with glory, and filled
the groves with music, when Abraham came in from his wonted communion
with God, and called for Isaac, and told him to prepare for a three
days' journey in the wilderness. How tenderly was Sarah regarded in this
scene of trial! Evidently no information of the awful command to
sacrifice the son of her old age was made to her. She might have read
something fearful in the lines of anxious thought and the workings of
deep emotion in the face of Abraham. But he evaded all inquiries on the
subject, "clave the wood," and accompanied by two of his young men,
turned from his dwelling with a blessing from that wondering mother, and
was soon lost from her straining vision among the distant hills. Upon
the third day he saw the top of Mount Moriah kindling in the rising sun,
and taking Isaac alone, ascended to the summit, whereon was to be reared
an altar, which awakened more intense solicitude in heaven, than any
offering before or since, except on Calvary, where God's "only be-gotten
and well-beloved Son" was slain. There is no higher moral sublimity than
the unwavering trust and cheerful obedience of this patriarch, when the
very oath of the Almighty seemed perjured, and the bow of promise
blotted from the firmament of faith!

But he believed Jehovah, and would have clung to his assurance, though
the earth had reeled in her orbit, and every star drifted from its
moorings. He prayed for strength, with his hand on the forehead of his
submissive son.

"He rose up, and laid
The wood upon the altar. All was done,
He stood a moment--and a deep, quick flush
Passed o'er his countenance; and then he nerved
His spirit with a bitter strength, and spoke--
'Isaac! my only son'--the boy looked up,
And Abraham turned his face away, and wept.
'Where is the lamb, my father?' O, the tones,
The sweet, the thrilling music of a child!
How it doth agonize at such an hour!
It was the last, deep struggle--Abraham held
His loved, his beautiful, his only son,
And lifted up his arm, and called on God
And lo! God's angel staid him--and he fell
Upon his face and wept."

The years fled, the good old Abraham died, and Isaac succeeded him to
the patriarchal honors. He had two sons, Esau and Jacob. The elder
brother was irreligious, and married a heathen wife. God had rejected
him, and promised to Jacob the birthright; in other words, he was to be
the chief patriarch, through whose descendants the Mess