ABSTRACT
The Jews, like many other nations, in endeavouring to account for the difficulties in the government of the world, put forth some apologues. Because these apologues have been incorporated with the books which the Christians account sacred, the latter, though the very essence of their religion consists in going counter to the Jews, think it their business to uphold them in every particular, and to find in them nothing but morality, right reason, and perfection. If the Jews, in the story of Cain and Abel, merely intended to shew the unhappy consequences of envy and murder, they made a very affecting apologue. Why murder and other evils came into the world to disturb the otherwise beneficent results of our passions, is a great mystery.
