Battle of the Plains of Abraham

“ Possessed with a full confidence of the certain success which British valor must gain over such enemies, I have led you up these steep and dangerous rocks, only solicitous to show you the foe within your reach. The impossibility of a retreat makes no difference in the situation of men resolved to conquer or die; and, believe me, my friends, if your conquest could be bought with the blood of your general, he would most cheerfully resign a life which he has long devoted to his country. ”

“ In throngs their foemen, warriors and comrades, fell in death, where laughing they had borne away the spoil. And victory and glory of war forsook the strife of the Northmen. No twisted gold did Abraham offer in ransom for his brother's son, but battle; he smote and slew the foe in war. And the Lord of heaven smote in his behalf. Four armies fled, the kings and captains of the folk. Behind them lay the goodly host of hearth-retainers, cold in death, and in their track lay those who sacked the homes of Sodom and Gomorrah, and bore away the young men and the gold. ”

“ You know too well the forces which compose their army to dread their superior numbers. A few regular troops from old France, weakened by hunger and sickness, who, when fresh, were unable to withstand the British soldiers, are their general’s chief dependence. ”

“ Then Abraham betook him to the track of their retreat, and beheld the flight of the foe. Lot was redeemed, and his possessions; the women returned with joy. Far and wide upon the field of slaughter the birds were tearing at the bodies of those foemen of the free. And Abraham brought the treasure of the Southmen, their wives and children, unto their homes again, and maidens to their kinsmen. Never did any man of living men with tiny band go forth more worthily to battle than those who rushed against that mighty host. ”

“ Those numerous companies of Canadians, insolent, mutinous, unsteady, and ill-disciplined, have exercised his utmost skill to keep them together to this time; and, as soon as their irregular ardor is damped by one firm fire, they will instantly turn their backs, and give you no further trouble but in the pursuit. ”

“ The promise that Abraham's seed should possess the gate of his enemies is idiomatic figurative language, equivalent to saying that they shall be victorious over their enemies, and take possession of their cities. This was fulfilled when at the conquest of Canaan the Israelites took possession of the land and thus assumed the position of lordship over the doomed nations who are spoken of as their "enemies." ”

“ For a certain man who survived the battle and the sword came running unto Abraham, the Hebrew prince, and told him the disaster, the fate of Lot, and how the men of Sodom, and their strength, were sorely smitten. And Abraham told these tidings to his friends; the faithful man besought his well-loved comrades, Aner and Mamre and Eshcol, to bear him aid, saying that it was grievous to his heart and greatest of all sorrows, that his brother's son should suffer thraldom. He bade those valiant men devise a plan to free his kinsman, and his wife with him. ”

“ They begin by destroying Roman civilization and Christian culture in the land they ravage. They appear "dogs," "wolves," "whelps from the kennel of barbarism" to the Britons they overcome. But the Israelites have learned to fear Jehovah, and they bear with them the ark of His covenant.
As for the Canaanitish tribes, compare them now with what they were when Abraham and Isaac fed their flocks in the plain of Mamre or about the springs of Beersheba. Abraham found in Canaan noble courteous men. Aner, Eshcol and Mamre, Amorites, were his trusted confederates ”

“ He wanted to know how many men in his kingdom could bear arms in battle, and he forgot that victory over the enemy was not with the many or the few, but with the Lord, who is the strength of his people. When he saw that he had done wrong he confessed it and begged for forgiveness, but a pestilence spread over all the land, and came near to Jerusalem, and the angel was stayed by the Lord's hand just over the threshing floor of Araunah. This was the broad flat top of Mount Moriah where long before Abraham had built an altar on which to offer Isaac. ”

“ The promise to Abram, that he should become a great nation, has been fulfilled in his chosen seed occupying the land of Palestine, as such, for fifteen hundred years. It will again be fulfilled when they become a nation on that land forever.
The history of the eastern hemisphere for the two thousand years which intervened between the calling of Abraham and the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, witnesses that every nation that fought against Israel, or in any way oppressed them, passed away. Time will show the same general result, from the destruction of Jerusalem to the millennium. ”

