So his father Abraham before him. Only, sad to tell it, it is a _brother_ who acts the part of the world in the scene. Lot chooses, as the world chooses, the well-watered plain. Abraham suffers, and takes it patiently--though it was something more galling than the wrong of a Philistine--the unthankful, selfish way of one who should have known better, and who owed him everything. Gen. xiii. So Israel, in still later days, accepts the insult of Edom in like spirit. They pleaded for a passage through their land by the claims of kindred, by reason of their common origin, by their many toils and afflictions, by the tokens of the divine favour toward them, and by their present need as toiling, way-worn pilgrims through a desert land. But Edom despised them and threatened. They pleaded again, but they were insulted again; they suffered it, and took another road. Num. xx. And so their Lord in the day of His pilgrimage. He sought another village when other Edomites of Samaria refused Him. Luke ix. Precious and happy, thus to put Him at the head of all that is excellent! The good that is done is _like_ Him, as well as _of_ Him. Isaac suffers wrong from _the world_, and takes it patiently. Abraham suffers wrong from _one who owed him everything_, and takes it patiently. Israel suffers likewise from their _kindred_; but Jesus from those whom _He was serving and blessing at the cost of everything to Himself_, from the world which He had made, and from that people whom He had adopted. And yet "He lays His thunder by," and goes on His pilgrimage of love and service still. In like spirit the family of God, in days before the flood pursue their pilgrim path. They leave the world to Cain. There is not the symptom of a struggle, nor the breath of a complaint. They say not, nor think of saying, "Master, speak to my brother, that he divide the inheritance with me." In habits of life and principles of conduct, they are as distinct from their injurious brother as though they were of another race, or in another world. Cain’s family make _all_ the world’s history. They build its cities, they promote its arts, they conduct its trade, they invent its pleasures and pastimes. But in all this Seth’s family are not seen. The one generation call their cities after their own names; the other call themselves by the name of the Lord. The one do all they can to make the world their own, and not the Lord’s; the other do all they can to shew themselves to be the Lord’s, and not their own. Cain writes his own name on the earth; Seth writes the Lord’s name on himself.