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silence respecting other children. Cain, we know, was married, which was probably the case also with Abel. They must therefore, from the necessity of the case, have had sisters, with whom they contracted marriage, although neither their names. nor the fact of their birth are recorded. One would have liked to possess some information respecting these first daughters of Eve. There is an old tradition, that Cain and Abel had respectively twin-sisters, and that the twin of Cain became the bride of Abel, and the twin of Abel the bride of Cain. She who was born with Cain is, in Arabian tradition, called Achima, and she born with Abel, Lebuda; but the oriental Christians know them as Azrun and Ovain.1 We have seen a calculation in Saurin's Dissertations, which makes it out that at the time of the death of Abel (which the writer supposes to have been in the year of the world 128), there might have been 32,768 persons, descended from eight children of Cain and Abel, born before the year 25; and that adding other subsequent children of Cain and Abel, their children's children, there might then have been 421,164 men descended from them, without reckoning women and children. But there is always some flaw in these round calculations. In this case it is forgotten that the antediluvians do not appear to have had children so early. the antediluvian genealogy, none of the persons named has a son before he is sixty-five, and some not till far past a hundred years of age. This implies that the period of childhood and adolescence was protracted in proportion to the duration of life, and renders it probable that the old patriarchal fathers were in appearance and constitution as young at sixty or sixty-five, as our youth are at sixteen or seventeen. Still, even according to this rule, Cain and Abel may have had a considerable number of children and grandchildren at the time indicated; and allowing for other possible children of Adam and Eve, there must have been at the time a considerable number of persons in the world-quite sufficient to account for Cain's dread of being slain for the murder of Abel; and also for his building a city soon after his migration from the paternal roof.

1 D'HERBELOT, art. Cabil.

In

Let us counsel the reader to be content with such broad facts as assure us that, according to the intimations in Genesis, there may well have been a considerable number of persons in the region around Eden at the death of Abel, and a large population in the world before the Deluge. For exact arithmetical calculations there is no basis. The law of population itself is fluctuating, and is affected by a thousand circumstances which such calculations cannot embrace. Thus it is certain that if the population had gone on since the Deluge in the ratio which certain calculations assume or endeavour to establish, the world could not by this time have contained the inhabitants thus provided for it, and we should have been standing in layers three or four deep upon each other's heads.

Having thus been led into the question of early population, we cannot but say how little reliance ought to be placed on such calculations as those of Bishop Cumberland, and in later days of Mr Malthus, as to the rate of increase in population. The former learned calculator, reckoning the population after the flood, quietly assumes that every child born shall live forty years at least, and that every young man and woman shall marry when twenty years of age, and shall become the parents of twenty children in the next twenty years; and this is supposed to be universal; not one is allowed to die until his task is accomplished.1 All this is in opposition to known facts, as shown in the history of the patriarchs. If we may build upon the genealogy in the tenth châpter of Genesis, the allowance of children to a family seems not to have been materially greater than at present; and we know that Abraham's father had but three sons, one of whom died prematurely; that Abraham had no children till he was past eighty; that Isaac did not marry till he was about forty years old, and had but two sons; and that Jacob and Esau also (although they had more children) were above forty when they married. In view of facts like these, which occur in every age,—and in the recollection of the wars, pestilences, and famines with which God scourges the pride of 1 CUMBERLAND'S Essay on Populousness.

man,—we cannot but assent to the remarks of a writer who had occasion to consider this matter closely.1

"The increase of mankind seems to be, in an especial manner, kept by the Almighty under his own immediate sovereign disposal, and so mysteriously, that we cannot calculate, nor even guess at, the probable produce of any marriage, under whatever circumstances of rank, wealth, health, age, or climate. The most healthy of every class in life are very often barren; while we constantly see a numerous offspring from sickly, diseased, or even deformed parents. Uncertainty of this kind does not exist as to the lower orders of the creation; as to their increase, we are allowed to calculate and speculate with tolerable exactness. This utter uncertainty as to the very root of population, involves the whole subject, more or less, in its consequences; and with all our labours and tables, however useful and convenient we may find them for the present purposes of life, no sooner do we attempt to open vistas into futurity than we find ourselves on ground forbidden to the children of men.'

