52 BOYS OF THE BIBLE.

We can well imagine that Abel stood upon his defense. He
may have pointed out to his brother the true secret of his
anger, and perhaps urged him to a course more worthy of
himself, and more pleasing in the sight of God. Sometimes
if two people who have a difficulty, and talk over it, especially
if they are wisely inclined, that talk will do much to explain
and do away with the difficulty. Sometimes talking over a
quarrel makes the trouble worse. So it was in this case. The —
fire of Cain’s passion burned to fury, and in a moment of
supreme hatred he rose against his brother Abel and slew
~ him. ;

In that sad, awful hour, the world’s first brothers became
martyr and murderer!

- What an awful day was that for all concerned! The
victim-martyr suffered least of all. He saw the morning
rise in beauty; he saw the noontide blaze in splendor; but
when the night fell in awful darkness on that terrible home,
Abel was at rest beyond the stars. From his sheep-folds
and the altar of sacrifice he had gone to dwell. forever in
that fairer land, where

“ Beyond earth’s angry voices
There is peace!”

Think of that broken-hearted mother when the news
came to her. For we cannot but believe that the news soon
reached her, and that she went forth to the scene of the
tragedy. What a sad, wild, awful cry shook the silence of
that desert home! And when she found her latest-born, his
flowing hair all dabbled in his blood, dead!—dead, by. his
brother’s hand—her agony would be terrible to behold. Her
fair, her beautiful Abel, slaughtered by the hand of Cain, who
should have been the young man’s boldest defender, not his
cowardly, cruel murderer! When her. eyes met this awful