ernly asks, "_Where is thy brother?_" Cain impudently
replies, "Am I my brother's keeper?" Then comes the curse. It is a
self-invited curse, for the gift he gave to God is the harvest in
future for himself. Ah, what a lesson. How early it is taught. If you
hate God, if you regret what you give, if you make it small, if you
see to it that you give the leavings rather than the firstlings, then
beware. Cain said his punishment was greater than he could bear. He is
getting back what he gave. The command is, Give, and it shall be given
back. The converse is true--Keep, and it shall be kept back.

The hopes of Eve were centred in the victory to be achieved over the
enemy of her life, by means of the triumph to be won by her children.
Her trials really began when she saw that sin was not an accident. It
was rebellion which bore fruit. Her treachery to God came back to her
in this treachery of her first born to her second child, whom she
loved with maternal tenderness. Thus the gates of evil were thrown
open, and they filled the land with violence, and the flood became a
necessity.

What was true of Eve was more or less true of woman until Christ
came. She inherited sorrow, and was born to a life of humiliation and
wretchedness. The history of woman in the olden time and at this hour,
wherever Christ is not known, is full of sorrow. In Christ she finds
an emancipator from sorrow.

There is another strange fact. In the Old Dispensation, the first born
son is the child of promise. But wherever the influence of Christ's
gospel rules, there the rule of the first born disappears, and all,
both sons and daughters, share in the patrimony of the house and in
the honors of the household. Despite this, it is natural for a father
to love his first born son the best, and for the mother to find her
heart clinging involuntarily to the younger and weaker. From the
unfortunate the father may turn, but the mother never. She will bind
her love tightest about the birdling that, from some misfortune, is
unable to leave the maternal nest.

Turn we to the Old Testament, we find that whenever man was brought
near to God, as was Abram, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, and others, woman was
held in respect, and was permitted to exercise an elevating influence
in the home; and yet it remains true, that in nearly every instance
she failed to prove herself a helpmeet.

Sarah introduced Abraham to polygamy, Rebekah was a pattern of lying,
and Rachel of deceptio