30 FARM ECHOES. 



He created in His own image man before he had sinned 

 in the garden, "to dress it, and to keep it." 



The laborious work had all been done, man had only 

 "to dress it, and to keep it." There were no thorns nor 

 thistles then, No "sweat of the brow," nor aught to 

 weary or sadden. No curse nor death. The labor and 

 toil, the curse and death, came after Adam's sin, and 

 were endured outside the garden, not in it. No place is 

 now exempt from them. Aching and sweating brows are 

 everywhere where there is toil, whether it be in the study, 

 the counting-house, the workshop, or the farm. God's 

 chosen occupation for sinless man was that of "keeping" 

 the field or garden He had planted and stocked for him, 

 God thus made Agriculture the most honored and digni- 

 fied calling in which man could be engaged. 



Noah was no sooner out of the Ark than he " began to 

 be a husbandman " ; so that husbandry was the first oc- 

 cupation of man before and after the flood. Abraham 

 "was rich in cattle." Lot also "had flocks and herds." 



Isaac "went out to meditate in the field at eventide," 

 but it was not, it may safely be supposed, upon the 

 product of that field that he then meditated, for the 

 young man, we are informed, "lifted up his eyes and 

 saw the camels were coming." Knowing the errand 

 upon which they started, his thoughts doubtless centered 

 in the fair young maiden who accompanied them on their 

 return. Afterwards, however, he is found sowing in the 

 land of Gerar, and so successful was his farming, that 

 he made "an hundred fold " the first year, and soon pos- 

 sessed such flocks and herds, and such influence, as made 

 the king dread his power and request him to move else- 



