And from that blood there went forth a voice which published to all the living the execution of the curse. Henceforth all hope of escape must be cut off. The work of death had now begun. Adam and all his race must prepare to die.
2. The blood of Abel spoke of the deep and awful _depravity_ of human nature consequent upon the fall. It showed that man's fallen nature was early ripe for the most atrocious wickedness. The seeds of corruption implanted in that nature required no long period of ages to bring forth their fatal fruits. They developed themselves with most terrible rapidity. The earliest crime on record in the history of the race, is of Titanic proportions. Old as the world has grown in guilt, it has yet found nothing to surpass it. Familiar as we are with its dark and dreary annals, its oft-repeated chronicles of wickedness, there is not in them all a more thrilling testimony to the deep and universal depravity of fallen nature, than is uttered in that first cry of blood which went up from the ground into the ear of God. It would seem as though man's darkened spirit could not wait for death to begin his fatal work upon the species by what we now call the natural course of sickness and disease, but he must himself chide death with tardiness, and lift his own hand with murderous intent, and slay his fellow.
The blood of Abel speaks not of Abel calmly yielding up his breath, while his head lies peacefully on his mother's lap. It calls us to no softened couch over which fond parents bend in agony, and catch the placid smile which lingers on the countenance, and gather up the few rays of hope which beam in the dying eye, and which seem to whisper that death may, after all, be not so formidable a thing.
In no such way does it speak to us. But it is Abel murdered, Abel stretched upon the cold ground, weltering in his blood, a mangled, ghastly spectacle. And every clotted blade of grass, and every bloody stone has found a tongue, and cries, "A brother's hand has done the hellish deed." We stand aghast, and ask for no more appalling testimony to the total depravity of the species. Try as we may to soften down the hideousness of that depravity, after all our study to find something to relieve the odiousness of that corruption which festers in the soul, there is a voice in the earliest history of the race, a voice of blood which mocks our arguments and banishes our cherished convictions.