no return. The greatest punishment, how ever, lay in the fact that banishment from the soil meant not only outlawry, separation from friends and neighbors, but also removal from the protection of the Deity. God was God of the land, and his protecting influence did not extend beyond its boundaries, so that, according to primitive notions, exile was worse than death, because in it a man was without law, family, friends or God. It is almost impossible for us to appreciate these primitive notions. To-day we travel fearlessly to the ends of the earth. In those days every stranger was ipso facto an enemy, and a stranger in a strange land lived in con stant fear, not only of his mortal foes around him, but of unfriendly demons and spirits with whose worship he was unfamiliar, and whom he did not know how to placate. Thereupon Cain said unto the Lord, "My punishment is greater than lean bear. • Behold, thou hast driven me out this day from the face of the earth, and from Thy face shall I be hid, and I shall be a fugitive and a vagabond upon the earth; and it shall come to pass that every, one that findeth me shall slay me." Having been driven out from his land he would be hidden from his God, and the protection of his God being removed, any man might kill him with impunity. Now, it obviously was not the intention of God that Cain should be put to death for this crime. He was to be punished more severely; and, therefore, when Cain pointed out the fact that by being made an outlaw every man was free to kill him, God said to him, "Whoso slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold," and in order to insure Cain against harm God set a mark
upon him lest anyone finding him should kill him. The mark of Cain is commonly spoken and thought of as a "brand marking hiin as the murderer and as condemned of God. Thousands of sermons have been preached on this text, and the phrase has gone into common speech as the brand of Cain"; and yet it is entirely false. It was apparently a mark fixed upon Cain in order to show to ail the world that he was under God's pro tection, and that his life should be spared. Furthermore, it seems quite obvious that the mark was put on him at his own request, in order to obviate the danger of being killed by anyone who found him. It was equivalent to the mark of the taboo of the Australian. The man who was thus marked was not amenable to human jurisdiction, and his person and property were inviolate. He belonged to the Deity. It was a species of Herein. The Herem was an institution known at Jewish law, whereby persons and property were devoted to Cod. This act of devotion usually meant that they were utterly de stroyed, the notion at the bottom of the word Herem being not so much that the objects were given to God as that they were forever removed from man, and could never more be used or enjoyed. This seems to have been the state of the case with Cain. He was banished from all association with his fellowmen, made a wanderer and a vagabond, and because of that, made personally inviolate, so that he was permitted not even the inter course with his fellow-men that would have been necessary in order to kill him.
