; for if men may not do that, then is that true of them which
Homer said of old--that man is more miserable than all the beasts of the
field. For the animals look neither forward nor back. They live but for
the present moment; and pain and grief, being but for the moment, fall
lightly upon them. But we--we who have the fearful power of looking
back, and looking forward--we who can feel regret and remorse for the
past, anxiety and terror for the future--to us at times life would be
scarce worth having, if we had not a right to cry with all our hearts--

"O God, in Thee have I trusted, let me never be confounded."

SERMON XXIV. THE BLESSING AND THE CURSE.

Preached on Whit-Sunday.

DEUT. XXX. 19, 20.

I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have
set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose
life, that both thou and thy seed may live: that thou mayest love the
Lord thy God, and that thou mayest obey His voice, and that thou
mayest cleave unto Him: for He is thy life, and the length of thy
days: that thou mayest dwell in the land which the Lord sware unto thy
fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them.

These words, the book of Deuteronomy says, were spoken by Moses to all
the Israelites shortly before his death. He had led them out of Egypt,
and through the wilderness. They were in sight of the rich land of
Canaan, where they were to settle and to dwell for many hundred years.
Moses, the book says, went over again with them all the Law, the
admirable and divine Law, which they were to obey, and by which they were
to govern and order themselves in the land of Canaan. He had told them
that they owed all to God Himself; that God had delivered them out of
slavery in Egypt; God had led them to the land of Canaan; God had given
them just laws and right statutes, which if they kept, they would live
long in their new home, and become a great and mighty nation. Then he
calls heaven and earth to witness that he had set before them life and
death, blessing and cursing. If they trusted in the one true God, and
served Him, and lived as men should, who believed that a just and loving
God cared for them, then they would live; then a blessing would come on
them, and their children, on their flocks and herds, on their land and
all in it. But if they forgot God, and began to worship the sun, and the
moon, and the stars, the earth and th