It is difficult to see how the experienced philosopher accounts for these things. It is not conceivable that the ancestors of Regulus should have observed so keenly the uncomfortable results of breaking promises, which had so often interfered with their legitimate pleasures, and for their own part had so seldom gained any satisfactory pleasure from such unfaithfulness as to have become convinced that it must never be tolerated, even when it might seem an advantageous thing to do, and so have induced in their offspring a blind instinct which prompted the sacrifice of life rather than a breach of faith. And, if it were conceivable, it would, according to the theory, be a most unfortunate result; for, without the prior intuition of the worth of faithfulness and the nobler kind of pleasure experienced in an upright life, it is by no means so certain from experience that the result in pleasurable feeling from faithfulness would always outweigh that which accompanies a breach of faith. Indeed, the opposite would evidently very often seem to be the case.

Doubtless, the ancestors of Regulus had been truth-loving men. They had recognized its worth, and he inherited from them a nature susceptible to the appeals of truth. But neither he nor they made the law, nor was it merely a maxim of worldly prudence that such holding to one's word gives more happiness at last. No consensus of the judgments of prudence inherited through however many generations, till the luckless offspring knows nothing of the meaning of its instinct, can adequately account for the faithfulness of the martyrs of every age. Long before this wise speculation as to the end of life and the means of securing the greatest amount of happiness had any hold on the minds of men, they had heard the solemn voice of duty and obeyed. Even in the rude and ignorant ages of the world's childhood, the God of holiness was over all, slowly preparing the way in the hearts of men for the complete recognition of his law, speaking to them in tones which perhaps they only dimly understood, but which they knew carried a supreme authority which they could not disobey without

falling into sin. The beauty of holiness, the worth of truth and purity and charity were revealed to them as ideal aims long before their common life had reached so high a level, and before experience could have taught them the supposed lessons of metamorphosed selfishness and prudence.

I have now shown to the best of my ability the grounds for the opinion expressed at the beginning of this paper. If the doctrine of evolution were content to point out how human life has been developed in ever-growing complexity, and how with this development has gone hand in hand an increasing insight into the moral law that is recognized as inwoven with our life, that would be good service done. But if, as it appears to do, it claims to do away with the old reverence and to put a new and feeble meaning into language which has been the strength and inspiration of the world's heroes, because it gave utterance to the noblest feelings of the human heart, then I think we should beware of its too plausible reasoning, and not give way to the charm of the new theory, but look well to the facts of life and see what they imply, so that whatever theory we hold shall be in complete harmony with them. As far as I understand the doctrine of evolution, it seems that the environment plays an exceedingly important part in the development of every form of life. When the point is reached at which man becomes responsible for his conduct, it appears to me that, in order to give a true account of his moral life, it must be acknowledged that in his environment (if that can be called environment which is a spiritual presence at the very centre of his being, and yet not himself) there is now an active power which is in contact with his spirit, and awakens him to a sense of the moral worth of conduct and the obligation to continued effort after righteousness. To acknowledge this would be to confess that the God of righteousness is present with his children, revealing to them. his holy law; and it would be one thing more that we could say we know about the "Unknowable." But, if the facts of life demand it, surely the confession should be made.

V. D. DAVIS.

THE GOD OF ABRAHAM, ISAAC, AND JACOB.

The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.- Exod. iii., 6

This threefold designation of Jehovah is familiar to both the Old and the New Testament. In this third chapter of Exodus, in Jehovah's words to Moses, it occurs not less than three times, as though it had a peculiar significance. To the patriotic Hebrew, it well might have peculiar force. Were not Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob his ancestors? Their God,― was not Jehovah the divine author and shepherd of all of Israel's history? As their God, did not he indicate their children as his peculiar people? As such, the pious Hebrew heart might naturally swell with pride and joy as he meditated on and worshipped the God of his fathers.

