Adopted!  Why, then, we are brothers and sisters to all the good of earth and heaven.  We have the family name, the family dress, the family keys, the family wardrobe.  The Father looks after us, robes us, defends us, blesses us.  We have royal blood in our veins, and there are crowns in our line.  If we are His children, then princes and princesses.  It is only a question of time when we get our coronet.  Adopted!  Then we have the family secrets.  “The secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him.”  Adopted!  Then we have the family inheritance, and in the day when our Father shall divide the riches of heaven we shall take our share of the mansions and palaces and temples.  Henceforth let us boast no more of an earthly ancestry.  The insignia of eternal glory is our coat of arms.  This ring of adoption puts upon us all honor and all privilege.  Now we can take the words of Charles Wesley, that prince of hymn-makers, and sing: 

    “Come, let us join our friends above,
      Who have obtained the prize,
    And on the eagle wings of love
      To joy celestial rise.

    “Let all the saints terrestrial sing
      With those to glory gone;
    For all the servants of our King,
      In heaven and earth, are one.”

I have been told that when any of the members of any of the great secret societies of this country are in a distant city and are in any kind of trouble, and are set upon by enemies, they have only to give a certain signal and the members of that organization will flock around for defense.  And when any man belongs to this great Christian brotherhood, if he gets in trouble, in trial, in persecution, in temptation, he has only to show this ring of Christ’s adoption, and all the armed cohorts of heaven will come to his rescue.

Still further, when Christ takes a soul into His love He puts upon it a marriage-ring.  Now, that is not a whim of mine:  “And I will betroth thee unto Me forever; yea, I will betroth thee unto Me in righteousness, and in judgment, and in loving-kindness, and in mercies.” (Hosea ii:  19.) At the wedding altar the bridegroom puts a ring upon the hand of the bride, signifying love and faithfulness.  Trouble may come upon the household, and the carpets may go, the pictures may go, the piano may go, everything else may go—­the last thing that goes is that marriage-ring, for it is considered sacred.  In the burial hour it is withdrawn from the hand and kept in a casket, and sometimes the box is opened on an anniversary day, and as you look at that ring you see under its arch a long procession of precious memories.  Within the golden circle of that ring there is room for a thousand sweet recollections to revolve, and you think of the great contrast between the hour when, at the close of the “Wedding March,” under the flashing lights and amid the aroma of orange-blossoms, you set that ring on the round finger of the plump hand, and that other hour when, at the close of the exhaustive watching, when you knew that the soul had fled, you took from the hand, which gave back no responsive clasp, from that emaciated finger, the ring that she had worn so long and worn so well.