deserved. There were, no doubt, many other children of Adam, who
would be ready to avenge Abel's death. The wild justice of revenge
is deep in the heart of men; and the natural impulse would be to
hunt down the murderer like a wolf. It is a dreadful picture of the
defiant and despairing sinner, tortured by well-founded fears, shut
out from the presence of God, but not able to shut out thoughts of
Him, and seeing an avenger in every man.

We need not ask how God set a mark on Cain. Enough that His doing so
was a merciful alleviation of his lot, and teaches us how God's
long-suffering spares life, and tempers judgment, that there may
still be space for repentance. If even Cain has gracious protection
and mercy blended with his chastisement, who can be beyond the pale
of God's compassion, and with whom will not His loving providence
and patient pity labour? No man is so scorched by the fire of
retribution, but many a dewy drop from God's tenderness falls on
him. No doubt, the story of the preservation of Cain was meant to
restrain the blood-feuds so common and ruinous in early times; and
we need the lesson yet, to keep us from vengeance under the mask of
justice. But the deepest lesson and truest pathos of it lies in the
picture of the watchful kindness of God lingering round the wretched
man, like gracious sunshine playing on some scarred and black rock,
to win him back by goodness to penitence, and through penitence to
peace.




WHAT CROUCHES AT THE DOOR