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But if you will read the Revelation, you will find that what he
plainly refers to is to the fearful curses, the plagues, the vials
of wrath, as he calls them, which were to be poured out on the
earth; and then to cease when the New Jerusalem came down from
heaven.
St. Paul, again, knows nothing about any such curse upon the earth.
He says that death came into the world by Adam's sin: but that must
be understood only of man, and the world of man; and for this simple
reason, that we know, without the possibility of doubt, that animals
died in this world just as they do now, not only thousands, but
hundreds of thousands of years before man appeared on earth.
What St. Paul says of the creation, in one of his most glorious
passages, is this--not that it is cursed, but that it groans and
travails continually in the pangs of labour, trying to bring forth;
trying to bring forth something better than itself; to develop, and
rise from good to better, and from that to better still; till all
things become perfect in a way which we cannot conceive, but which
God has ordained before the foundation of the world.
Besides, as a fact, the earth does not bring forth thorns and
thistles to us, but good grain, and fruitful crops, and an abundant
return for our labour, if we choose to till the ground.
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