ABRAHAM is one of the great men in the world’s religious history. Why he is so can not be well understood and appreciated without at least a brief view of the state of the world religiously considered at the date of his call, and the demand thence resulting for the new religious instrumentalities of which Abraham was in a sort “the head-center.” In the age before the flood religion had never really flourished. We read of a time when “men began to call on the name of the Lord,” and something approximating toward system and concentration appears to have been introduced. But the record is silent as to any marked result except so far as it may appear in the piety of individual men, _e. g._ Enoch and Noah. Apparently the religious element failed even to hold its own against the on-rushing tides of worldliness. Even the sons of godly fathers formed unhallowed marriage connections, and consequently were borne rapidly down the broad current of degeneracy and moral corruption till only one family remained to represent the piety of all that generation. There was a fatal lack of moral forces.――――The flood was a vigorous moral lesson in itself; and besides this, the race started afresh from the seed of this one pious family. Ten generations bring us to Abraham in Ur of the Chaldees, near the old cradle of the race. The history of religion during this period from Noah to Abraham is exceedingly meager. Gathering up the few fragmentary notices which emerge from the general darkness in the age of Abraham, we find that his father’s family in ancient Ur “served other gods” (Josh. 24: 2); that Abraham, journeying toward the south country of Palestine, sojourned awhile in Gerar and was there drawn into grave temptation by the apparent godlessness of the people, since he apologizes on this wise for representing Sarah to be his sister and not his wife: “Because I thought, Surely the fear of God is not in this place; and they will slay me for my wife’s sake” (Gen. 20: 10, 11). The same temptation befell him previously in Egypt (Gen. 12: 10–20)――probably indicating the same inward thought based on the same apparent public morality. Then we have the horrible wickedness of Sodom and Gomorrah where not ten righteous men could be found. And sad to say, we see a very low tone of religious and moral life in the family even of Lot, who as the nephew and special associate of Abraham should represent the better elements of society.――――Akin to these special facts is the general one that the personal history of Abraham through a full century of somewhat extensive travels and various experience brings him into contact with God-fearing men in only the single case of Melchizedek. Apart from this one brief but wonderful interview (Gen. 14: 18–20) the recorded history of Abraham gives the impression of a godly man working his way for the most part _alone_, amid godless people on every hand――alone save as the Lord testifies of him――“I know him that he will command his children