Abel the Undeveloped

The second figure in the group of the Great Gallery is Abel. One of the spectators in that Gallery, the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews, has distinctly declared him to have been among the world’s representative men. ‘By faith he being dead yet speaketh.’ The idea is clearly that of timelessness. It is suggested that the man has not become an anachronism, that at the time when this spectator lived his voice was quite a modern voice. It had not become superannuated. He had personified something which did not pertain to any special age, something which was cosmopolitan and therefore everlasting. Other things had ‘waxed old’ and were ‘ready to vanish away.’ Much in the past was but a

‘shadow, and had shared the evanescence of a shadow. But the Portrait of this man revealed a quality which was vital to humanity, whether Jewish or Pagan or Christian. It had revealed something which belonged, not to any particular form of worship, but to worship itself — to the religious instinct in all its forms of life and in all’its stages of progress. By that cosmopolitan quality Abel was kept alive — alive amid the changing environment, alive amid the traces of the dead; he has a present voice, he yet speaketh.

What zs this quality of which Abel is the inaugurator, and by whose inauguration he lives? The spectator I have quoted says it is ‘faith, and he defines faith to be ‘the evidence of things not seen.’ It is belief which is in advance of experience. To say that a man ‘died in faith’ is, with the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews, equivalent to saying that the man’s experience was arrested before it reached its full development. When Abel

1 Though the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews applies

the phrase to the whole Gallery, Abel’s early death is evidently to him a case of sfec¢a, immaturity.

is called the first man of faith, it is implied that he died too soon for realisation, that he did not live to see the fulfilment of his plans, that his sun went down while it was yet noon. Abel, in short, is the type of the undeveloped. If the figure of Adam represents the child, the figure of Abel represents the man arrested in his youth. He stands for the life interrupted, the life cut short. He is the unfinished building, the incomplete work, the fragment of an unrealised whole. We feel, in looking at him, what we feel in reading the beginning of a book which its author has not lived to finish — a sense of what might have been, of possible work not done. His very name expresses the thought of evanescence; it signifies ‘ breath, ‘vapour, ‘vanity.’ He has come down to us as the type of the unsurviving class, of the unfit class, of the invalid class. He is the forerunner of those who physically are driven to the wall.

The startling thing is that the Bible should have put such a form on its canvas. No other

gallery would have done that. On every other canvas the forms inscribed are the forms of the physical survivor. Here the type selected is that of the class outstripped in the outward race. And the most remarkable thing is that the Bible Gallery has made this choice not unconsciously, but deliberately. Abel’s is not an accidental portrait; it is the result of a preference. He gets a more prominent place in the Gallery than his elder brother. For he as an elder brother, a brother who, in addition to his seniority, is in every respect more suited to his age. If Abel is physically weak, Cain is physically strong. If Abel seems behind in his earthly work, Cain appears to be in advance with his. ‘IT have gotten a man from the Lord, cries his mother while yet he was a child. From the world’s point of view Cain was a precocious child, suggesting that the man had already begun. As his form stands before us we feel that he is exactly the man who in his own day was fitted to win. And in his own day he does win. Abel has no chance with him. He monopolises by main force. He utilises for his own advantage all the gifts of life. He builds a city. He founds a dynasty. He inaugurates a civilisation. He becomes the progenitor of those who forge weapons of war. His name is caught up by the earliest poetry; his deeds are sung to the primitive music. He belongs to the world’s physical side, and therefore he is distinctively the prominent man of his time.

Yet he is not the prominent man in the Gallery... The artist of later days has hung his Portrait high. The place he had among his contemporaries is refused him by the Great Academy; it is assigned to his unobtrusive brother. In the light of posterity Abel is the commanding figure. It is the lowest hung of the two Portraits. And it is so for the reason that it is deemed more modern than that of Cain, ‘He being dead yet speaketh.’ From an earthly point of view, his life was short, his work interrupted, his mission a failure. From the Divine side, his life was long, his work continuous, his mission a grand success. He is the representative of all the great who die

D young. The Picture is meant to declare that no really great work is ever interrupted. The voice of Abel’s blood is described as crying from the ground. It is a fine picture of the permanence of his work. Dead, buried, forgotten by his contemporaries, this man is declared to be speaking from beneath the very soil that had covered him! His life-work, seemingly arrested, is going on underground! As by an unconscious cerebration, it is influencing the years! Unseen, unnoted, unreckoned with amid the factors of human progress, it is exerting a force whose silence is equalled by its strength and which is destined one day to flash before the eyes of men!

