Not long thereafter, Cain and Abel were together in the field. Cain had brooded over the incident of the offerings. His anger had waxed hot, till it was ready to burst into furious flame. Satan had gained possession of his mind, had filled him with envy, and had inspired him to hate his brother. So, as he talked with his brother in the field, Cain suddenly arose in ungovernable rage and struck his brother down and killed him. It was a day of horror in man's history. It was a day of blackness and blood. Cain was a brother-murderer--a fratricide. And it had come about because he had yielded to anger and envy and hate. Satan had gained possession utterly of his soul. Therefore, Cain was cursed by the Lord and cast out from His presence. In the story of Cain is illustrated wonderfully the truth of the saying of the Wise Man of Israel: "Wrath is cruel, and anger is outrageous; but who is able to stand before envy?" [Sidenote: The lesson at home.] The story of Cain is a story of long ago. But we all know many instances of the ugliness of anger in our own day. In every prison house in the world are confined men who have committed crime in fits of anger. "An angry man stirreth up strife, and a furious man aboundeth in transgression," said the Man of Wisdom. When a man is angry, he loses control of the good that is in him. He returns to the state of the beast. He speaks words of which afterward he is ashamed. He does things for which afterward he sorrows. Anger is an {200} infernal poison, administered by the father of lies himself, which courses through the blood, makes the heart pound, and creates delirium in the mind. There are many ugly sights in the world; but there is perhaps none uglier, more repulsive, than a man furiously angry. Therefore is it said, "Make no friendship with an angry man and with a furious man thou shalt not go: lest thou learn his ways, and get a snare to thy soul." [Sidenote: The power of the mind.] Everyone knows how unpleasant is the company of a quarrelsome boy, or of a quarrelsome girl. The best of sport and the choicest of company can be spoiled by one angry countenance. The truth taught in the preceding lesson may here be emphasized. "As a man thinketh in his heart so is he." According to your habits of thought, you are agreeable or disagreeable. According to your habits of thought, you find quarrel in a straw, or peace and serenity in turmoil. According to your habits of thought you may become a strife-breeder or a peacemaker. "A wrathful man stirreth up strife: but he that is slow to anger appeaseth anger." And since it rests with yourself, is it not deplorable that you should follow in the footsteps of Cain? "The human will, that force unseen, The offspring of a deathless Soul, Can hew a way to any goal, Though walls of granite intervene."