But, if he were a Hebrew of nobler and broader type, it might strike him that Jacob alone was exclusively the ancestor of his people, and that, therefore, only the God of Jacob was peculiarly the God of Israel. For was not Isaac the father of Esau as well as of Jacob, and the God of Isaac the God also of all of Esau's children as well as of Jacob's? And, farther and wider yet, Abraham was father not only of Isaac, but of Ishmael and the children of Keturah. The God of Abraham, then, would be the God not only of Isaac's children, but of all the generations that sprang from Ishmael and Keturah as well. As Abraham, moreover, was to be "a father of many nations," and as in him should "all the families of the earth be blessed," the thought might flash at last on the devout Hebrew's mind that in the words, "the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob," he spoke not merely the petty thought of the God of one people, but the mighty thought of the God of all the nations of the earth.

Here, then, as the first expansion of the text, we have suggested the idea of the God of all nations; and, because of all, the special one of each: though called Brahm, Osiris, Jahve, Zeus, Allah, Lord, the One "over all, through all, and in us all.”

Will the question arise: "Why should God be called by any human name?" Then let us remember that the name grew from human need. It seemed to bring God nearer to man. In Israel's case, too, it meant more than merely a name for God. It was a condensed history. It gathered up the Hebrew people's past into the thought of God. It was compact with national life. While it lived, Israel's story could not die. It glowed with patriotic feeling. Should not we feel a thrill, if, in any high, peculiar sense, we could speak of the God of Washington or the God of America? Should we not be pardonable if, in any noble way, we had borne testimony to him when others denied him, and thus had kept alive for mankind the thought of one God, and one forever worthy of man's highest worship? Have we outgrown the idea of national deities? Could we not speak of the God of Washington or America without feeling narrow and cheap? Let God be praised, if so it be. Let God be praised, if we always think of him as the God of all. But have we outgrown the narrowness of saying: "All the gods of the nations are idols"? Cannot that shallow statement still be found in Christian prayer-books as well as in the ancient Hebrew Bible? Do not even men of culture and intelligence among us still talk of the American Church and the American religion,— as though there could be more than one real Church or more than one real religion; as though the whole world did not, in reality, worship one and the same God? Still, even men calling themselves Christians look askance at all the other religions of the world, and are found ready to send the believers in those religions into everlasting hopelessness and misery, as though he whom they call Master and Lord had not said, "They shall come from the east and the west, and from the north and the south, and shall sit down in the kingdom of God." (Luke xiii., 29.)

Let us now look at the points of the text itself. They may disclose matter of practical human interest as fresh and living to-day as when they were first given to Moses.

1. The first is suggested in the words "the God of Abraham."

To this designation one could hardly take exception. We naturally put God and good men together. Who does not say Amen to Tennyson's noble line:

"In God and godlike men we place our trust "?

Abraham stands in the world's story as one of the "godlike men." A striking and venerable figure he is. What a power he must have been to shine as he shines through all the mists and glooms of ages! Three of the great religions speak his name with admiring reverence, the religions of Moses, Jesus, and Mohammed. His tomb is one of the resorts of the world's pilgrimage to-day. Man of faith,— faithful to the highest that he knew,-" father of the faithful"; a prophetic man, rightly called a prophet, because living unto that righteousness which has the future as well as the present in its care; in his virtue how large and wise and calm, a certain Socratic grandeur about him,- the grandeur of a strong, large, rounded nobleness! how handsome and august a form is his! So grand and august, as seen through the telescope of the ages, is virtue always.

How close is the connection between such as he and God! Such as he could not, would not, be without a God. No God were for him an impossibility. And his God would naturally be of the best,-the God of goodness, beauty, truth; the God of the saint, the prophet, the hero, the God of promise, of the highest life, of the ever-greatening possibility of holiness, of all that we can conceive as worthy of Deity.

In

All this is suggested in the words "the God of Abraham." 2. Of "the God of Isaac" we cannot say the same as of "the God of Abraham." For Isaac is not another Abraham. In his presence, we cannot call Abraham the "great father of a greater son." He is not even his father's peer. him there is decline. The robust individuality of Abraham is not there. He plainly is no leader of men. Apparently a good man, his goodness seems inherited and traditional rather than original. The traditions of family or tribe seem stronger with him than moral principle, as with us