And indeed it has been so. This underground voice of Abel has been the germ not only of the Hebrew nation, but of the deepest life of humanity. What is that work which peculiarly marks the Jewish nation? It is the elaboration of a system of sacrifice. That system seemed to spring spontaneously from the dust. But dd it? Was the sacrificial life of Israel indeed a sudden thing, a thing unprepared for in the history of the past? No, says the Great Gallery, it had its root in the life of an individual man, a man little known in his day and little seen by his generation, yet sowing below the soil seed that refused to die. His voice was drowned during life; but he spoke after death. He was early compelled to rest from his labours; but his works followed him. His memory completed what he himself had left unfinished. His influence worked underground. His image, cherished at first by only a few hearts, moulded these hearts and spread beyond them. His example created imitators, The leaven permeated the mass. The ideal he had left behind kindled a spark. It first scintillated, then shone, then blazed. It became a candle with Abraham, a lamp with Moses, a fire with the prophets of Judah, until at last it burst into a conflagration on the summit of the Hill of Calvary.

Such I conceive to be the place given to Abel in the Great Gallery. It is the place of a germ-cell — the germ-cell of that particular

spirit of sacrifice which, originally peculiar to the Jewish nation, has ultimately given its law to man as man. Come, then, and let us look at this germ-cell — this thing by which the dead Abel yet speaketh. Let us stand before the Picture and study its simple features; their simplicity may give us light. There are some who profess to read human history by the hand; I will try to read ¢hzs history by the Picture. By the aid of imagination I will endeavour to weave together those threads of the narrative which are presented loose and scattered. Imagination contributes to reality if it can supply the missing links in fact. My object is to detect, if possible, the meaning which the artist had in view. The rough sketch meant more to him than it does to us. If we can disentangle that meaning, we shall have reached the secret of that idea which has made Abel’s Portrait the picture of a representative man.

I have said that the Portrait of the primeval Adam reveals a mixture of dust and divinity. Here the dust and the divinity again meet us, but they are no longer combined in a single

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life; they reappear in the two contrasted lives — Cain and Abel. Cain is a child of the dust; Abel is a product of the Divine breath. Cain views the field as a source of food; Abel contemplates it as pleasant to the eyes. Nor alone does the contrast lie in secular things; it distinguishes the religion of the men. Both the brothers are religious, so far as the form of worship is concerned. Both offer a sacrifice to the Lord; both offer an appropriate sacrifice. Each gives the fruit of his own profession. Abel is a shepherd; it is right that his offering should be from the fold. Cain is an agriculturalist; it is well that his gift should be from the soil. TZhzs side of the contrast is only proper; it grows out of their respective callings. The difference between the dust and the divinity does not lie in the diversity of these men’s gifts, but in the diversity of their spirit. The eye of an outward observer could have detected no difference in quality. The writer to the Hebrews says so. He says it was ‘by faith’ that Abel offered a better

sacrifice than Cain. What he means is that it was faith that made the betterness. The comparison was not between gift and gift; it was between soul and soul. It was not grounded on the relative value of the animal and the vegetable; it was based on the fact that the human was better than either — that the surrender of a man’s life to God is a more acceptable service than all the produce of the fields or all the cattle of the meadows. The whole point of the narrative lies in the superiority of a human offering. Let me try to reproduce what I conceive the thought of the artist to have been in depicting the attitude of these two brothers.

I figure Abel going into the field and thus with himself communing: ‘This is indeed a beautiful world! I have heard in my childhood that the footsteps of the Lord God used to be audible in the cool of the day. I do not wonder they were; I only wonder they are not heard still. I am sure the Lord God is walking still; I have faith enough in Him to believe ¢haz. Why, then, do I not hear Him? The fault

must be in we. My ear must have become

Ne i a dull to the heavenly movement by listening too much for the sounds of earth. Is it not that I have been growing too selfish? My flocks have been increasing, and so has my joy of possession. I have been so busy in counting the number of my sheep that I have not heard the sweep of my Father’s garment passing by. This ought not to be. If I were to sacrifice something of this selfish life, I wonder if the sound of the footsteps would come back. If I were to select a portion of this treasured wealth of mine and offer it as a gift to God, would there not be a chance that I should hear once more the music which long ago was wont to haunt the dell! I will try. I will attempt to atone to the Lord God for this selfish life. I will sacrifice to Him the best part of my worldly gains. I will remove from my sight, from my hearing, that which curtains eye and ear from Him; and when the door of my heart is opened, it may be that He will reveal the presence which I know is there:

