ark had rested; but in time, as there were more and more of them, they came down the course of the two great rivers, Tigris and Euphrates, to a fine rich piece of ground, beautiful for growing corn, and vines, and melons. This was then called the Plain of Shinar, and many of them chose it for their home.

And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech.

And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there.

And they said one unto another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime* had they for morter.

And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.

And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded.

And the LORD said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.

Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech.

So the LORD scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth; and they left off to build the city.

Therefore is the name of it called Babel,+ because the LORD did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the LORD scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.

LESSON XV.

THE CALL OF ABRAM.

GEN. xi. 28; xii. 9.

B.C. 1960-1923.—The time had come at which God was about to choose one particular family, and guard them by His special care to be the line from which the Saviour, the Seed of the Woman, should spring. It was nearly two thousand years before that happy time should come; but the choice was made. In the old first-inhabited country in the hills between the two great rivers Tigris and Euphrates lived a man descended from Shem, named Terah, who had three sons- -Abram, Nahor, and Haran; and Haran had a son

* Bitumen, or mineral pitch.

C

+ Confusion.

named Lot. They had learnt to worship idols, but God saw that Abram would learn better things, and chose him out of all the earth.

And Haran died before his father Terah in the land of his nativity,* in Ur of the Chaldees.

And Abram and Nahor took them wives: the name of Abram's wife was Sarai; and the name of Nahor's wife, Milcah, the daughter of Haran, the father of Milcah, the father of Iscah.

But Sarai was barren; she had no child.

And Terah took Abram his son, and Lot the son of Haran his son's son, and Sarai his daughter-in-law, his son Abram's wife; and they went forth with them from Ur of the Chaldees, to go into the land of Canaan; and they came unto Haran, and dwelt there.

And the days of Terah were two hundred and five years: and Terah died in Haran.

Now the LORD had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will shew thee.

And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing:

And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse them that curseth thee: and in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed.

So Abram departed, as the LORD had spoken unto him; and Lot went with him and Abram was seventy and five years old when he departed out of Haran.

And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother's son, and all their substance that they had gathered, and the souls that they had gotten + in Haran; and they went forth to go into the land of Canaan; and into the land of Canaan they came.

And Abram passed through the land unto the place of Sichem, unto the plain of Moreh. And the Canaanite was then in the land.

And the LORD appeared unto Abram, and said, Unto thy seed will I give this land and there builded he an altar unto the LORD, who appeared unto him.

And he removed from thence unto a mountain on the east of Beth-el, and pitched his tent, having Beth-el on the west, and Hai on the east and there he builded an altar unto the LORD, and called upon the name of the LORD.

And Abram journeyed, going on still toward the south.

GEN. xii. 10-20.‡

And there was a famine in the land: and Abram went down into Egypt to sojourn there; for the famine was grievous in the land.

And it came to pass, when he was come near to enter into Egypt, that

* Birth.

+ The servants who had been added to their number.

This for elder children only.

he said unto Sarai his wife, Behold now, I know that thou art a fair woman

to look upon:

Therefore it shall come to pass, when the Egyptians shall see thee, that they shall say, This is his wife: and they will kill me, but they will save

thee alive.

Say, I pray thee, thou art my sister: that it may be well with me for thy sake; and my soul shall live because of thee.

And it came to pass, that when Abram was come into Egypt, the Egyptians beheld the woman that she was very fair.

The princes also of Pharaoh saw her, and commended her before Pharaoh and the woman was taken into Pharaoh's house.

And he entreated Abram well for her sake: and he had sheep, and oxen, and he asses, and menservants, and maidservants, and she asses, and camels.

And the LORD plagued Pharaoh and his house with great plagues because of Sarai Abram's wife.

And Pharaoh called Abram, and said, What is this that thou hast done unto me? why didst thou not tell me that she was thy wife?

Why saidst thou, She is my sister? so I might have taken her to me to wife now therefore behold thy wife, take her, and go thy way.

And Pharaoh commanded his men concerning him : and they sent him away, and his wife, and all that he had.

LESSON XVI.

THE CHOICE OF LOT.

B.C. 1917.-GEN. xiii.

And Abram went up out of Egypt, he, and his wife, and all that he had, and Lot with him, into the south.

And Abram was very rich in cattle, in silver, and in gold.

And he went on his journeys from the south even to Beth-el, unto the place where his tent had been at the beginning, between Beth-el and Hai;

:

Unto the place of the altar, which he had made there at the first and there Abram called on the name of the LORD.

And Lot also, which went with Abram, had flocks, and herds, and tents, And the land was not able to bear them, that they might dwell together: for their substance was great, so that they could not dwell together.

And there was a strife between the herdmen of Abram's cattle and the herdmen of Lot's cattle: and the Canaanite and the Perizzite dwelled then in the land.

And Abram said unto Lot, Let there be no strife, I pray thee, between

me and thee, and between my herdmen and thy herdmen; for we be brethren.

Is not the whole land before thee? separate thyself, I pray thee, from me: if thou wilt take the left hand, then I will go to the right; or if thou depart to the right hand, then I will go to the left.

And Lot lifted up his eyes, and beheld all the plain of Jordan, that it was well watered everywhere, before the LORD destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, even as the garden of the LORD, like the land of Egypt, as thou comest unto Zoar.

Then Lot chose him all the plain of Jordan; and Lot journeyed east : and they separated themselves one from the other.

Abram dwelled in the land of Canaan, and Lot dwelled in the cities of the plain, and pitched his tent toward Sodom.

But the men of Sodom were wicked and sinners before the LORD exceedingly.

And the LORD said unto Abram, after that Lot was separated from him, Lift up now thine eyes, and look from the place where thou art northward, and southward, and eastward, and westward :

For all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed for ever.

And I will make thy seed as the dust of the earth: so that if a man can number the dust of the earth, then shall thy seed also be numbered.

Arise, walk through the land in the length of it and in the breadth of it; for I will give it unto thee.

Then Abram removed his tent, and came and dwelt in the plain of Mamre, which is in Hebron, and built there an altar unto the LORD.

LESSON XVII.

ABRAM AND MELCHIZEDEK.

GEN. xiv. 8-24.

B.C. 1915.--Lot had thought he should be prosperous and happy in Sodom, but he soon had to learn that to live among the wicked is not the way to peace. The nations who lived round about where the town of Babel was built, in the plain of Shinar, between the Euphrates and Tigris rivers, were always fierce conquerors. They came forth, and conquered Sodom and the other four cities that stood in the plain or valley round the lake of Siddim, and made them subject. After twelve years, however, the chiefs of these cities joined together and declared they would be free; but this oriy brought their enemies down upon them in great numbers.