272 THE COMING OF MAN 



worshiped God in ways and with thoughts that 

 made them truly great, because it made their lives 

 truly moral. These were the Hebrews, the descend- 

 ants of Abraham, whose history is written in the 

 Bible. 



You have heard the story of Abraham, how he 

 started out from the land of his fathers to worship, 

 in a new place, the unseen Spirit whom he had come 

 to know as the true God. His people were the 

 Chaldeans, who had always worshiped the sun and 

 fire. They used no image; no temple roof had shut 

 away their rising thoughts from the vast firmament 

 that is full of the evidences of God's work and of His 

 love. Nightly they studied the stars and learned by 

 their devout study many of the laws that govern the 

 heavens. 



It is not to be wondered at, then, that a child of 

 such a reverent people should have felt his way to a 

 truer thought of God, that God of whose Spirit we all 

 partake and in whose loving protection we all share. 

 Nor does it seem strange that the people who began 

 so long ago to feel that God is Spirit and that He 

 demands that His children shall offer to Him lives that 

 are pure and good, should be the people who have 

 given to the world its highest religion as well as its 

 holiest leader. 



So mankind has grown, reaching onward and up- 

 ward to a better and a higher life. 



