I do not propose to occupy your thoughts with any of what I may call the minor mercies of the sentence, and the minor ministries of toil, care, and pain to the true development of man. The sentence of toil at once began man’s higher education. It brought him firmly and sternly, but not malignly, into contact with the laws which he had broken, and whose penalties he had defied. Not a morsel of bread could he win without again submitting to them; humbly, absolutely, utterly, he must become their servant if he would win the lightest blessing from their hand. But the blessing was there, it was clearly possible that he should win it. Hard and stern as has been his toil, through all these ages it has nourished him. Nature, though stern, is the reverse of malignant; all her conditions are not penal, but disciplinary; the sentence placed him at the foot of the ladder, a vision of which Jacob once saw, whose highest rungs are lost in heaven. But instead of tracing this, I wish to dwell rather on the ministry of the sentence at once and directly to the unfolding of man’s Divinest life. The more you look at it, the more clearly I think will it become apparent to you that it is through toil, and care, and pain alone that such a being as man can rise to the full height of his godlike stature, and grow into the likeness and the fellowship of God. Let me ask you then to consider these three points:— 1. Through toil, and care, and pain, man becomes a creator—not a servant, but a master workman, and springs, as compared with his condition in Eden, into a higher region of life. 2. Through toil, and care, and pain, he becomes acquainted with all the experience of a father; the deepest and noblest relationships unfold their significance, and unutterably enrich and exalt his life. 3. By toil, and care, and pain, he rises to the full and sympathetic knowledge of God his Redeemer, and enters into the holiest fellowship of the universe for ever. 1. The experience which grows out of the sentence constitutes him a creator, a master workman, and lifts him into a higher region of life.