Fear enters largely into human experience. It is an emotion which is sometimes stamped upon the countenance so that it is legible to all who look upon it. Under its baleful shadow some men have spent a large part of their life. We may well ask what to fear and how to be delivered from its evil There are some -

I. THINGS THAT HAVE BEEN, BUT NEED NOT HAVE BEEN, FEARED.

1. Men and . women have dreaded "the evil eye" of their fellow men. They have been alarmed by evil omens, by signs and portents that have boded misfortune or calamity, by presentiments of approaching death, etc. All these things have been purely imaginary, and they have added largely and lamentably to the burdens and sorrows of existence. It is painful to think how many thousands, how many millions of mankind have had their hearts troubled and their lives darkened, or even blighted, by fears that have been wholly needless - fears of some evil which has never been more or nearer to them in fact than the shadow of the bird's wing as it circles in the air or flies away into the forest.

2. Of these imaginary evils that which is conspicuous among others is the curse of the wicked - "the curse that is causeless." The bitter imprecation of the heart that is full of unholy hatred may make the spirit quiver at the moment, but its effect should be momentary. Let reason do its rightful work and the anxiety will disappear. What possible harm can come of the bad man's curse? He has no power to bring about its fulfilment. Not in his hand are the laws of nature, the issues of events, the future of the holy. Let the feeling of apprehension pass away with a reflection that all these things are in the hand of the Supreme. Let it be as the wing of the flitting bird, out of sight in a moment. Let it be "as the idle wind which we regard not."

II. THINGS THAT MUST SOMETIMES BE BRAVED. Although we may entirely disregard the malediction of the guilty and the godless, we are obliged to attach some importance to their active opposition. When implication passes into determined hostility, we have then to lay our account with it. We have then to consider what we must do to meet it. But if we are obviously and consciously in the right, we can afford to brave and breast it. We are not alone. God is with us. Almighty power, irresistible wisdom, Divine sympathy, are with us; we may go on our way, doing our duty and bearing our testimony, fearless of our foes and of all their machinations. There is, however -

III. ONE THING FROM WHICH IT IS NATURAL TO SHRINK; the enmity of a bureau begirt. We may make light of the weapons of our adversaries; we may be fearless of their designs and their doings; but from the feeling of hatred in their hearts we do welt to shrink. It is far from being nothing that human hearts are actually hating us, malevolently wishing us evil, prepared to rejoice in our sorrow, in our downfall. We should not surely be entirely unaffected by the thought. It is a consideration that should move us to pity and to prayer. We should have a sorrowful feeling that ends in prayer that God would turn their heart, that leads also to the first available opportunity of winning them to a bettor mind. And there are those who should cherish -

IV. ONE SALUTARY FEAR. (Ver. 3.) Those who are wrong in heart and life may dread the coming down upon them of that rod of correction which is found to be the only weapon that will avail. - C.

Another, and perhaps a better, translation is this, "Unsteady as the sparrow, as the flight of the swallow, is a causeless curse; it cometh not to pass." "There is a difficulty here," says Wardlaw, "in settling the precise point in the comparison. The ordinary interpretation explains it with reference to curses pronounced by men without cause — imprecations, anathemas, that are unmerited — and the meaning is understood to be — as the bird or sparrow, by wandering, and as the swallow, or wood-pigeon, by flying, shall not come — that is, shall not reach us or come upon us in the way of injury — so is it with the causeless curse. It will "do no more harm than the bird that flies overhead, than Goliath's curses on David." And it might be added that, as these birds return to their own place, to the nests whence they came, so will such gratuitous maledictions come back upon the persons by whom they are uttered.

I. MEN ARE FREQUENTLY THE VICTIMS OF HUMAN IMPRECATIONS. Few men pass through the world without creating enemies, either intentionally or otherwise. Men vent their hatred in various ways.

II. THAT HUMAN IMPRECATIONS ARE SOMETIMES UNDESERVED. The curse is "causeless." Sometimes the curses of men are deserved. There are two classes of causeless curses —

1. Those that are hurled at us because we have done the right thing. When you are cursed for reproving evil, for proclaiming an unpopular truth, or pursuing a righteous course which clashes with men's prejudices or interests, the curse is causeless.

2. Those that are uttered without reason or feeling. There are men who are so in the habit of using profane language that it almost flows from their lips without malice or meaning. The greatest men in history have been cursed, and some of them have died under a copious shower of human imprecations.

III. UNDESERVED IMPRECATIONS ARE ALWAYS HARMLESS. "The greatest curse causeless shall not come." Was David the worse for Shimei's curse? or Jeremiah for the curse of his persecutors? "He that is cursed without a cause," says Matthew Henry, "whether by furious imprecations or solemn anathemas, the curse will do him no more harm than the sparrow that flies over his head. It will fly away like the sparrow or the wild swallow, which go nobody knows where, until they return to their proper place, as the curse will at length return to him that uttered it." "Cursing," says Shakespeare, "ne'er hurts him, nor profits you a jot. Forbear it, therefore, — give your cause to heaven." But if the curse be not causeless, it will come. Jotham's righteous curse came upon Abimelech and the men of Shechem (Judges 9:56, 57). Elisha's curse fearfully came to the young mockers of Bethel (2 Kings 2:24). "The curse abides on Jericho from generation to generation."

(Homilist.)