has expressed it, "the career of the true religion, advancing step by step to its complete development," that is to say, that I am there observing the action of God upon the first steps and upon the religious progress of the human race. I. God And Abraham. The history of the Hebrews, temporal and spiritual, opens with Abraham. At his first appearance in the Bible, Abraham is a nomad chief, who has quitted Chaldæa and the town of Haran, where his father, Terah, descended from Shem, is still living. He is wandering with his family, his servants, and his flocks, at first on the frontiers and afterwards in the interior of the land of Canaan, halting wherever he finds water and pasturage, and conducting his tents and his tribe at one time through the mountainous districts, at another along the plains below. Why has he left Chaldæa? {165} According to the Bible itself, his father was an idolater: "Your fathers," said Joshua to the people of Israel, "dwelt on the other side of the flood" (the Euphrates) "in old time, even Terah, the father of Abraham, and the father of Nachor: and they served other gods." [Footnote 37] The book of Judith contains a similar assertion; [Footnote 38] and the Jewish and Arabian traditions confirm, at the same time that they amplify, the statement: the father of Abraham, they say, was an idolatrous fanatic, and his son Abraham, having set himself against the practice of idolatry, was upon his charge thrown into a burning furnace, from which a miracle alone preserved him. The historian Josephus speaks of the insurrections which took place amongst the Chaldæans on the occasion of their religious dissensions. [Footnote 37: Joshua xxiv. 2.] [Footnote 38: Judith v. 6-9. ] [USCCB: Judith v. 6-9. "These people are descendants of the Chaldeans. They formerly dwelt in Mesopotamia, for they did not wish to follow the gods of their forefathers who were born in the land of the Chaldeans. Since they abandoned the way of their ancestors, and acknowledged with divine worship the God of heaven, their forefathers expelled them from the presence of their gods. So they fled to Mesopotamia and dwelt there a long time. Their God bade them leave their abode and proceed to the land of Canaan. Here they settled, and grew very rich in gold, silver, and a great abundance of livestock."]