Cain also goes out into the field; and thinking of his crops, with himself he thus discourses: ‘How dependent we all are on wind and weather! It would bea pity if anything happened to spoil the harvest! Would it not be well that I should try to propitiate the creat Power that rules the elements! I have heard that to gain God’s favour is to gain the world. I have been told that when God was acknowledged as the planter of the trees, man was made wonderfully happy — that he was placed in a Paradise of fruits and flowers, where rivers clear as crystal traversed lands rich with gold. Was not the prize worth the homage! Would it not repay me to make an offering to the Lord of some produce of my soil! It would be a sacrifice to-day, but it would bring gain to-morrow. It would not only avert calamity, but increase my store. It is a highly profitable thing to save one’s soul if thereby he gain the world. I will not murmur to yield this oblation to the Lord God, for I shall get it back, in interest, tenfold.’

The offerings are made, and each brother retires to his home. Time passes; and by and by there happens a strange thing. These brothers meet with opposite destinies. Abel has a splendid year; his flocks are multiplied, his cattle are on a thousand hills. Of course this is not an answer to his sacrifice, nor does he take it as such. He has received the only answer he wanted — an increased sense of God’s presence. Yet to the eye of Cazz it looks as if his brother had been answered by material prosperity. And what about Cain himself? He has experienced another fate than that of Abel. For him the wheel of fortune has turned the opposite way. The winds of Nature have been adverse; great rains have blighted the produce of the fields; fierce storms have swept the horizon; floods have accompanied the time of ingathering; disease has laid its hand upon the crops; the harvest has been a miserable failure. Cain is filled with indignation. His is the anger of a man defrauded. Had he not invested his money in a bank that promised good interest! Had he not presented a gift to the Lord God with a view to achieving worldly success! Was this fair treatment from the Lord God! Was he to get no equivalent for his sacrifice! Had he not given up the best fruits of his last year’s harvest! Would a man do that for nothing! If he served God, was he not entitled to a service from God! Was it right that a man who had been so liberal with his means should be rewarded with blight and mildew! Did he not well to be angry!

The artist, in Genesis, declares that Cain was under an error of judgment. Have you ever considered the fine expostulation which he puts into the mouth of the Lord God, ‘Why art thou wrathful, and why is thy countenance fallen; if thou doest well, shall thy countenance not be wflifted!’ What is the meaning of these words? I understand them to mean this: ‘Cain, you are mistaking the terms of your own investment. You expected to receive interest for your sacrifice. You were right; true sacrifice always brings its interest. But what zs the interest of true

sacrifice? Is it houses and servants and lands;

i ie a is it flocks and herds; is it fruits and trees? No; it is the uplifting of the countenance. There is only one sign of the acceptance of a sacrifice; it is the inward joy of the offerer. Not the clearing of clouds from the sky — even though they de cleared — is the mark of My favour; not the presence of clouds in the sky — even though they de present — is the mark of My distance.. The test of My nearness to your brother is not the riches of his pastures; the test of my absence from you is not the scantiness of yourcrops. The interest to be reaped from sacrifice is not the bright sky, but the bright face; if your countenance is fallen, you may be sure that at the door of your sacrifice there is lurking some secret sin.’

But the narrative says this reasoning is beyond Cain. To him the aggravation is not so much his failure as the fact that he has failed where his brother has succeeded. As the firstborn, he can brook no such superiority. How deep is this picture of envy! Could any ¢zyro have painted it! Think of the bold

paradox of making the first scene of inhumanity arise in the sphere of religion! Think of the mental acumen implied in the discernment that envy is not so much your wish to get a thing as the wish that / should zo¢ get it! Very striking seems to me this latter point. Cain has positively nothing to gain by the suppression of Abel. What would the shepherd’s life be to Azm! His line of livelihood lay in another direction. The wealth of Abel would have been useless in his hands. It was no object of 4zs ambition to lead the sheep by the green pastures and beside the still waters. What riles him in the sight of his brother’s wealth is not the possession, but the prestige. There lies the sharp distinction between envy and covetousness. Covetousness is for things; envy is for persons. Covetousness is the wish to possess; envy is the wish to dzspossess. Covetousness is your desire to win; envy is your desire that / should Jose. Cain has begun with covetousness; he has developed into envy. His sacrifice has been prompted by avarice; his aversion to his brother has not. He has passed from the mark of the beast to the number of the beast. The mark of the beast is the indulgence of self; the number of the beast is the exclusion of others — it is Number One. The sin of the Garden has become procreative. Adam had been content to say, ‘All these things shall be mine’; Cain has reached the darker thought, ‘They shall at least not be my brother’s,’

