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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." 3