must have been echoing in the ears of Cain, all his days. He might go
has borne the curse; it has absorbed it; it has transmuted it into a blessing,—a blessing which it is pouring freely out on all who will but receive it. Its message is, "Come now and let us reason together, saith the Lord, though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow; though they be red like crimson they shall be as wool."
6. It speaks of life, not of death.—Cain s blood-guiltiness seemed to seal up man's ruin, and shut him up to helpless death. There seemed nothing in reserve but death. Even a brother's heart could meditate death against a brother, and a brother's hand inflict it. But in this better blood all is life,—life everlasting,—life that has come to us through death,—the death of the substitute. It is this blood which says, "I am the resurrection and the life, he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live, and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die."
7. It speaks not to alarm but to soothe the conscience.—Abel's blood must have been echoing in the ears of Cain, all his days. He might go out from the gate of Eden, the presence of the Lord, but he could not get beyond the sound of that voice. It would keep his conscience ever open, ever bleeding, ever tortured. But this better blood speaks peace. It purges the conscience and lays its alarms to rest. It heals, it restores, it gladdens. To be sprinkled with it is what the conscience desires. To hear its voice is what the conscience feels to be necessary for comfort and rest. Its still small voice can in a moment calm the tumults of the most torn and troubled breast.
8. It speaks not of man the fugitive and vagabond, but of man restored to Eden.—It was the blood of his brother that chased Cain from the gate of paradise. It would not allow him to dwell even within sight of it, though outside the sacred fence. But this better blood brings back the sinner to the gate of Paradise again,—nay brings him in, or at least gives him the pledge that he shall one day reenter these blessed gates, and dwell within these blessed bowers. It transforms him from a fugitive and a vagabond, such as he is by nature, into a fellow-citizen with the saints and an heir of the