was there, it was clearly possible that he should win it.
Hard and stern as has been his toil, through all these ages it has
nourished him. Nature, though stern, is the reverse of malignant; all
her conditions are not penal, but disciplinary; the sentence placed him
at the foot of the ladder, a vision of which Jacob once saw, whose
highest rungs are lost in heaven. But instead of tracing this, I wish to
dwell rather on the ministry of the sentence at once and directly to the
unfolding of man's Divinest life. The more you look at it, the more
clearly I think will it become apparent to you that it is through toil,
and care, and pain alone that such a being as man can rise to the full
height of his godlike stature, and grow into the likeness and the
fellowship of God. Let me ask you then to consider these three points:--

1. Through toil, and care, and pain, man becomes a creator--not a
servant, but a master workman, and springs, as compared with his
condition in Eden, into a higher region of life.

2. Through toil, and care, and pain, he becomes acquainted with all the
experience of a father; the deepest and noblest relationships unfold
their significance, and unutterably enrich and exalt his life.

3. By toil, and care, and pain, he rises to the full and sympathetic
knowledge of God his Redeemer, and enters into the holiest fellowship of
the universe for ever.

1. The experience which grows out of the sentence constitutes him a
creator, a master workman, and lifts him into a higher region of life.

Man in Eden was the loyal, loving servant of his Creator, no more. God
"_placed him in the garden to dress and to keep it_." Fair, sweet,
genial work, like life in one of the soft bright islands of the Pacific.
Every moment an exquisite sensation, every movement a pulse of joy.
Well! there you have the whole of it. And I say boldly there is not
enough of it. To dress and to keep even a paradise is poor, slight work
for a being framed and endowed like man. It was inevitable that sooner
or later he should get to the end of its interest and the lees of its
joy. A strong, hardy, brave, cultivated Englishman soon gets to the end
of the soft, sweet life of the Pacific island. It suits the islanders,
who are mostly pulp, morally and mentally,--the human jelly-fish,
without muscle and fibre; but there is not enough of it for the
cultivated and developed man. Toil, pain, and care set the exile of Eden
at once about higher work. He