The footsteps of the flock, Scripture studies

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1904 edition. Excerpt: ... THIRD SUNDAY aborning CAIN AND ABEL Passage to be read: Gen. iv. 1-16. WE should first learn from this sad story that God had not forsaken man. The scene that meets us in this chapter is very different from that of the garden. Sin has entered into the world, and the happy innocence of Eden is destroyed. Cain is born, and the word Cain means possession ; Abel is born, and the word Abel means vanity. Was it beginning to dawn thus early on mankind that' man at his best estate is altogether vanity'? The curse is beginning to work out to its fulfilment, and men are finding that the wages of sin is death. Yet even now God is not far away. He has not withdrawn Himself from human life. He has not lost hope nor heart in the mysterious being who had so lately been made in His own image. He moves across this field of sin and murder, no less evidently than He did in the garden of Eden. Let us not forget, then, that though this is a tragic chapter, there is a gleam of sunshine through the storm. We begin to find here what we could not find before--the patience and long-suffering of heaven. For we must remember that what we have in Genesis is the first unfolding of God's redeeming purpose. It is not a compendium of universal history; it is the record of the saving will of God. Already we have had the promise to the woman, 'Thou shalt bruise his heel'; now we have tokens of a deep solicitude, and of a great forbearance in the heart on high; and all this is like the pathway through the heather, that shall soon broaden into a highway of the Lord, and lead in the fulness of the time to Calvary, and to a blood that speaketh better things than that of Abel. \J E should next learn that God values the gift according to the spirit of the giver. Abel was a...