REV. xxii. 3. ” And there shall be no more curse.”

THUS the book closes where it begins. We have got back
to Eden at last; very long has been the wandering of the
sad human family, but the end is reached now. From that
hour when the glare of the red sword of the seraph waved
its fierce light over the wilderness, what a dreadful way the
world has passed.
I. Let us attempt to realize what is implied in the curse.
It is visible. Man has marks of great gifts and great
attainments which neither belong to the clay nor to the
beast; but there, in the heraldry of our race is the bar
sinister, which darkens the hatchment and scowls on the
escutcheon.
The curse is there. There is a malignant power in the
world, a malevolent influence. Can you belong to the city
and not believe that?
Mark again how it reigns. The rigour of the curse is
the rigour of the law; it is the rigour of tribulation and
anguish.
Then there is the curse of the flint, the curse of a hard
heart. Oh! the stony hearts you meet with in this world!
Oh! the hearts on which it seems as if all the dews of the
kindliest heavens might rain, and never produce a single
grain for the harvest!
Then there is the curse of the spear—pain, cancers for
the body, breaking for the heart.
Then there is the curse of the soil—curse of the thorn
and the weed. Labour has very little dignified enjoyment
now.
So it is not a happy world.
II. The removal of the curse. Christ is the great power
of God. He was a supernatural means of Divine mercy.
The world of evil and spiritual agencies pressed hard on
Him, but He was, through it all, able to open the kingdom
of heaven to all believers. Christ, in the fulness of His
Divine power was made a curse for us. He would not
have come if the world, in its condition of suffering, simply
expresses the will of God.
What joy when the race of souls return to their home
and allegiance like weary birds returning to their nest!
No more curse! Worthy is the Lamb that was slain.
Edwin Paxton Hood