BOYS OF THE BIBLE. 51

dark lines on the brow of Cain, and trembled at their
meaning.

Cain was angry. This was not a case of ruffled temper
merely. He was wrath—filled with passionate, malicious
anger—but why? ‘That was just what God wanted to know.

“And the Lord said unto Cain, why art thou wrath?
And why is thy countenance fallen? If thou doest well, shalt
thou not be accepted? And if thou doest not well, sin lieth
at thy door.”

You see how God in His mercy comes to talk with Cain
—comes to reason and plead with him, as though He would
save him from himself and from the evil thing that was in
his heart.

And so God would have done, if Cain would only have
yielded his stubborn will. But Cain was masterful and per-
verse. He little thought to what an awful tragedy that
perverse spirit would lead. There was murder in his heart,
but he knew it not. We do not think of the awful possi-
bilities of evil, and how soon these possibilities may become
facts, or we should be more mindful not to give evil any
quarter. To God’s question about Cain’s unreasonable anger,
Cain makes no reply. There was no reply to make. There
is a righteous anger that may lead to noble deeds, but Cain’s
was the anger of malice, of wounded vanity, of selfishness,
and pride, and that anger leads to death.

At last came the fatal day. Cain and his unsuspecting
brother were out together in the fhelds. They had a long
talk. Ilow it begun, how it proceeded, we know not; but
how it ended forms one of the saddest pages in the world’s
early history. Cain was resolved to have it out with Abel.
But what had Abel done? There was no cause for anger

against Abel, except such cause as envious malice provided.
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