The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1871-07-06
Henry Ward Beecher's Opinion Of CaiRas
Marriage.

| There is no record of Gains cotittship or
! wedding. However interesting to the parties
themselves, it is of no interest to us, except
| upon the supposition that the account in Gem
| esis of the creation of Adam was designed to
| exclude the supposition that any other people
had been created If Adam and Eve were the
sole progenitors of the race, Cain and Abel, it
| is inferred, must have married their OWE Sis
tcrs-a connection which is shocking to tho
sensibilities of the whole race, at subsequent
stage of development.
| But many of the fathers of the church de-
| MED that Adam and Eve and their children
were the only people on the globe. They
| affirmed that the text in Genesis very Piain-
ly implies that there were other inhalntants
besides Adams family. They allege that
that the world was already widely popula-
| ted. For when God declared that Cain should
be driven from his family, and made a yaga-,
bond in the earth, Cain deprecated the sentence
and replied Chat every one that fndeth me
shall slay me-" 1t was plainly not his family
connections that he feared, for he desired not
to be driven forth from them. 1t was the peo-
pie that he should meet when wanderer In
the earth Who, then, were the people that
Cain should fear to meet when he should have
gone forth into the earth
1t is also reasoned by scholars that the most
natural method of soothing his fears would
have been to tell him "there are no other peo..
pie on the earth except your fathers children"
Instead of that, the Lord is represented as fal-
ling in with Gains impression respecting the
population of the world, and that He set 3
mark on Cain, lest any one finding him should
slay him. (Gen. iv i5.) Still further, it is
said that Cain, separating himself from his
kindred went to the land OF Nod, east of Odom,
che built city, and called the name Of the
CITY after the name of his son Enoch." The
fathers very pertinenty asked, where did the
people come from that lived i'll the city2 That
would be an extraordinary state of things that
would have enabled Cain to fill up city, how
ever small with hiso children And it is
inferred, therefore there were other people ia
the land beside the immediate posterity Of
Adam. If Adam was the only ,progenitor,
Cain must have married his sister. If there
were lines of people, other Adams, as it were,
he might have married into another stock.
We do not express any judgment in the mat
ter. We give our correspondent opinions that
have been held in the early days of the church,
but with the statement that almost oil modern
Christian writers have rejected them.
But as the origin of races has in our day as
sumed an important scientific development
and as very many able scientists hold to va
riety of original stocks, it is interesting to-
know that those views have been held before,
and upon supposed Biblical grounds.
But are there no more questions about Cain
Does nobody wish to know what the mark was
which the Lord affixed to Cain? Does no one
wish to know how Cain died? Questions must
be scarce to leave such points untouched. II
Cain is to be raised, he surely ought to be
thoroughly dealt with.