BOYS OF THE BIBLE. 45

‘moss-clad bank, and they standing before her, on some calm
-eventide. See that bigger boy, from his own shoulders taller
than his brother. He is now but twelve,and yet he has all
the outlines of a man. Look at those broad shoulders and
‘strong limbs. Why, if he grows thus till he is twenty he
will surely be a giant! Watch his restless eye as it glances
hither and thither, overshaded by the black curls flowing
“over his noble forehead. He will assert his right of lord-
ship, depend upon it, with either man or beast. But that
other, his younger brother—what a contrast! If Cain gives
pledge of being the image of his father, and something
more, Abel is his mother’s own. Mark his slender and
delicate yet graceful form. How beautiful in its formation
and symmetry. And how gracefully those auburn ringlets,
parted from his fair forehead, flow down over his marble-
like shoulders. Observe how those deep blue eyes seem to
‘drink in, with meek intelligence, the lessons of his anxious
and much-loved mother. What promises of piety and peace,
of hope and heaven, seem already to dawn forth in the angel-
like features of that loving boy. He is his mother’s mirror;
in him she sees herself. He is her hope and her joy.”
The wide difference in character between these two
‘boys is very marked. And yet we shall often have occasion
to note in our study of these Bible stories that the children
born of the sam@ mother, and nurtured in the same home,
are often as unlike each other in character and disposition as
-children. could well be.
If the gentle Abel was his mother’s favorite, we may
‘surely forgive this first mother, for was it not very natural?
He was the baby of the house, and mothers always have a
very tender side to the youngest and the gentlest. If Abel
‘was his mother’s pet, we may be sure Cain was his father’s