impressive, then, are these words of our Lord,—"Pray ye that your flight be not in the winter." (Mark xiii. 18.)
WHEN Abraham had grasped the knife to slay his son Isaac, to offer him as a burnt-offering to the Lord, an angel called unto him from heaven, and commanded him to do no violence to the lad; and Abraham perceiving a ram caught in a thicket by his horns, he took and offered the animal for a burnt offering in the stead of his son; and he called the name of the place where the offering was made. Je-hovah-jireh, the meaning of which is, "The Lord will provide!"
How full of confidence and consolation is that man who places a thorough dependence on the Divine Providence of his Heavenly Father! This settled dependence on God for all things seems to have occupied the mind of Abraham at the time he was about to offer up his son Isaac; for as he and his son were walking together to the place where the offering was to be made, the son said, "My father, behold the fire and the wood; but where is the lamb for a burnt-offering?" to which Abraham replied, "My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt-offering: so they went both of them together." (Gen. xxii. 8.) How bright and cheering is the thought, that God, in his merciful providence, regards eternal ends—the everlasting happiness of his children.
