The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-01-28
PAST BREACHES
 ON THE SIN OF CAIN
Crime Against Society Based
 Upon Rebellion Against God
FAILURE ENVlES SUCCESS
Human Nature Was Just the Same With the Children of Adam as 1t Is in This Twentieth
 Century.

The Rev. pr. A. R. Moore preached yes. terday morning at the First Christian church "The Sin of Cain," his ser mon being based on the story of Cain and Abel
 Dr. Moore spoke in part as follows
 The fourth chapter of Genesis gives us the first glimpse Of worship among men, and the consequences of false wor ship. The account of Cain and Abel seems 10 presuppose an advanced state of so- ciety, and on that account there are those who boldly deny that Cain and Abel were sons of Adam, but move them down some 2oOo years in the history of the world to a time when the people had entered upon a settled state of life. There Is but one reason for doing that, and that is the denial of the antiquity and authenticity of the book of Genesis
 To one who accepts the Bible as a di- vinely inspired book. there is no difficulty l. understanding this case. Adam was 129 years old at the time that Cain offered his objectionable sacrifice. If he obeyed the command of God to multiply and fill up the earth, there must have been large number of people in the world at ! that time. Bishop Kitto plcaes the num- Der at several thousand.
 Where Cain Got His Wife.
 The old question as to where Cain got his wife is easily answered here, He did not find her in the land of Nod, as some suppose, but he took her with him into exile. She was his own sister. Up to the time of Abraham, it was customary for a man to marry his sister, If he wanted to do so. l was in the law of Moses that marriages of close kin were forbidden Cain was a married man, and the head of family at the time of this sacrifice The ! law of sacrifice in the patriarchal age constituted the head of the family the i priest in that family This law had not | ye= been recorded nor has sacrifice even i been mentioned thus far in Genesis, but we have every reason to believe that Cain | was familiar with this law, as he had | also been familiar with sacrifice from his i childhood. The proof of the existence of ! sacrifice from the beginning is found in i the giving of the skins of animals for l clothing.
 ! atonement for sin. the body of the ani- mal was partly burned and partly eaten U show the participation of the divine and the human in the sacrifice and the skin of the animal was used as a cloak Or covering for sin. Now, while all this is not elaborated in the early chapters of | Genesis, the presence of the one item which is mentioned does, in the light of later teaching and records, necessarily ! imply all the rest.
 We have here the beginning of crime. 1 Crime against society is based upon re- bellion against God. This is seen in the story of the rejected offering.
 The Rejected Offering. 1 In process of time Cain, who was tler of the soil brought an offering of the fruit of the ground. Abel his brother, was a shepherd and brought an offering from the first of his hocks. God had re- spect to the offering of Abel, but to Gains offering He had not respect Cain was very angry at being thus rejected, and God tried to appease him. God is always reasonable. and never arbitrary in dealing | with the sinner But why should He re-
 
 Cain brought what he had and so did ! Abel. If God had never taught them what would be an acceptable sacrifice, it is im- possible to see hom He could have held them responsible for not bringing the right thing. God does not deal with man after that fashion The presence of the cloak for sin is proof that he had taught them a century and a quarter before. They had been familiar with it all their lives.
 But God did afterwards accept offerings from the ground; why then reject Gains? | Gods question to Cain makes that clear Why art thou wroth? If thou doest we'll shalt thou not be accepted?'' That is to say Cain. if you haven't sinned, your offering is all right and will be accept ed' But ''if thou doest not we'll that is if you have sinned, then "a sin offering lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire. and thou shalt rule over him. Cain, if you are a sinner, come as a sinner, with sin offering. I have pro- vided it for you, it is at hand, and all you need 10 do is to make of it. That word rendered sin is found Si2 times in our Bible. It is translated 229 times by the word sin. It is translated no times sin offering. In it's secondary meaning it always means an offering for sin, and should be so rendered here. That makes the whole passage clear
 The Two Offerings.
 The writer of Hebrews says that Abel