“ He left the land, the kingdom, Abraham, and all the prophets, behind him. In after years, the land was reduced to a wilderness, its cities laid waste, and the Hebrew commonwealth dissolved. It became the battle ground of Crusaders, Saracens, and Turks; and until this day has been subjected to the worst of the heathen. Forty centuries have passed away since God confirmed His promise of the land to Christ, who has been waiting nineteen hundred years at His right hand for its fulfilment. Is Jesus never to possess the land from sea to sea, and from the rivers to its extremities? ”

“ An ample mona was at the same time sent, and this helped to restore comparative cheerfulness among our followers.
As was natural under the circumstances we were anxious for information, but Abraham was not able to learn any reliable particulars as to the proceedings of the day. He professed, however, to be well acquainted with the method of warfare carried on between these turbulent tribes. The fighting consists in irregular skirmishes by men who keep as far as possible under cover, in which large quantities of powder are consumed with comparatively insignificant results. ”

“ For it is manifest that this cannot be done except by One who is all-powerful. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and all constitutionally in them, are the beneficiaries. The things promised them are eternal life, the land of Canaan, and "a city," or state, "whose architect and builder is God." Hence the Mediator must be able to form them out of the dust, and to give them life for ever. He must be mighty in battle; for he will have to expel the Mohammedans, Catholics, and other barbarians from the land, and to restore the kingdom of David "as in the days of old." ”

“ His enemies considered that His exile would lead to His destruction and ruin, as it seemed impossible that a man banished from His native land, deprived of His rights and oppressed on all sides—even though He were a king—could escape extermination. But Abraham stood fast and showed forth extraordinary firmness—and God made this exile to be to His eternal honor—until He established the Unity of God in the midst of a polytheistic generation. ”

“ Having received this oracle of promise, Abraham migrated, and remained in another place of the same land, that is, beside the oak of Mamre, which was Hebron. Then on the invasion of Sodom, when five kings carried on war against four, and Lot was taken captive with the conquered Sodomites, Abraham delivered him from the enemy, leading with him to battle three hundred and eighteen of his home-born servants, and won the victory for the kings of Sodom, but would take nothing of the spoils when offered by the king for whom he had won them. ”

“ It was to the politic attitude which he had observed towards the people of the country through which he had passed, rather than to any superiority of his Arab troops over the Turks, that the success of Ibrahim’s invasion should be ascribed. In those wild and mountainous districts any resistance on the part of the inhabitants must have greatly impeded the advance of an army. Ibrahim, however, maintained the strictest discipline, and paid promptly for all the requirements of his troops. ”

“ It may be argued that if even Abraham with his own household swept Canaan clear of invaders, it might now have been possible for his grandson to do as much with increased means at his disposal. But, not to mention that every man has not the native genius for command and military enterprise which Abraham had, it must be taken into account that a force which is quite sufficient for a marauding expedition or a night attack, is inadequate for the exigencies of a campaign of several years’ duration. ”

“ Fought 271, between the Romans, under Aurelian, and the invading Alemanni. The barbarians attacked the Romans in the dusk of evening, after a long and fatiguing march, and threw them into disorder, but they were rallied by the Emperor, and after severe fighting, succeeded in beating off their assailants.
Plains of Abraham (Seven Years' War) . Fought September 13, 1759, when Wolfe, who was lying on shipboard in the St. Lawrence above Quebec, with 4,000 troops, effected a landing secretly in the night of the 12th to the 13th, and took up unperceived a strong position on the Plains of Abraham. ”

“ II. The observation that all war is not repugnant to the law of nature, may be more amply proved from sacred history. For when Abraham with his servants and confederates had gained a victory, by force of arms, over the four Kings, who had plundered Sodom, God approved of his act by the mouth of his priest Melchisedech, who said to him, "Blessed be the most high God, who hath delivered thine enemies into thine hand." ”

