If it had been left to every man to give for religious purposes as he pleased how piles treatment should so many people have hit upon a tenth for God's portion rather than a fifth or a fifteenth, etc.  Does not the universally of this proportion point to a time when the ancestors of those nations lived together and so derived the custom from a common source.  When we study religious history, we learn that the Egyptians the Babylonians, the Greeks, the Romans, and all heathen people centered their giving around the tenth.  This practice of giving to God not less than a tenth must have begun when there was one family on earth.  When they were scattered abroad throughout the world and went into idolatry, the law of giving was so indelibly impressed upon their minds that they never forgot it.  

If God from the beginning taught Adam that it was mans duty to render a portion of his increase to his maker, and that portion was not less than a tenth, than we shall see that the facts recorded in Genesis strengthen such a proposition.  We may conclude that covetousness was in the heart of Cain as it was in the heart of Ananias and Sapphira, each pretending  to offer more than was really given; each exemption to deceive the Almighty.  It may be protested that we do not read of a law in Genesis for the payment of a tenth.  Do you doubt that there was from the beginning a law against murder.  Cain was punished for it; or a law against adultery.  Judah and of Tamar, "Bring her forth and let her be burnt."  Why did God punish Cain about his giving if there was no law concerning it.  One may say tithes are not mentioned until the days of Abraham.  If thsi means that no one tithed before Abraham then let us apply this kind of reasoning to other cases.