umph of faith. They represent two
types of religion, one of faith and the other of works. Then as in all
succeeding ages the true worshipers were persecuted by false
worshipers.

God showed his mercy to Cain whom he sent away from the place of
worship at the east of the garden by putting upon him the divine mark
so that no one should destroy him. He also allowed him to prosper and
it was through his descendants that civilization began to show itself.

Cain and Seth-Two Races. Another son was born to Adam named Seth.
Probably others have been born since the death of Abel but none of a
like spirit to Abel and hence none worthy to become the head of a
spiritual branch of mankind. Cain's descendants applied themselves to
the arts and to manufactures, to the building of cities and the making
those things that furnish earthly comfort, while the descendants of
Seth, were selected to be the instruments of religious uplift and to
have communion with Jehovah. Through inter-marriage with the
descendants of Cain, however, the generation of Seth was corrupted.
This led to a period of great wickedness and the destruction of the
people by the flood.

The great age of those who lived in this period may have been a
provision of nature for the promotion of a rapid increase of the race
and for the advancement of knowledge. The revelation of God to them
could thereby be the better preserved. Then, too, the body of man was
not originally subject to death and when it became so because of his
sin, the process of decay may have been less rapid. And, besides, the
effect of hereditary disease had not begun to effect and weaken the
race.

The Great Wickedness. As indicated above, this Wickedness seemed to
arise from the intermarriage of the descendants of Seth and those of
Cain. The descendants of Seth were called "the song of God," because
they were the religious seed. When they looked upon the beautiful
daughters of Cain (called the daughters of man because they
represented the irreligious portion of the race), they married them
and thereby brought the whole race into such corruption that "every
imagination of the thought of his heart was only evil continually"
(Gen. 6:5). God therefore declared "My Spirit shall not always strive
with man" and set the limit when he should quit thus striving with him
at one-hundred and twenty years (Gen. 6:3). After that God proposed to
destroy the whole wicked race from off the face of the earth (Gen.
6:7