“ Abraham begins as a homeless wanderer, going forth from his kindred at the bidding of the one true God; and a homeless wanderer he remains to the end. He is a father of kings but no king himself, not even a landowner! He has to buy with money land enough to bury his dead! His life is one of intercession as well as concession. Abraham intercedes for the dwellers in Sodom and Gomorrah, feeling it a painful thing that even a few righteous should suffer with the many. Once indeed Abraham becomes a soldier. ”

“ This idea furnishes the only tenable historical view of the migration of Abraham and his kindred. They did not conquer the land, nor at first hold it by mere force of arms, like the four north-eastern kings from whose hand Abraham delivered Lot, Genesis xiv. They advanced as leaders of small bands, with their fencible servants and the herds, at first rather sought or even invited by the old inhabitants of the land, as good warriors and serviceable allies, than forcing themselves upon them. ”

“ The orator of the holy war represented to them that strong and courageous men found a country everywhere, and that true pilgrims ought to resemble the birds of heaven. [318] He recalled to their ambition the example of Abraham, who abandoned his home to elevate himself among the nations, who crossed the Jordan with a staff only, and returned followed by two troops of warriors. This exhortation revived the ardour for the crusade, which had evidently begun to cool. The monarchs of France and England had an interview at Nonancourt, where they agreed to proceed to Palestine by sea. ”

“ They had been years of growing power. He has been dwelling at Mamre, as a prince among the people of the land, a power. There sweeps down on Southern Palestine the earliest of those invasions from the vast plains of the North which afterwards for generations were the standing dread of Abram's descendants. Like the storm pillars in their own deserts, are these wild marauders with the wild names that never appear again in the history. Down on the rich valleys and peaceful pasture lands they swoop for booty, not for conquest. Like some sea-bird, they snatch their prey and away. ”

“ The oldest descriptions of the Arabs fit the Bedouins of our day. Unquenchable feuds are still dividing the several tribes, the possession of a pasturing place or of a well still determines the welfare of many families, and blood-feuds and hospitality still are the vices and virtues of this people of nature. Wherever along their frontiers the Arabs come in contact with foreign nations war is the result. The children of Abraham divided among themselves the rich and fertile countries, while Ishmael and his tribe were cast out into the desert. ”

“ Keeping in mind the charges, of which he was accused, he shewed that the Divine blessing had not been confined to the Jews solely as inhabitants of the sacred land of Palestine, or as partakers in the Temple-worship.
The original cradle of their faith was not Palestine but Mesopotamia, and not only had the patriarch Abraham been called from the far distant land of the Chaldæans (Acts vii. 2–5) , but whole centuries of the nation’s existence had been spent in a strange country. ”

“ He related how God, after creating the universe out of chaos, had chosen His own people, and had led them, after trials innumerable, to the conquest of the Promised Land. He showed, as he went on, the origin of the tribes identified with the children of Israel, and the covenants made by Jahveh with Moses in the Arabian desert; while accepting the stories connected with the ancient sanctuaries of the north and east at Shechem, Bethel, Peniel, Mahanaim, and Succoth, it was at Hebron in Judah that he placed the principal residence of Abraham and his descendants. ”

“ Consequently Abraham was obliged to go against the enemy with only his own servants. But as they neared the plain, and saw the devastation wrought by the host of Chedorlaomer, they also slipped away in the night, and Abraham was left alone with Eliezer, his trusty slave, and his three friends Aner, Eshcol, and Mamre. And he followed after the foe, as they retired with their spoil, till he reached one of the fountains of Jordan, which is named Paneas, or Dan. ”

“ His whole life from his entry into manhood was a succession of adventures. His father, who had instructed him in the Bible and the Talmud, died when his son was a youth of eighteen, and two years later Abraham undertook a journey of adventure, as he relates, in order to discover the mythical river Sabbation or Sambation, and to become acquainted with the supposed Israelite tribes dwelling on its banks, no doubt with a Messianic purpose. ”