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“/ Am
Ihe Way,
The Truth, ana
The Life."
Origin of Things as Revealed in Genesis.
Bv DR. A. C. DIXON.
N. CRIME.
Sin is the fountain; crime is the stream. Sin is
the root; crime is the fruit. There is no crime
without sin, though there may be sin without crime.
Sin is really an offense against God, while crime is
an offense against God and man.
Sin in Cain worked out into crime through jeal
ousy, and with this jealousy there was temper.
“Why art thou wroth?” Cain grew very angry
with God and Abel. Jealousy and temper work well
together, and the result is apt to be crime. Most
murders are committed in hot temper. Very few
men are bad enough to deliberately plan and kill
without anger. The flames of jealousy and temper
are fanned by the tongue. “Cain talked with his
brother Abel,” and the more he talked the angrier
he grew. Poison, daggers and revolvers are not the
only things that kill. You can stab people with
words, poison them with speech, and shoot them
with an ill tempered remark. When you get mad,
hold your tongue. Do not talk, and you will cool
off by and by. “Sielnce is golden; speech is sil
ver.” Let us ever remember that ‘the gold and
the silver are the Lord’s.” Happy the man who
knows when to talk and when to keep quiet. We
need the enduement of the Holy Spirit as much for
silence as for speech.
Wit h this jealousy, temper and tongue there were
some business complications. Cain was a farmer
and Abel a shepherd, and a quaint commentator
reads between the lines that Abel’s sheep got into
Cain’s fields and destroyed some of his growing
crop. Certain it is that jealousy, temper and tongue,
mixed up with business complications, often lead to
crime.
Cain was also religious. He brought his offer
ings to the Lord. But it was a religion that did
not restrain. It was a religion that worshipped, a
religion that recognized God, but had no need of
atonement and made no confession of sin. It was
a religion of industry, economy and thrift, but that
sort of religion does not restrain from sin. A re
ligion that does not confess sin never restrains from
sin. A religion that realizes no need of forgive
ness will continue to commit sin. There is no jeal
ousy more vindictive than religious jealousy, no
temper hotter than religious temper, no quarrels
more bitter than religious quarrels. Man is a re
ligious animal and it is through his religious nature
that the wild beast often shows itself. Abel’s al
tar with its atoning sacrifices is needed for the
cleansing and subduing of Cain’s religious nature.
The matter with pagans to-day is, to a large extent,
their religions, and Christ saves from false re
ligions as well as from sin. He purifies our religi
ous nature. It is easy to trace the results which
follow the crime of Cain.
1. A fallen countenance. “Why is thy counte
nance fallen?” Sin writes its marks on the face
and you cannot hide crime; it will show itself in
the features. The face is the show window of the
soul. I have watched the fall of countenances—
one notable instance of a young man in a Chris
tian family who went from bad to worse until he
committed a crime for which he was hanged. It
was remarked in a Deacon’s Meeting that some-
crime.
—____ ,' -~~ ~ ~~~—ZZZzzZ- Bl - ~.—z—.— >
The Golden Age for June 28, 1906.
thing was the matter with that young mrn’s free.
I have also watched the restoration of counte
nances. When Christ takes possession of the heart,
there will be signs of his presence in the face.
2. A lying tongue. God turned to Cain and said
“Where is thy brother Abel” Cain replied, “I do
not know.” Sins always go in groups; they never
stand alone. Jealousy, anger and selfishness are
apt to lead to lying. Cain did not hesitate to lie,
to cover up his tracks.
3. A hardened heart. “Am I my brother’s
keeper?” Before the crime was committed, he
would have shrunk from the thought of that ques
tion. “Os course, I am my brother’s keeper,”
but now that sin has worked out through temper,
jealousy and religion into crime, he loses the sense
of responsibility, and justifies his living all for him
self.
4. An accusing conscience. “The blood of thy
brother crieth unto me from the ground.” The
splotch of blood that Cain saw on the ground after
he had killed his brother never left his mind.
When .he tried to till the soil, he could hear the
ground speak, “Blood, blood.” He could not wipe
it out.
5. A fruitless life. God had said to Adam,
“Cursed is the ground for thy sake. Weeds and
briars and thorns it shall bring forth.” “You
have to fight the bad as well as cultivate the good.”
