there is no blinking the fact that slavery was an essentially immoral and unchristian institution.  But it is one thing to lay down principles and leave them to be worked in and then to be worked out, and it is another thing to go blindly charging at existing institutions and throwing them down by violence, before men have grown up to feel that they are wicked.  And so the New Testament takes the wise course, and leaves the foolish one to foolish people.  It makes the tree good, and then its fruit will be good.

But the main point that I want to insist upon is this:  what was good for these slaves in Rome is good for you and me.  Let us get near to Jesus Christ, and feel that we have got hold of His hand for our own selves, and we shall not mind very much about the possible varieties of human condition.  Rich or poor, happy or sad, surrounded by companions or treading a solitary path, failures or successes as the world has it, strong or broken and weak and wearied—­all these varieties, important as they are, come to be very small when we can say, ‘We are the Lord’s.’  That amulet makes all things tolerable; and the Christian submission which is the expression of our love to, and confidence in, His infinite sweetness and unerring goodness, raises us to a height from which the varieties of earthly condition seem to blend and melt into one.  When we are down amongst the low hills, it seems a long way from the foot of one of them to the top of it; but when we are on the top they all melt into one dead level, and you cannot tell which is top and which is bottom.  And so, if we only can rise high enough up the hill, the possible diversities of our condition will seem to be very small variations in the level.  III.  Lastly, these two groups suggest to us the conquering power of Christian faithfulness.

The household of Herod’s grandson was not a very likely place to find Christian people in, was it?  Such flowers do not often grow, or at least do not easily grow, on such dunghills.  And in both these cases it was only a handful of the people, a portion of each household, that was Christian.  So they had beside them, closely identified with them—­working, perhaps, at the same tasks, I might almost say, chained with the same chains—­men who had no share in their faith or in their love.  It would not be easy to pray and love and trust God and do His will, and keep clear of complicity with idolatry and immorality and sin, in such a pigsty as that; would it?  But these men did it.  And nobody need ever say, ’I am in such circumstances that I cannot live a Christian life.’  There are no such circumstances, at least none of God’s appointing.  There are often such that we bring upon ourselves, and then the best thing is to get out of them as soon as we can.  But as far as He is concerned, He never puts anybody anywhere where he cannot live a holy life.