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, waiting for the adoption, that is the redemption of the body from this penal necessity of perpetual strain and effort.

The same fact meets us when we pass from the physical to the moral nature of man, and becomes much more sad and impressive.  By creation, it was a pleasure and a pastime for man to keep the law of God, to do spiritual work.  As created, he was not compelled to summon his energies, and strain his will, and make a convulsive resolution to obey the commands of his Maker.  Obedience was joy.  Holy Adam knew nothing of effort in the path of duty.  It was a smooth and broad pathway, fringed with flowers, and leading into the meadows of asphodel.  It did not become the “straight and narrow” way, until sin had made obedience a toil, the sense of duty a restraint, and human life a race and a fight.  By apostasy, the obligation to keep the Divine law perfectly, became repulsive.  It was no longer easy for man to do right; and it has never been easy or spontaneous to him since.  Hence, the attempt to follow the dictates of conscience always costs an unregenerate man an effort.  He is compelled to make a resolution; and a resolution is the sign and signal of a difficult and unwelcome service.  Take your own experience for an illustration.  Did you ever, except as you were sweetly inclined and drawn by the renewing grace of God, attempt to