The log cabin Democrat., 1916-04-05

t@.-s--ss-- ----. ~ = VI. screa m e d a n d wheeled about the crags, and far out at sea the ships have left their traces in foam-then turning inland l have gone down the hillside into the still valley, sheltered from the winds, and there the lonely plowman drove the team across the heavy clods. All is still-dull, if you please to call it so-that is Isaac" As another has put it, "the salient feature of his life is that it has no salient features" He is type of the commonplace people of whom God has made so many. How thrilling it is to know that God is the God of Isaac and of all like unto him.
 Isaac's life was no doubt a disap- pointment to men, He came by miraculous birth, yet proved to be just an ordinary man. Many have hoped to be the happy fathers of artists, sculptors, musicians and scholars, but their children have turned out to be house painters, stone masons, and dry goods clerks. Still, it is we'll to have entertained these hopes, for if our children are no more remarkable than they are, in spite of our ambitions, what might they have been if we had had no ambitions for them.
 1saac's life was directed by God. This appears especially in the story of his marriage, found in Gen. 24. "The steps of a good man are ordered of the Lord no matter how dull and brown his life may be outwardly; an ordinary" life may still be an Cor dered" life. Horace Bushnell, in his great sermon on Every Mans Life Plan of God" states his theme thus: That God has a definite plan for every human person, girding him visibly or invisibly for some exact thing, which it will be the true sig nifcance and glory of his life to have accomplished"
 In character Isaac was marked by the passive virtues. We do not ap- preciate patience, gentleness. meek ness, and other quiet graces as much as we should.
 Submission was a marked element in his makeup. When Abraham would offer him as a sacrifice on Mount Mo riah he made no resistance, though the knife actually flashed over him. What a picture he was of our Lord in his submission (Heb. 10:5-7). This element appears again in Isaac's life at Gerar. AS fast as he would dig wells at this place the Philistines would contend for them. but instead of quarreling, Isaac would move on and dig another we'll The outcome of his meekness was that the Philis tines cams to him to make a GOV enant, saying, "We saw certainly that the Lord was with thee" Even now there is sense in which the meek inherit the earth.
 This quiet man was thoughtful and we see him going out to mediate in the fields at the eventide (Gen. 24 4:63). . Quiet people may know things better than others and know them more deeply This twentieth century. with bloodshot eye and fevered pulse" has lost the art of meditation, but only when truth saturates us does it really become life power.
 Isaac was affectonate, as manifest. ed in his relation to his mother and his wife (Gen. 2467). We need such people in the world. We have often noticed that plain mother, who has a great heart. will be adored by son who shines in the world of science or letters
 How surprising it is to find that this quiet man was. nevertheless. sensu, ous. Isaac loved Esau because he did eat of his venison" Gen. 25:2S; 27:24. We have in this matter, 8 suggestion of one danger of the quiet life. Alexander Wright says the great est glutton he ever knew never crossed his own doorstep and his only walk was between his desk and the dining table. Temperance, or. as the Revised Version renders. self-control is a grace much insisted on in the New Testament.
 Isaac's commonplace life Is notable because linked with Christ. He was an ancestor of Christ and also a type of him in that his birth was super natural and that, 'in figure he was offered up and also raised from the dead. Our lives may be made signifi. cant, in that they, too, may be linked with Christ Paul exhorts that even slaves shall do their work, not as unto their earthly masters, but as Unto the Lord, for" says he. "ye serve the Lord Christ" Our commonest actions can be done with the same motive az our highest deeds-"to be well pleas ing unto him The world passeth away and the lust thereof: but he that doeth .No 7-'ll Of God abideth forever