HON. MARSHALL P. WILDER. 7,3 



types. Neglected, they return to their crude form, 

 and become a bane and not a blessing. The com- 

 mand to subdue the earth was a command to cultivate 

 it ; and this was for man s sake as well as for Nature's. 

 We are told, on highest authority, that ages ago the 

 earth was cursed for man's sin ; and some have been 

 cynical enough to say that our New-England soil, 

 and to a somewhat extreme degree our good State 

 of Massachusetts, had got more than her fair share 

 of it : of the curse, I mean, not the sin ! But I half 

 remember. Dr. Blagden will prompt me if I cannot 

 get through, that that shrewd old Hebrew speech 

 had a word which meant either to bless or to curse, 

 according as you took things. There was a deep 

 philosophy in that. Curses are blessings taken 

 wrong end foremost! Blessings are curses if you 

 do not take them by the right handles ! The good 

 if dishonored, becomes an evil and a destroyer. So 

 it may not be wholly wrong to fancy that the earth 

 cursed for man's sin, was cursed also for his sake. If 

 he fell by eating of the tree of knowledge of good 

 and evil, then he must use that knowledge in work- 

 ing his way back by separating the good from the 

 evil thus laid on Nature. If by eating an apple he 

 fell from an angel's estate, he must learn to bring out 

 an apple that will make a man an angel ! Has not 

 our friend done that ? Has he not learned how 

 to redeem the earth from its curse.'' It is glory 



3 



