the love which “_endured the cross and despised the shame_,” that it might win the right and the power to redeem. There is no sin whose stains may not be wept out at the Redeemer’s feet. There is no life which may not win “She hath loved much, for she hath much forgiven” as its record, earnest of a rapture of eternal bliss. But dream not that the path can be an easy one, and that penitence can transmute the sorrow into joy by a word. You have done that whose issues could only be undone by the agony and bloody sweat of Gethsemane, the cross and passion of Calvary; and you too must die, die to sin, that you may live to God. The flesh, which has despised your birthright, must be mortified, crucified, by grace. “_I am crucified with Christ_” you must learn to say; you must know the fellowship of the sufferings of your Master, and taste the cup of which He drank the dregs, or the lost birthright is lost for ever, and the deed done on earth remains irreparable as well as irrevocable through eternity. VII. THE CURSE OF THE GROUND. “Cursed is the ground for thy sake.”—GEN. iii. 17. Are these words part of a curse, or part of a blessing? Are they a sentence on man, the doom of his transgression, or the first stage of a process destined to issue in the redemption of the heir of promise from sorrow and sin for ever? Few phrases are more frequently on our lips than “the curse of labour.” Men, women, yea little children, overburdened and crushed by the stern toil which is the necessity of their existence, easily catch up the sentence, and submit to the necessity in the sullen bitter mood with which a slave accepts his chastisement, or a criminal the sentence of doom. Few things are more firmly fixed in our minds than that the toil and the strain of life are God’s curse on transgression, having merciful bearings and issues no doubt for the man who lovingly submits to the discipline, but in themselves evil and hateful, born of sin, and a part of death.