ceit ourselves to be free. Those poor, light-hearted people in the
dreadful days of the French Revolution, used to keep up some ghastly
mockery of society and cheerfulness in their prisons; and festooned the
bars with flowers, and made believe to be carrying on their life freely
as they used to do; but for all that, day after day the tumbrils came to
the gates, and morning after morning the jailer stood at the door of the
dungeons with the fatal list in his hand, and one after another of the
triflers was dragged away to death. And so men and women are living a
life which they fancy is free, and all the while they are in bondage,
held in a prison-house. You, my brother! are chained by guilt; you are
chained by sin, you are chained by the habit of evil with a strength of
which you never know till you try to shake it off.

And there comes to each of us a mighty Deliverer, who breaks the gates
of brass, and who cuts the bars of iron in sunder. Christ comes to us.
By His death He has borne away the guilt; by His living Spirit He will
bear away the dominion of sin from our hearts; and if the Son will make
us free we shall be free indeed. Oh! ponder that deep truth, I pray you,
which the Lord Christ has spoken in words that carry conviction in their
very simplicity to every conscience: 'He that committeth sin is the
slave of sin.' And as you feel sometimes--and you all feel
sometimes--the catch of the fetter on your wrists when you would fain
stretch out your hands to good, listen as to a true gospel to this old
word which, in its picturesque imagery, carries a truth that should be
life. To us all 'the Breaker is gone up before us,' the prison gates are
open. Follow His steps, and take the freedom which He gives; and be sure
that you 'stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made you free,
and be not entangled again with any yoke of bondage.'

Men and women! Some of you are the slaves of your own lusts. Some of you
are the slaves of the world's maxims. Some of you are held in bondage by
some habit that you abominate, but cannot get away from. Here is freedom
for you. The dark walls of the prison are round us all. 'The Scripture
hath shut up all in sin, that He might have mercy upon all.' Blessed be
His name! As the angel came to the sleeping Apostle, and to his light
touch the iron gates swung obedient on their hinges, and Roman soldiers
who ought to have watched their prey were lulled to sleep, and fetters
that held th