that in his seed, his children, all the nations of the earth should
be blessed; so that all Abraham's hopes were wrapped up in this boy
Isaac; he was his only son, whom he loved; he was the child of his
old age, his glory and his joy; he was the child of God's promises.
Every time Abraham looked at him he felt that Isaac was a wonderful
child: that God had a great work for him to do; that from that
single boy a great nation was to spring, as many in multitude as the
stars in the sky, or the sand on the sea-shore, for the great
Almighty God had said it. And he knew, too, that from that boy, who
was growing up by him in his tent, all the nations in the earth
should be blessed: so that Isaac, his son, was to Abraham a daily
sacrament, as I may say, a sign and a pledge that God was with him,
and would be true to him; that as surely as God had wonderfully and
beyond all hope given him that son, so wonderfully and beyond all
hope He would fulfil all His other promises. Conceive, then, if you
can, what Abraham's astonishment, and doubt, and terror, and misery,
must have been at such a message as this from the very God who had
given Isaac to him: "And it came to pass after these things that
God did tempt Abraham, and said unto him, Abraham: and he said,
Behold, here I am. And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son
Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and
offer him there for a burnt-offering upon one of the mountains which
I will tell thee of."

What a storm of doubt it must have raised in Abraham's mind! How
unable he must have been to say whether that message came from a
good or bad spirit, or commanded him to do a good action or a bad
one; that the same God who had said, "Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by
man shall his blood be shed;" who had forbidden murder as the very
highest of crimes, should command him to shed the blood of his own