And now comes the final scene of the Picture. We have seen Abel alone in the field; we have seen Cain alone in the field; we now see both in the field — they ‘talk together.’ What do they talk about? I can imagine; and I think my imagination expresses the thought in the mind of the artist. I conceive the following dialogue. Cain says, ‘ You shall make no more offerings to the Lord God; I am the eldest born, and to me belongs the right to sacrifice. Abel answers, ‘I dare not concede the privilege of personal approach to God.’ ‘A privilege for you zudeed) sneers Cain; ‘it has added to your sheepfold!’ ‘Nay, answers Abel, ‘I offered sacrifice just to save me from holding such things to be privileges of religion; my offering was meant to wean me from the fold.’ ‘Then, cries the elder brother, ‘you were praying against me, praying me down. You have been winning the love of the Lord God by the pretence of a disinterested devotion. You have been setting your romance against my reality, and with success. My crops have faded and your flocks have flourished; you have been the thorn to my rose. Desist, I say, from these detrimental prayers! Throw down your domestic altar of self-immolation! Cease to be a barrier to my gains! I will tolerate no current running counter to mine!’ Cries Abel: ‘I dare not disobey my conscience — not for the love of gold, not for the fear of you. Your sacrifice is a mockery, because it is a merchandise. It deserves nothing du¢ the famine; it could reap nothing but the blight. I do not wonder that yours has been this year a barren harvest.’ But even while he speaks he reels backward. A blow from his brother’s hand has struck him — swift, impetuous, passionate. He staggers, he falls, striking his

- head in a vital part; he rises no more; he seals his conviction with his blood.

Now, the point of the Picture lies in the fact that this martyrdom was an arrest of development, In the view of the artist, in the view of the early spectator, Abel has not /fuzshed his work of sacrifice. It is only a germ-cell that has appeared when he is called away. That critic of the Gallery to whom I have already alluded has put it very tersely and very finely. Looking at the Portrait of Christ, he cries, ‘We are come to the blood of sprinkling, which speaketh better things than that of Abel.’ Language could not more clearly express the incipient nature of Abel’s sacrifice. Why is the blood of Christ declared to be a better offering than the blood of Abel? Because Christ’s is ‘the blood of sprinkling.’ It is not merely shed; it is shed on others, shed /or others. Abel’s is not a ‘blood of sprinkling.” It is a beautiful offering, an inward offering, a spiritual offering, but not yet an impersonal offering, It is a sacrifice for the wellbeing of his own soul, but not for the souls of posterity. He desires communion with his God, a sense of personal fellowship with the Author of his being; he has rightly discerned the things that belong to his peace. But he has not discerned the things that belong to the peace of coming Jerusalems. Equally with Cain he would perhaps have said, ‘Am I my brother’s keeper!’ His was a protest in favour of the higher over the lower life; a protest against utilitarian worship, against buying and selling in the temple of God. But it was his owz higher life that he vindicated. He broke the box of ointment, but its fragrance did not yet fill the House of Humanity; it was not a gift for the prospective world. He was beyond his times, for his times were the times of Cain; but his march was arrested midway before he was able to attain the times of Jesus.

THANK Thee, O Lord, that the Great Gallery has enshrined a form which the world thought unfit for survival. I thank Thee that man’s judgment has not been the final judgment. I thank Thee that in the many mansions of this Gallery Thou hast prepared a place for what I called failure. Abel would never have been one of my representative men; I should have chosen Cain as the ‘man from the Lord. I have no place in my philosophy for the bud which has never flowered. I have no niche in my gallery for the life that has been only promise. But Thou hast enshrined the bud that the storm forbade to flower; Thou hast preserved on the canvas the life of unfulfilled destiny. Thou hast taught me that the dead can speak, that the work need not end when the life has closed. Thou hast taught me that the influence can outlive the hand that shed it. Thou hast taught me that much of this world’s work is done by the departed — that we live by the afterglow of many vanished days. Help me to remember the afterglow! When I see lives interrupted and am tempted to say, ‘To what purpose is this waste!’ help me to remember the afterslow! Help me to remember that the shed blood cries to Zee, that the interrupted life E works for Thee! Help me to remember that among the forces of earth there is none more potent than that of those whom we call the dead! So, in the time of depression, when men point to the unfinished glory and say, ‘Where is the providence of God!’ I will look at the Picture in the Gallery and answer

‘He being dead yet speaketh.’