the King of Sodom pressed Abram to take a portion of the spoil as his reward. This, however, the latter with his usual generosity firmly declined; he would take nothing, _from a thread even to a shoelatchet_ (Gen. xiv. 23), save only a portion for his allies, the chiefs Aner, Eshcol, and Mamre, and then returned to the shade of the oak or terebinth near Hebron. CHAPTER II. _LIFE OF ABRAHAM CONTINUED._ GEN. XV.–XXV. B.C. 1913–1822. WE now enter on another and a different scene in the history of Abram. He had been victorious over the Assyrian kings; he had gotten him honour as the prompt avenger of injustice and oppression before the chiefs of the land in which he was a pilgrim and a sojourner; he had been solemnly blessed by the _King of Righteousness_; but where was the fulfilment of the promise for which he had so long been waiting? He had no son, no single pledge of the mighty nation destined to spring from his loins. When, therefore, his all-merciful Guide appeared to him again in vision, to assure him of safety and protection, he could not restrain the deep sorrow of his heart, and mournfully complained that in place of a son, _one born in his house_, probably Eliezer of Damascus, _would be his heir_. On this occasion the Almighty not only solemnly assured His desponding servant that a son should be born to him, an earnest of a seed as numerous as the stars of heaven, and that the land on which he walked should undoubtedly be their inheritance, but, as in the case of Noah after the Flood, he vouchsafed to him _an outward and visible sign_ to strengthen and support his faith. He bade the patriarch take a heifer, a ram, and a she-goat, each three years old, together with a turtle-dove and a young pigeon, and after dividing them all, except the birds, to lay them piece by piece over against the other. Familiar, doubtless, with this ancient method of ratifying a covenant, Abram did as the Lord had told him, slew the victims, and laid the divided portions in order. Then from morning until evening he watched them, and from time to time drove away the birds of prey which hovered over them. At length the sun went down, and a deep sleep fell upon him, and a horror of great darkness gathered around him. Amidst the deepening gloom there appeared to him a Smoking Furnace and a Burning Lamp passing along the space between the divided victims. Presently a Voice came to him telling him that _his seed should be a stranger in a land that was not theirs, that there they should suffer affliction 400 years; that afterwards, in the fourth generation, when the cup of the Amorites was full, they should come out with great substance, return to the spot where the patriarch now was, and enter on their promised inheritance_. Thus, amidst mingled light and gloom, the ancestor of the elect nation was warned of the chequered fortunes