REWAEDS or AGRICULTURE. 441 



REWARDS OF AGRICULTURE. 



From an Address before the " ' Society. 



JW EKV. GEORGE E. ELLIS. 



Iii that inspired record which tlic world reveres we read 

 the solemn sentence uttered to Adam: "Cursed is th< 

 for thy sake : thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to 

 thee*: in the sweat of thy face shalt thou cat bread." The 

 genius of the Hebrew Ian as well as the comment which 



Ion-- experience has written upon that sentence, allows us a 

 considerable range of freedom in interpreting it. What does 

 it mean ? "Were the seeds of thorns and briers created after 

 Adam's sin, to abate the glory of the first garden, to fret and 

 aggravate the stern tasks of man, and to lacerate the hands 

 which must toil for the body's sustenance ? It would be hard 

 to believe that, especially hard to ascribe the vengeful infliction 

 to a good Being, unless some ulterior purpose of bio ; ig be 

 concealed behind the curse. Rather should we say that the 

 sentence indicated a removal from a sheltered garden of ease, 

 and indolence, and unpurchased fertility to the open fields of 

 the world, where the germs of thorns and thistles had been al- 

 ready sown with those original growths whose seeds are in 

 themselves upon the earth. Certain, however, it is. that, if the 

 necessity of toiling amid thorn- and thistles is a part of a curse, 

 a compliance with its terms is the condition of the highest 

 earthly 1 known to man. It would be no difficult task, 



it would require no special pleading, no ingenious tricks of ar- 

 gument, to prove that all human knowli , art, cul- 

 ture, and skill, with some of the richest of happii 

 have come to man directly through the tillage of the earth. 

 The moment man undertakes to pierce the soil he com 

 the uso»of some tool instead of his own hands, and lie del 



