to break
the bond, then what we should do is to trust to Him who has broken every
chain and let the oppressed go free.

Oh, dear friend, if you want to get to the heart of the sweetness and
the blessedness and power of the Gospel, you must begin here, with the
clear and penitent consciousness that you are a sinful man in God's
sight, and can do nothing to cleanse, help, or liberate yourself. Is
Jesus Christ the breaker of the bond for you? Do you learn from Him what
your need is? Do you trust yourself to Him for Pardon, for cleansing,
for emancipation? Unless you do, you will never know His most precious
preciousness, and you have little right to call yourself a Christian. If
you do, oh, than a great light will shine in the prison-house, and your
chains will drop from your wrists, and the iron door will open of its
own accord, and you will come out into the morning sunshine of a new
day, because you have confessed and abhorred the bondage into which you
have cast yourselves, and accepted the liberty wherewith Christ hath
made you free.

THE SON SENT

'When the fulness of the time came, God sent forth
His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, that
He might redeem them which were under the law,
that we might receive the adoption of sons.'--GAL.
iv. 4, 5 (R.V.).

It is generally supposed that by the 'fulness of time' Paul means to
indicate that Christ came at the moment when the world was especially
prepared to receive Him, and no doubt that is a true thought. The Jews
had been trained by law to the conviction of sin; heathenism had tried
its utmost, had reached the full height of its possible development, and
was decaying. Rome had politically prepared the way for the spread of
the Gospel. Vague expectations of coming change found utterance even
from the lips of Roman courtier poets, and a feeling of unrest and
anticipation pervaded society; but while no doubt all this is true and
becomes more certain the more we know of the state of things into which
Christ came, it is to be noted that Paul is not thinking of the fulness
of time primarily in reference to the world which received Him, but to
the Father who sent Him. Our text immediately follows words in which the
air is described as being 'under guardians and stewards' until the time
appointed of His Father, and the fulness of time is therefore the moment
which God had ordained from the beginning for His