ld be no retreat, and then forbade him to lay a hand
upon the boy. To the wondering patriarch He now says in effect, "It's
all right, Abraham. I never intended that you should actually slay the
lad. I only wanted to remove him from the temple of your heart that I
might reign unchallenged there. I wanted to correct the perversion that
existed in your love. Now you may have the boy, sound and well. Take him
and go back to your tent. Now I know that thou fearest God, seeing that
thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son, from me."

Then heaven opened and a voice was heard saying to him, "By myself have
I sworn, saith the Lord, for because thou hast done this thing, and hast
not withheld thy son, thine only son: that in blessing I will bless
thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the
heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore; and thy seed shall
possess the gate of his enemies; and in thy seed shall all the nations
of the earth be blessed; because thou hast obeyed my voice."

The old man of God lifted his head to respond to the Voice, and stood
there on the mount strong and pure and grand, a man marked out by the
Lord for special treatment, a friend and favorite of the Most High. Now
he was a man wholly surrendered, a man utterly obedient, a man who
possessed nothing. He had concentrated his all in the person of his dear
son, and God had taken it from him. God could have begun out on the
margin of Abraham's life and worked inward to the center; He chose
rather to cut quickly to the heart and have it over in one sharp act of
separation. In dealing thus He practiced an economy of means and time.
It hurt cruelly, but it was effective.

I have said that Abraham possessed nothing. Yet was not this poor man
rich? Everything he had owned before was his still to enjoy: sheep,
camels, herds, and goods of every sort. He had also his wife and his
friends, and best of all he had his son Isaac safe by his side. He had
everything, but _he possessed nothing_. There is the spiritual secret.
There is the sweet theology of the heart which can be learned only in
the school of renunciation. The books on systematic theology overlook
this, but the wise will understand.

After that bitter and blessed experience I think the words "my" and
"mine" never had again the same meaning for Abraham. The sense of
possession which they connote was gone from his heart. _Things_ had been
cast out forever. They had no