Expositions of Holy Scripture | Page 9

all,--between the imagination and the act of evil. A real or a feigned
reconciliation is effected. The brothers go in apparent harmony to the
field. No new provocation appears, but the old feelings, kept down for a
time, come in again with a rush, and Cain is swept away by them.
Hatred left to work means murder. The heart is the source of all evil.
Selfishness is the mother tincture out of which all sorts of sin can be
made. Guard the thoughts, and keep down self, and the deeds will take
care of themselves.
6. Mark how close on the heels of sin God's question treads! How God
spoke, we know not. Doubtless in some fashion suited to the needs of
Cain. But He speaks to us as really as to him, and no sooner is the rush
of passion over, and the bad deed done, than a revulsion comes. What
we call conscience asks the question in stern tones, which make a man's
flesh creep. Our sin is like touching the electric bells which people
sometimes put on their windows to give notice of thieves. As soon as
we step beyond the line of duty we set the alarm going, and it wakens
the sleeping conscience. Some of us go so far as to have silenced the
voice within; but, for the most part, it speaks immediately after we have
gratified our inclinations wrongly.
7. Cain's defiant answer teaches us how a man hardens himself against
God's voice. It also shows us how intensely selfish all sin is, and how
weakly foolish its excuses are. It is sin which has rent men apart from
men, and made them deny the very idea that they have duties to all men.
The first sin was only against God; the second was against God and
man. The first sin did not break, though it saddened, human love; the
second kindled the flames of infernal hatred, and caused the first drops
to flow of the torrents of blood which have soaked the earth. When men
break away from God, they will soon murder one another.
Cain was his brother's keeper. His question answered itself. If Abel was
his brother, then he was bound to look after him. His self- condemning
excuse is but a specimen of the shallow pleas by which the
forgetfulness of duties we owe to all mankind, and all sins, are
defended.
8. The stern sentence is next pronounced. First we have the grand

figure of the innocent blood having a voice which pierces the heavens.
That teaches in the most forcible way the truth that God knows the
crimes done by 'man's inhumanity to man,' even when the meek
sufferers are silent. According to the fine old legend of the cranes of
Ibycus, a bird of the air will carry the matter. It speaks, too, of God's
tender regard for His saints, whose blood is precious in His sight; and it
teaches that He will surely requite. We cannot but think of the innocent
blood shed on Calvary, of the Brother of us all, whose sacrifice was
accepted of God. His blood, too, crieth from the ground, has a voice
which speaks in the ear of God, but not to plead for vengeance, but
pardon.
'Jesus' blood through earth and skies, Mercy, free, boundless mercy,
cries.'
Then follows the sentence which falls into two parts--the curse of bitter,
unrequited toil, and the doom of homeless wandering. The blood which
has been poured out on the battlefield fertilises the soil; but Abel's
blasted the earth. It was a supernatural infliction, to teach that
bloodshed polluted the earth, and so to shed a nameless horror over the
deed. We see an analogous feeling in the common belief that places
where some foul sin has been committed are cursed. We see a weak
natural correspondence in the devastating effect of war, as expressed in
the old saying that no grass would grow where the hoof of the Turk's
horse had stamped.
The doom of wandering, which would be compulsory by reason of the
earth's barrenness, is a parable. The murderer is hunted from place to
place, as the Greek fable has it, by the furies, who suffer him not to rest.
Conscience drives a man 'through dry places, seeking rest, and finding
none.' All sin makes us homeless wanderers. There is but one home for
the heart, one place of repose for a man, namely, in the heart of God,
the secret place of the Most High; and he who, for his sin, durst not
enter there, is driven forth into 'a salt land and not inhabited,' and has to
wander wearily there. The legend of the wandering Jew, and that other
of the sailor, condemned for ever to fly before the