o are contrary to one another; so that when the heart goes out in
its inclination, it is immediately hindered and opposed by the law.
Sometimes the collision between them is terrible, and the soul becomes;
an arena of tumultuous passions. The heart and will are intensely
determined to do wrong, while the conscience is unyielding and
uncompromising, and utters its denunciations, and thunders its warnings.
And what a dreadful destiny awaits that soul, in whom this conflict and
collision between the dictates of conscience, and the desires of the
heart, is to be eternal! for whom, through all eternity, the holy law of
God, which was ordained to life peace and joy, shall be found to be unto
death and woe immeasurable!

II. In the second place, the sense of duty is a pain and sorrow to a
sinful man, because it _demands a perpetual effort_ from him.

No creature likes to tug, and to lift. Service must be easy, in order to
be happy. If you lay upon the shoulders of a laborer a burden that
strains his muscles almost to the point of rupture, you put him in
physical pain. His physical structure was not intended to be subjected to
such a stretch. His Creator designed that the burden should be
proportioned to the power, in such a manner that work should be play. In
the garden of Eden, physical labor was physical pleasure, because the
powers were in healthy action, and the work assigned to them was not a
burden. Before the fall, man was simply to dress and keep a garden; but
after the fall, he was to dig up thorns and thistles, and eat his bread
in the sweat of his face. This is a _curse_,--the curse of being
compelled to toil, and lift, and put the muscle to such a tension that
it aches. This is not the original and happy condition of the body, in
which man was created. Look at the toiling millions of the human family,
who like the poor ant "for one small grain, labor, and tug, and strive;"
see them bending double, under the heavy weary load which they must carry
until relieved by death; and tell me if this is the physical elysium, the
earthly paradise, in which unfallen man was originally placed, and for
which he was originally designed. No, the curse of labor, of perpetual
effort, has fallen upon the body, as the curse of death has fallen upon
the soul; and the uneasiness and unrest of the groaning and struggling
body is a convincing proof of it. The whole physical nature of man
groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now,