ecstasy of her

Here, on this

In the chapter which I have now read, we have another and a new phasis in that intensely interesting history which is contained in the word of God alone, and for which we are indebted to inspiration alone. We have seen Eve as the innocent inhabitant of Eden, when all around was beauty, and all within was happiness. We have followed her next, as an exile from Eden, a wanderer on the earth, and a sufferer; and we now find her in a new relationship, and, to her, a strange and a mysterious one. She brought forth, it is said, her first-born, and she said, in the heart, "I have gotten a man from the Lord." occasion, was the realization of that which was stated by our blessed Lord, when he said, "A woman, when she is in travail, hath sorrow" ("in sorrow shalt thou bring forth children "), "because her hour is come; but, as soon as she is delivered of the child, she remembereth no more the anguish, for joy that a man is born into the world." Eve, on the birth of Cain, exclaimed, as I have said, "I have gotten a man from the Lord." There was, I think, a double joy here; there was the joy of a mother over her first-born, and there was the joy of a Christian mother under the belief, though the illusive belief, that this Cain born to her now was the promised Messiah. There is no reason in the world why she should have so distinguished Cain, except the mistaken idea

that Cain was the promised seed, of whom the promise was given in Eden, that the woman's son should bruise the serpent's head. Eve thought that she was that woman, and that Cain was that promised son, and that now she would be reinstated in her lost inheritance, replaced in Paradise, and be happy once again. And, therefore, she said, as it might be translated, "I have gotten the man Jehovah," which is a perfectly correct and just translation, and evidently allusive to the promise of the Messiah, whom she expected.

In contrast to Cain, when Abel was born, she called him "frailty and vanity." She did not look upon him as so momentous and impressive a gift. She regarded Cain as really the promised Messiah, and Abel as "frailty," or "vanity." How bitterly mistaken was poor Eve! Cain, instead of being a deliverer from sin, was in fact the first murderer; and Abel, instead of being the worthless thing that she thought him, proved the first holy and faithful martyr. Many a mother thinks she has an Abel, when she has a Cain; and some a Cain, when it turns out an Abel. It depends, perhaps, less upon original character, more upon subsequent training, whether it shall be the one or the other. At all events, whilst grace has its mighty, its all-important part to play in the formation of character, it remains yet true, -"Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it." Cain and Abel were born with equally depraved hearts. needed the regeneration of God's Holy Spirit. One lived and died without it; the other lived under it, and entered into the joy for which it prepared him.

Both equally

Both of them

We read of Cain and Abel's offerings. plainly acknowledged that it was dutiful and right to give worship unto God. Both, too, we may observe, acknowledged that there was but one true and alone they ought to give worship.

living God, and that to him Now, so far both coincided;

but it is evident that the one worshipped the true God in a way that was not acceptable, and that the other worshipped the same true God in a way that was acceptable. Wherein lay the cause of this difference? Wherein lies the great diversity in the offerings, which made the one to be so accepted, and the other to be rejected? The first reason was doubtless in the offerers themselves. Cain was an unholy, an ungodly, and an unrighteous man; Abel was a holy, a good, and a righteous man. It is not the offering that makes the offerer accepted; it is the offerer who is accepted first, and the offering that is accepted next. But there was also in the nature and meaning of the two offerings a very great difference. The offering of the one was the sacrifice of a living animal, the shedding of its blood, and the burning it upon the altar as an oblation to God. The sacrifice of the other - if such it might be called was a garland of flowers, or a basket of fair and fragrant fruit. One would have said à priori — that is, if one were ignoraht of the result-Cain's offering must certainly have been accepted; for what can be more acceptable than offering this bouquet of beautiful flowers, and this basket of fair and fragrant fruit, and dedicating them to God, and saying to God, in a hymn of adoration, “ O, Lord! I give thee these. Thy smile has given every tint to every blossom; thy breath has given its fragrance to every flower; and I devote these to thee, thou Creator, thou Preserver of all, as the expression of my gratitude

my worship."

as the medium of

One would have said, such surely is just the offering that will be accepted. And when Abel brought his offering, and plunged the knife into the heart of an innocent lamb, shed its blood upon the altar, and then asked God to accept it, one would have said, Surely, Abel's offering will be rejected. Naturally, one would have said so. But then the world was not in its natural state, man was not in his natural state; sin

had crept in; there was a great chasm between the creature and God: a new mode of access is needed; and there was indicated to Adam in Paradise, by the skins of the animals in which he was clothed, the necessity, the duty, and the acceptableness of animal sacrifices. And, therefore, the difference between these two offerings lay in this: Cain recognized God as the Creator and Preserver of all, but nothing more; Abel recognized God, along with Cain, as the Creator and the Preserver of all, but he added another article to his creed, enuntiated at the Fall, that man had sinned, that without shedding of blood there could be no restoration of man; and, therefore, in prospective faith Abel by his offering already rested on the Lamb of God slain from the foundation of the world, and thus through faith found acceptance where Cain found none. In other words, the one was a deistic offering, the other was an evangelical and Protestant sacrifice. The one looked upon God simply as Creator and Preserver, and on man as innocent; the other looked upon God as a God who hated sin, and upon himself as a sinner, and regarded expiatory sacrifice as the only medium of obtaining mercy, and thus prayed for pardon, mercy, and acceptance. The result is in the record, that the one was accepted, and the other not. How, we may inquire, was it accepted? How did Cain and Abel know that it was accepted? I informed you in my last, when I read the preceding chapter, that the shechinah was placed at the gates of Paradise, and the flaming sword that turned upon itself in all directions. And that this was the holy place is rendered very probable from the fact that Cain, when he left the presence of the Lord, went to dwell at the east of Eden, which was the very place where the cherubims, and the mercy-seat, and the shechinah were, which were afterwards placed in the temple, where they were recognized as the types of the great atonement made by the Lord Jesus Christ. And, as we read that, when the sacri

fices of old were accepted, fire fell down from heaven and consumed them, it may have been that a ray from that shechinah lighted upon the sacrifice of Abel and consumed it; and that Cain's remained, or faded away, as blasted and withered flowers. But, whatever was the mode, it is stated that the one was visibly accepted, and the other was indisputably refused.

The right conse

But what was the consequence of this? quence ought to have been that Cain, humbled on seeing his error, should have confessed it, and worshipped as Abel did. But human nature had undergone its sad deterioration; envy had expelled love, and jealousy peace; and, therefore, seeing his brother Abel was the friend of God, and in the matter of his service visibly accepted by Him, he rose up, not against himself, who really was to blame, but against his unoffending brother Abel, who had only done that which was right, in contrast to his brother, who had done that which was wholly wrong. All sin is persecuting. Self-righteousness hates. Not only does man impute his own faults, as Adam threw his upon Eve, and Eve did upon the serpent; but, when he sees others more prospered and accepted than himself, the Cain spirit produces the Cain-mark, and prompts him to rise up against the righteous, because his own works are evil, and his countenance to fall, and his spirit to grow chafed with that which ought to humble and subdue.

God spake to Cain, when he found him in this state, and asked him "Where is Abel, thy brother?" a question suggestive of guilt rather than a reply. I do not think it is altogether fair to pronounce Cain to be a murderer in the strict and severe sense in which we employ that epithet. Murder, I think it is admitted by all jurists and judges, means premeditated or deliberate design to take away the life of another carried out into act. I do not believe that Cain yet knew that the blow he dealt his brother would destroy life. Cain