The Negro A Beast In The Image Of GOD

MAN, AND THE NEGRO. 147
that Cain obtained his wife in the land of Nod. On the
other hand, his previous history, as above shown, proves
that she was formerly his paramour, and sustained that
relation to him at the time when he and his brother Abel
brought their offerings unto the Lord. And that, immediately
after that event, God, by special decree, and
as a punishment upon Cain for his criminal relations with
her, bound them to each other in the relation of husband
and wife. After their arrival in the land of Nod, '*Cain
knew his wife," in the sense that she conceived and bare
Enoch; just as, after their expulsion from the garden of
Eden, *'Adam knew Eve his wife," in the sense that she
conceived and bare Cain. (See also lyuke i, 36.) Cain
and his wife disappear from the records, and all trace of
them is lost after the birth of Enoch and the building
of the city which Cain named after his son Enoch.
If, as many suppose, Cain had taken his sister to
wife, sin would not have lain at his door as
the result of
his act. He would simply have obeyed the law given
man in the creation: "Be fruitful and multiply.*' The
only way the sons of Adam could have preserved and increased
the pure Adamic flesh was by taking their sisters
to wife.
This course was evidently pursued by Seth and
his younger brothers, and they were never censured for
it. On the contrary, Seth, the third son of Adam, was
very highly honored in that his taking his sister to wife
placed his name in the line of descent from Adam to
•Jesus Christ. Hence, he stands in the genealogical
tables of tbs Bible as one of the ancestors of the Messiah.