Thus, for the last ten years we have been estimating the increase of the population of these islands at a thousand a day; and most dismal apprehensions were entertained by many as to the consequence that might be expected to result, at no distant time, from over-population within a territory bounded by the ocean. But now (1851) we learn that, instead of a thousand a day, the increase has been only a thousand a week; and that in the part of the realm that seemed most threatened with over-population, there has been no increase at all, but a most fearful diminution. This forcibly teaches the futility of paper calculations of increase in population. If we err so egregiously in matters before our own eyes, what faith can be claimed for calculations going back to the early ages of the world?

1 CROSTHWAITE's Synchronology, p. 247.

Third Week Sixth Day.

THE OFFERINGS OF CAIN AND ABEL.-GENESIS IV. 3-7.

If

WE are informed that, 'in process of time, Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering to the Lord. And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock, and of the fat thereof.' the record stopped here, this proceeding would doubtless meet our approbation as exceedingly suitable and becoming. What could be more proper than that Cain, who was a cultivator, should bring his fruits; or that Abel, who was a shepherd, should bring his sheep,-each offering being perfectly appropriate to the condition and pursuits of the offerer ?

But let us read on: 'And the Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering; but unto Cain and to his offering He had not respect.' This sets us to inquire, Where lay the root of offence in Cain's offering, and of acceptance in Abel's? Was the offering of Cain in itself objectionable, or was the offence in the mind and temper of the offerer? We must turn to the New Testament for more light on this matter. The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews tells us that it was 'by faith' that 'Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain;'1 and another apostle, evidently alluding to this offering, plainly states that Cain's works were evil, and his brother's righteous.2 Cain had therefore in this matter an untoward disposition, and displayed a lack of faith. But was this want of faith shown in the nature of the offering itself, or in the frame of mind with which it was presented? Whatsoever in the things of God is not of faith, is sin; and beyond question, Abel himself might have sinned by the deficiency of faith, even in offering a proper oblation. We are led to think, however, that God had appointed a certain manner of approach to Him; and that to approach Him in another manner than this was offensive and rebellious.

1 Heb. xi. 4.

2

I John iii. 12.

What first strikes us is the remarkable fact of the existence of sacrifice at this early period, so soon after the Fall. This implies further communications of God's will to man than we have as yet been distinctly acquainted with. The usage of sacrifice the idea that the life-blood of an animal could be an acceptable offering to God-could hardly have arisen in this early and unbloody age without a special intimation of some kind from heaven. It is so repugnant to all the notions that we associate with that age, that the idea of its human origin at once strikes the mind as a moral impossibility. If, then, this rite has been so early inculcated,—it would seem immediately after the Fall,—some idea of its meaning must have been afforded, that it might seem reasonable and proper—that it might become an expression of faith among a simple-minded people. If any explanation of its purport were supplied, it could only be this: that man was a sinner; that without shedding of blood there was no remission of sin; and that although the blood of animals could not take away sin, yet men could thereby declare their guiltiness before God, and express their faith and hope in the atonement thereafter to be offered by 'the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.' We know that this was the purport of the sacrifices under the law of Moses; and as these sacrifices were the same as those which had previously existed, both had no doubt the same meaning attached to them. Now the need of this form of faith was not peculiar to the keepers of sheep; it has been practised by men of all kinds of occupation in all ages. With this clue, we may therefore be able to detect the causes of the ill reception which Cain's offering found.

Was it not that he declined to enter into the spirit of the sacrificial institution; and while willing to bring a thankoffering in testimony of the Lord's goodness, refused to offer that acknowledgment of sin, and to express his sense of that need of atonement by blood, which the animal sacrifice declared? If we contend that the offence of Cain lay at all in the difference of his offering from that of Abel, we cannot see any other satisfactory explanation than that which this

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