1. In one of the little known apocryphal writings, the Testament of Abraham, a beautiful story is told of the patriarch. Shortly before his death, the archangel Michael drove him along the sky in the heavenly chariot. Looking down upon the earth, he saw companies of thieves and murderers, adulterers, and other evil-doers pursuing their nefarious practices, and in righteous indignation he cried out: “Oh would to God that fire, destruction, and death should instantly befall these criminals!” No sooner had he spoken these words than the doom he pronounced came upon those wicked men. But then spoke the Lord God to the heavenly charioteer Michael: “Stop at once, lest My righteous servant Abraham in his just indignation bring death upon all My creatures, because they are not as righteous as he. He has not learned to restrain his anger.”(291) Thus, indeed, the wrath kindled at the sight of wrongdoing would consume the sinner at once, were it not for another quality in God, called in Scripture _long-suffering_. By this He restrains His anger and gives the sinner time to improve his ways. Though every wicked deed provokes Him to immediate punishment, yet He shows compassion upon the feeble mortal. “Even in wrath He remembereth compassion.”(292) “He hath no delight in the death of the sinner, but that he shall return from his ways and live.”(293) The divine holiness does not merely overwhelm and consume; its essential aim is the elevation of man, the effort to endow him with a higher life. 2. It is perfectly true that a note of rigor and of profound earnestness runs through the pages of Holy Writ. The prophets, law-givers, and psalmists speak incessantly of how guilt brings doom upon the lands and nations. As the father who is solicitous of the honor of his household punishes unrelentingly every violation of morality within it, so the Holy One of Israel watches zealously over His people’s loyalty to His covenant. His glorious name, His holy majesty cannot be violated with immunity from His dreaded wrath. There is nothing of the joyous abandon which was predominant in the Greek nature and in the Olympian gods. The ideal of holiness was presented by the God of Israel, and all the doings of men appeared faulty beside it.