithful." He was the representative and exemplar of
real and practical faith, not only to the Hebrew race but to all
mankind. He staked his all upon a promise which he regarded as divine
and therefore sure. He believed in the Lord and He counted it to him for
righteousness. He left home and country and ventured among hostile
tribes in an assured confidence that he should gain a possession, though
empty-handed, and a countless posterity, though yet childless, and that
all this would be granted him not for his own glory, but that all
nations might be blest in him. And this subordination of self and this
uplifting of his soul to a sublime hope rendered him patient when
fulfilment seemed postponed, and strong against temptation when spoils
and emoluments were offered him; for in some sense, vague perhaps, he
foresaw a Messiah and a Kingdom of Righteousness, and he was girded with
confidence to the last, though he died without the sight.

We look in vain for anything to be compared with this in the Vedic
literature, still less in that of the period of Brahmanical
sacerdotalism, or in the still later speculations of the philosophic
schools. Real Hinduism is wanting in the element of trust. Its only
faith is a belief, a theory, a speculation. It receives nothing and
expects nothing as a free gift of God. Sacrificial rites survived in the
early Vedic period, but they had lost all prophetic significance. They
terminated in themselves and rested upon their own value. There was no
remembered promise and no expectation of any specific fulfilment. The
Hindu gained simply what he bought with his merit or his offerings, and
he had no greater sense of gratitude to deity than to the tradesman of
whom h