That was the result of sin, but the curse on Cain
for crime was worse than that. Adam could cast
in the good seed and by fighting thorns and briars
have a crop, but the curse on Cain was that the
good seed should not germinate; that there should
be no results from the soil at all. Crime makes
fruitless all efforts at doing good. Here is a young
man starting out in life. He has a bright mind, a
good presence, excellent ancestry, splendid oppor
tunities. He goes into a store. He is recognized
as efficient. He can sell more goods than any one
else. There is prospect of his being promoted.
But he begins to spend a little more than his in
come.
By and by he decides that he is not getting as
much as he is worth from the firm, and he will just
pay himself. His theft is discovered and his life
at once becomes fruitless. Publish it in the news
papers and there isn’t a firm in America that will
employ him; he cannot get his board and clothes.
The ground has been made sterile. He may work
ever so hard in the cultivation of the good, but
there is no return.
6. Acceptance of the situation. Cain says, “My
punishment is greater than I can bear.” And in
stead of confessing his sin and repenting of it, he
acepted the curse of roving vagabondage, and began
at once to adapt himself to it. He made no effort
to get right with God and adjust his life accord
ingly. It is a sad day for any man when he de
cides to accept the results of his sin or crime,
without a struggle for a better life. I like the
spirit of the litle boy out West who came in look
ing for a job. The man in the office, looking him
over, said, “Why, our boys must have shoes.” He
was barefoot. He did not say a word, but just
went out. About five weeks afterward he came
back with a good pair of shoes, and said, “I have
got the shoes, sir.” The man looked at him and
said, “You are ragged. Our boys must have good
clothes.” He did not say a word, just went off,
and in about six weeks afterwards came back with
a good suit of clothes. He says, “I have got my
shoes and clothes.” “Well,” the man said, “I
am interested in you, and I would like to help you.
Have you been to school?” “No. I can’t read.”
“Well,” he said, “our boys must know how to read
and write.” He went right out without saying a
word, and in a few weeks he returned and said, “I
can read and write, sir.” The man tok him in,
and in talking to a friend he said, “The only fear
I have of of that fellow is that he will be in my
place in about ten years.” He did not adjust him
self to a barefoot, ragged, ignorant condition.
When he saw where he was, he said, I am going to
rise above this, and with a determination that was
heroic he did it. And so with sin. Let us not
adapt ourselves to the environment that sin brings,
but determine in the strength of oGd to rise above
and conquer it; and we will do it.
7. A diseased imagination. “Everybody that
sees me will kill me.” They could kill him but
once, he seemed to think he could be killed a hun
dred times. That is what sin or crime does. It
fills the imagination with hobgoblins of fear and
despair.
The great mistake that Cain made was that he
turned his back on God. lie “went out from the
presence of the Lord and dwelt in the land of Nod,
in the East of Eden.” Not that he thought he
could get away from God, but he went from his
conscious presence. He left His altar, His worship
and His service. “From this time on,” he says to
himself, “I will be independent of God.” I will
set up business for myself. If I cannot till the
ground, I will build cities and found a civilization
with God left out.” And he did, with the result
that thtj world became so bad God was compelled
to destroy it.
Omaha Convention B. Y. P. U.
The Executive Committee of the B. Y. P. U. of
America, lOirough its various sub-committees in
Chicago has been seeking to perfect arrangements
for the Fifteenth International Convention to be
held in Omaha, Neb., July 14-15.
In the City of Omaha itself a large committee
under the leadership of Rev. J. W. Conley has been
making every effort to perfect arrangements for a
successful session, and in line with his efforts as
well as with those of the other committees an ur
gent appeal has been made for the prayer of all
people that “Spiritual power, in an unusual meas
ure, may signalize this Convention and that the
Convention may bring to all such vision of the
Christian oportunity as will lead to greater activity
for the extension of The Kingdom of God.”
“The people who win their way into the inmost
recesses of others’ hearts are not, you will find,
usually the most brilliant and gifted, but those who
have sympathy, patience, self-forgetfulness and that
indefinable faculty of eliciting the better nature of
others.”
Rev. J. J. Bennett, of Griffin, has accepted the call
to the Secretaryship of the Baptist State Mission
Board to succeed Dr. S. Y. Jameson, recently elect
ed President of Mercer University.
“ The Entrance
of
Thy Words
Giveth Light."
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