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Nelson Evening Mail, Volume VI, Issue 265, 9 November 1871, Page 4

Who was Cain's Wife ? — Mr. Ward Beecher, in a recent sermon, said — There is no record of Cain's courtship or weddiDg. However interesting to the parties themselves, it is of no interest to us, except upon the supposition that the account in Genesis of the creation of Adam was designed to exclude the supposition that any people had been created. If Adam and Eve were the sole progenitors of the race, Cain and Abel, it is inferred, must have married their own sisters — a connection which is shocking to the sensibilities of the whole human race at a subsequent stßge of development. But many of the fathers of the Church denied that Adam and Eve and their children were the only people on the globe. They affirmed that the text in Genesis very plainly implies that there were other inhabitants besides Adam's family. They allege that the fourth verse of Genesis plainly implies that the world was widely populated. For when God declared that Cain should be driven from his family and made a vagabond in the earth, Cain deprecated the sentence, and replied that "every one that findeth me shall slay me." It was plainly not his family connections that he feared, for he desired not to be driven from them. It was the people that he should meet when he was a wanderer iv the earth. Who then were the people that Cain should fear to meet when he should have gone forth into the earth. It is also reasoned by scholars that the most natural method of soothing his fears would have been to tell him " there are no other, people on the earth except your father's children." Instead of that the Lord is represented as falling in with Cain's impressiou respecting the population of the world, and that he "set a mark on Cain lest anyone finding him should slay him." (Gen. iv., 15.) Still further, it is said that Cain, separating himself from his kindred, went to the land of Nod, east of Edpm j "he built a , city, and .oallecf, the , /; uaineof the 'city after the name dfchwi son Enoch." The fathers very pertinently asked, where did the people come from t&ttt lived in d th*t A olty P That would ba

au extraordinary state of things that would have enabled Cain to fill up a city, however small, with his own children ! And it is inferred therefore, there were other people in the land besides the immediate posterity of Adara. If Adam was the only progenitor, Cain must have married his sister. If there were lines of people, other Adams, as it were, he might have married into another stock. We do not express any judgment in the matter. We give the corresponding opinions that, have been held in the eatly days of the Church, but with the statement that almost all modern Christians have rejected them. The Secret or the French Disasters. — Napoleon, it is now obvious, committed a great mistake in leaving the capital to take command of the army. He could have done much more at Paris than at Saarbruck, Chalons, or Sedan. When numerous defeats had accumulated on his head, return was considered too perilous to be attempted. Among the papers found at the Tuileries after the revolution and published by the Provisional Government, was one consisting of a despatch discovered in fragments, and addressed by the Empress to the Emperor, in reply it would seem, to an intimation, from the latter that lie contemplated returning to Paris after the first misfortunes of the army. The Empress writes: '"l have received a despatch from Pietri. Have you reflected upon all the consequences which would follow from your return to Paris after having sustained two reverses? For my own part, I dure not assume the responsibility of giving advice. If you are decided upon if, the step must be presented to the public as merely temporary — the Emperor returning to Paris to reorganise the second army, and provisionally entrusting the commander-in-chief of the Army of the Shine to Bazaine." The project was abandoned, and the fall of the Empire, which the presence of the Emperor iv Paris might possibly have averted, followed in a few days, A strange fatality seemed to attend all the operations of the war, from the commencement to the end. The Emperor himself was doubtful of success from the very first. He is reported to have said, just before leaviug Paris for the scene of action, "Only one thing troubles me; I have not a general who can handle 100,000 men." The fact is, the army had for many years been fearfully mismanaged by men who were more desirous of enriching ihemselves than of doing their duty to the State. When Marshal Niel became the Minister of War, he said to the Emperor, "Sire, you have no army." This must have been a startling piece of information to the ruler who had spent so much money on the military power of the country, and who had been denounced at home and abroad as a despot by the grace of unlimited bayonets. Under the Ministry of Marshal Niel, the forces were enormously increased, and in part re-organised-; but the Marshal himself died soon after, and the rule of mismanagement returned in full strength. In the earlier years of Napoleon's reign, the French army showed all its wonted excellence ; but the habit of subordination seemed now to be lost. The contempt for the principle of authority, which the ultra-Eepublicanshad been so industriously disseminating for years, had penetrated the minds of the soldiery, and was not long in producing the disastrous results which it is alone capable of bringing forth. On numerous occasions during the war, privates in the French ranks openly defied, jeered at, and insulted their officers. Some of the latter were even shot by their own men. Such a spirit is fatal to an army, and if not reformed or checked will soon be fatal to a nation also. Those factious politicians who have condemned beyond measure the faults and errors of the Imperial Government (some of whichwere disastrous enough .to need no coloring), should ask themselves whether they have not contributed to the same end by their insane policy of systematic insubordination. The superiority of the Prussian to the French army was shown in nothing more than in the obedience yielded by every man to the commands of his officers; the self-abnegation which preferred the efficiency of. the whole machine to the indulgence of individual caprice." It is possible that on some occasions the French generals might have retrieved their misfortunes, if they could have counted on ,the devotion of their men. Again and again, after defeat,' the soldiers refused to rally to their commanders. It was not courage that was needed, nor, for the most part, knowledge, of military science. The army wbb ruined by want of discipline and defiance .of "subjection. ; An Author, complaining of the injustice of the Press in condemning his new tragedy, said the censures were unjußt, jfor t the audience did "' npjt, rhljM<it. t ,. " No,"