BOYS OF THE BIBLE. 43

Adam and Eve had a strange life in Eden, but how much
more strange their life Became when, in ane time, God gave
to Adam and Eve two boys, first Cain then Abel, to break
up the loneliness of their lives, and fill their nee home
with new delights.

Only mothers know the thoughts, and feelings, the
desires and hopes, the prayers and anxieties of mothers.
Boys at best, can only make poor guesses at these things.
And yet we cannot help thinking how strange and wonderful
it would all appear to the first mother, when she looked
into the face of her baby-boy and saw _ his half-unconscious
smile answering back her gaze of wondering love. And
when Adam came back that day from his hard toil and saw
a new face, and heard the feeble voice of his first-born son,
how strange and changed the world would appear! We are
quite safe in such fancies; for the same thing is happening
all over the world every day; first-born sons are filling
homes with brightness, and are enriching parents with
heaven’s rarest gifts—the living treasures of love.

Adam and Eve had something to talk about now!
Something to live for now! This first-born son, stout of
limb, lusty of voice, was now heard making music in the
morning—making music all: day long. Music sweeter than
all the songs of Eden’s birds, or the murmurings of Eden’s
streams. The world with this boy Cain in it, was a new,
glad world, a grand world, a world well worth living in
for the sake of this child, even though it was a desert world.

The home of Adam and Eve was no doubt a very
lovely one. Probably more of a large hut than a home, dug
out from some overhanging rock, with leafy shelter, and
great reaches of verdure-like boundless lawns, spreading far
and near. Their life was rude and simple. Civilization