60 BOYS OF THE BIBLE.

This first story of the Boys of the Bible is sad enough.
But it is full of wise counsel. It is rich in its many lessons,
though these lessons take mostly the shape of solemn
warnings.

There is hardly a sadder story in all the Scriptures, or in
all the realm of literature outside the Bible, than this story
of the first murderer and his victim brother.

Anger, and malice, and envy will darken the fairest lives,
and bring sorrow into the happiest homes. Alas! that these
elements of character should so often cloud the beauty and
destroy the peace of young lives and happy homes! So deep
is the impression that this early Bible record has made upon
the world, that, while some mothers are willing to call their
sons by the name of the first martyr, Abel, none name their
children after Cain. It is sad so to live that your very name
becomes a beacon light to warn, rather than an example, in ~
some respects at least, worthy of imitation.

But we may safely trust a book that dares to tell the
dark side as well as the bright. Of all books in the world,
the Bible is about the only book that dares to tell the evil
as well as the good. The Bible is a safe and blessed guide,
for it lights beacon-fires to warn of danger, and gives exam-
ples werthy of universal imitation. Its great object-lessons are
so plain and simple a he who runs may read, and, reading,
understand.

The story of Cain is like a lesson written backward. He
teaches, by his cruel, unbrotherly life, the beauty and value
of brotherly love. The shadows bear witness to the glory of
the sun, and Cain’s life in the dark shadows teach, by con-
trast, how beautiful that life might have been in the sun.

And this story speaks another to every boy who reads it.
It bids him remember that he must be the master or the slave