ily relationships are Christ's
sacred appointments? Do I believe that our Lord Jesus was made very man
of the substance of His mother, to sanctify these family relationships,
and claim them as the ordinances of God His Father?

In one word--copy Joseph; and when you are tempted say with Joseph, "Can
I do this great wickedness, and sin--not against this man or this woman,
but against--_God_."

Take home these plain, practical words. Take them home, and fear God at
your own firesides. For at the last day, the Bible tells us, the Lord
Jesus Christ will not reward you and me according to the opinions we held
while in this mortal body, whether they were quite right or quite wrong,
but according to the deeds which we did in the body, whether they were
good or bad.

X. SLAVES OF FREE?

"Fear ye not, stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord, which he
will show to you to-day: for the Egyptians whom ye have seen to day,
ye shall see them again no more for ever. The Lord shall fight for
you, and ye shall hold your peace."--EXODUS xiv. 13, 14.

Why did God bring the Jews out of Egypt? God Himself told them why. To
fulfil the promise which He made to Abraham, their forefather, that of
his children He would make a great nation.

Now the Jews in Egypt were not a nation at all. A nation is free,
governed by its own laws, one body of people, held together by one fellow
feeling, one language, one blood, one religion; as we English are. We
are a nation. The Jews were none in Egypt, no more than Negro slaves in
America were a nation. They served a people of a different blood, as the
Jews did in Egypt. They had no laws of their own; they had no fellow-
feeling with each other, which enabled them to make common cause
together, and help each other, and free each other.

Selfishness and cowardice make some men slaves. Above all, ungodliness
makes men slaves. For when men do not fear and obey God, they are sure
to obey their own lusts and passions, and become slaves to them. They
become ready to sell themselves soul and body for money, or pleasure, or
food. And their fleshly lusts, their animal appetites, keep them down,
selfish, divided, greedy, and needy, at the mercy of those who are
stronger and cunninger than themselves, just as the Jews were kept down
by the strong and cunning Egyptians.

They had slavish hearts in them, and as long as they had, God could not
make them into a nation. The