I stretch lame hands of faith, and grope,
And gather dust and chaff, and call
To what I feel is Lord of all,

And faintly trust the larger hope,”

surely He who accepted Abel will not reject you. There is indeed only one way-that way is Christ. But on this way you may tread, though, like Abel, you know Him not. He may reward you, even in this life, with the blessing of a fuller light and a clearer knowledge. But if not, He will not cast you off while you are seeking after God. Few comparatively of those who, in the language of our text, sacrifice aright, may have come near that perfect knowledge of the things of Christ which none can absolutely attain; but "ten thousand times ten thousand is the number of His "ransomed saints"; unmeasured by the narrow lines of creed and system is the "roll of His elect."

21

I

II.

RESPONSIBILITY FOR OTHERS.

"Am I my brother's keeper?"-GENESIS iv. 9.

ONCE tried to show to you that whether or not

we are to understand the story of Cain as one of literal fact, it takes the form in Genesis of a sacred drama or parable, which speaks to us, like many of the parables of our Lord, in tones of serious warning.

It naturally follows the story of the Fall. In that story each one of us must see the picture of his own experience. As we are never safe from death, so we are never safe from sin. Adam and Eve are placed in an abundant garden, with no inherited traditions of evil, subject to no pressure of circumstances, untouched by the contagion of bad example, gazing upon the sinless face of nature, free to commune with the Father

of their spirits; and yet even there the tempter comes and sows the seed of spiritual death!

But, as the old proverb tells us, no one becomes very bad all at once. The development of evil is gradual. The story of the Fall, the divinely drawn portraiture of man's universal weakness and disobedience, stops short of crime, though it prepares the way for it; and then down to the very depths of ruin, towards Lamech's godless empire and the Flood, sinks the race of Cain.

In its history, drawn by the master-hand of God's Spirit, we see the progress and the doom of evil. First, Cain's heart is not right. His mock sacrifice is as useless as are the bended knees, and even the muttered words, when the soul is dumb. Presently the Evil One has stepped inside the unguarded door. He is invisible to the eye of sense, but there is one sure sign of his presence and his influence. Evil abhors the good. You will know how very true this is when you are older; how the bad boy or man, often cunningly concealing his character in other ways, generally lets one know what he is by those antipathies which, except to people like himself, he dare not openly proclaim, but which now and again reveal, by some meaning smile or sneering insinuation, how hatred for those who are striving after a righteousness of

which he loathes all that he can comprehend, "rankles in him and ruffles all his heart," and lacks only opportunity to burst out into open enmity and persecution. Cain cannot abide his Godfearing and God-accepted brother. Jealousy ripens into hatred, hatred into design, design into act. Yet, even when red-handed from the murder, he is not at his worst. It is not until he has stifled conscience, which at first strikes him with remorse and threatens him with punishment, that the flattering evil spirit who had long lain in wait at the door, and gained stealthy entrance inch by inch into the house of his soul, finally makes good his ground. And then Cain is secured from immediate vengeance; his future is bright with new hopes; he builds a city; he is the ancestor of a world-subduing race. More and more they glory in their rapid increase, their gigantic strength, their progress in luxury and power and mechanical arts; they drag even the sons of God into the fatal net of their fiend-inspired wickedness; until the heavens darken, and the waters rise, and they are overwhelmed by the wrath of a long-suffering God.

Such is always the history of evil, either in the individual or in nations. The beginnings are often very small, the punishment is often very

long deferred. The gifts of Mephistopheles—or whatever name we may give to the spirit of evil-are often very brilliant, but the crash is certain and terrific.

What a tale is unfolded to us by the plea of Cain in the text! It carries us far back from the fatal blow and the blood-stained ground-back even from the altar at which Cain could no longer sacrifice, from the formal offering and the heartless prayer which found no acceptance with God, back to the days of forming character, the days of boyhood and childhood, it carries us in thought.

For with a surprised murderer's unreadiness, to the feeble lie "I know not," he tacks on a damning truth. It is not that brotherly love has been eclipsed by the dark whirlwind of passion, or poisoned by the temporary bitterness of a twosided quarrel. In the truthfulness of sudden panic, he lays bare a heart turned to stone by the slow droppings of a petrifying selfishness.

"Am I my brother's keeper?" The more we think of it, the more we must be amazed at the cynical audacity of this avowal. For the natural love of those nearest to us by blood is so deeply rooted within us by a divinely implanted instinct, that though it may be dulled by separation or