The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1871-02-24
Miscellaneous.
GAINS WIFE.
by HENRY WARD BEECuER,
Dpnnrpkor 1-tb 1onO

December 18th. 1860.
Rev. HENRY WARD BEEcuER.-
Dear Sir: Please inform me through
the columns of the NeW York Ledger,
who Gains wife was, and obige
A READER OF THE LEDGER.
There Is no record of Gains court
ship or wedding. However interesting
to the parties themselves, it is of no in.
terest to us, except upon the supposi.
tion that the account in Genesis of the
creation of Adam was designed to ex
clude the supposition that people had
been created. If Adam and Eve were
the sole progenitors of the race, then
Cain and Abel, it is inferred, must have
married their own sisters-a connec.
tion which is shocking to the sensibili
Ties OF the whole race, at a subsequent
stage Of development.
But many of the Fathers of the
Church denied that Adam and Eve,
and their children, were the only peo-
pie on the globe. They affirmed that
the text in Genesis very plainly implies
that there were other inhabitants be.
sides Adams family. They allege that
verse IA of chapter 4 of Genesis, plainly
implies that the earth was already
widely populated. For, when God de.
clared that Cain should be driven out
from his family, and made a vagabond
in the earth, Cain deprecated the sen
tence, and pleaded that "everyone that
findeth me shall slay mbR 1t was
plainly not his family cont tions that
he feared, for he desired nd No be driv-
en- forth from them. 1t was the people
he should meet when}a wanderer in
the earth. Who, then, were these peo-
pie whom Cain feared to meet when he
should have gone forth into the earth?
1t is also reasoned by scholars that
the most natural%ssethod of soothing
his fears would have been to tell him,
"There are no other people on earth
except your fathers children.' Instead
of that the Lord is represented as fall
ing in with Gains impression respect
ing the population of the world, and
HE "set q mark upon Cain lest any
fihding him should kill him." (Gen. 4 :;
1D, Still further it is said that Cain,
separating himself from his kindred,
went to the land of Nod, east of Edom,
and he builded city, and called the
name of the city after his son Enoch
The fathers very pertinantly asked,
"where did the people come from, that
lived in this city? That would be an
extraordinary state of things which
should have enabled Cain to fill up II
city, however small, with his town
children And it is inferred, therefore,
that there were others in the land be-
sides the immediate posterity of Adam.
If Adam was the only progenitor,
Cain must have married his sister. If
there were other lines of people, other
Adams, as it were, then Cain might
have married into another stock.
We do not express any judgment in
the matter. We give our correspond
ent the opinions that have been held in
the early days of the church, but with
the additional statement, that almost
all modern christian writers have reject
ed them.
But as the origin of races has, in oul
day. assumed an important scientific
development, and as very many able
scientists hold to variety of origina
race stoc ks, 1t is interesting to know
that those views have been held before
and upon supposed Biblical grounds.