Anniversary Address. 171 



man^s use and enjoyment, than that the ground is under a curse, 

 and that man is doomed to partake of the fruits of it in sorrow. 



But it is safest, perhaps, to reason, upon a sacred question like 

 this, from the sacred records themselves : and, in the first place, 

 I cannot detect in our walks through this district any of those 

 signs of a ground which the Lord has cursed, which the Scrip- 

 ture itself leads us to look for ; such as that which was said to 

 Cain : ' When thou tillest the ground, it shall not henceforth 

 yield unto thee her strength.' Lamech too, the father of Noah, 

 speaks as if he were smarting under the pain of profitless labour, 

 when he complains of ' The work and toil of his hands because 

 of the ground, which the Lord hath cursed.' The practical 

 agriculturist knows that the ground does not now withhold 

 her strength from the skill and perseverance that seek to bring 

 it out. 



The barrenness of a land that is cursed is described in another 

 place of Scripture, in terms such as these (Deut. xxviii. 23, &c.) : 

 ' Thy heaven that is over thy head shall be brass, and the earth 

 that is under thee shall be iron. The Lord shall make the rain 

 of thy land powder and dust.' This cannot be said of the land 

 we inhabit, in which we see seed-time and harvest, cold and heat, 

 summer and winter, day and night, following each other in 

 regular succession. 



Neither can I reconcile with the notion of a land that is cursed, 

 the Scripture account of the state of some parts of the world in 

 times not many years after the flood ; such as that which Lot 

 occupied : (Gen. xiii. 10.) * Lot beheld all the plain of Jordan, 

 that it was well-watered everywhere, even as the garden of the 

 Lord:' or that glowing description given by Moses of the Land 

 of Promise : (Deut. viii. 8 and xi. 11.) ' A land of wheat and barley, 

 of vines, fig-trees and pomegranates ; a land of olive oil and 

 honey ; a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills thou 

 mayest dig brass.' 'It is a land of hills and valleys, and 

 drinketh water of the rain of heaven. The eyes of the Lord thy 

 God are always upon it from the beginning of the year even unto 

 the end of the year.' This land at least was not under a 

 curse. 



I think therefore there is great reason for interpreting in its 

 literal sense the promise made to Noah after the flood : ' I will 

 not again curse the ground for man's sake ' (Gen. viii. 21) ; and 



