the power to our Christian experience, and this text is one of the best illustrations of this matter in the life of our Savior.

I

Many lessons might be drawn from this Scripture, the first of which would be his power to uplift womanhood, but this is so well understood that it is unnecessary to take a moment of time to discuss it, only to say by way of passing that all that woman is to-day she owes to Jesus of Nazareth. She was as truly bound as this afflicted woman, and just as truly was she set free. But I prefer rather to let her illustrate many Christians to-day who are bound in one way or another and so are

shorn of power. For this suggestion I am indebted to my dear friend, the Rev. F. B. Meyer, a brief outline of whose sermon I recently had the privilege of reading.

She was a daughter of Abraham, as we read in verse 16, "And ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham,

whom Satan had bound, lo, these eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath day?" And therefore she was like many children of God whom we know. What it is that binds them we cannot always tell. With this person it is fashion, and with that it is earnings, with another it is pride, and still another selfishness, with this one it is the encouragement of some passion, and with still another it is the practice of some secret sin. It is not necessary to describe the bondage; it is true, alas, that many of us are sadly crippled in our influence because of these things, for this woman was just as truly bound as if she had been in chains. When Jesus entered the Synagogue his eye saw her instantly, and he detected her difficulty. He is in the midst of us to-day, and while we are unconscious of the bondage of the one who is beside us, he understands it perfectly. That minister who has lost his old power and is therefore an enigma to his people, that church officer who is out of communion and whose tes

timony has lost its old ring of genuineness, that young woman bordering on despair because in her heart she knows she is not right with God, and that young man whose character is being undermined by the cultivation of a secret sin, all these are known to him. He looks them through and through, and not a point of weakness is hidden from his gaze.

Note again, that she was powerless to help herself. I doubt not but what she had tried again and again to lift herself up. She had been unable to turn her eyes upward to see the stars, her vision had been centered upon things below, and in this way she is like many a Christian attempting to be satisfied with earthly things and making life a miserable failure. The Scriptures declare "that in no wise could she lift herself up," and I have been told that this expression is the same word which is used in another place in the Epistle to the Hebrews, where Jesus is said to be able to save to the uttermost, so that really the Scriptures mean that she

tried to the uttermost to lift herself up and failed, and that she had gone to the uttermost in the matter of bondage, and then because Jesus is able to save to the uttermost he set her free, or, in other words, her need was met by his power. Oh, what an encouragement to know that the thing which has been your defeat and mine he may easily conquer. It is a striking picture to me; he laid his hands on her and said, "Woman, thou art loosed," and she stood straight and glorified God.

Some years ago there came into the McAuley Mission, in New York City, a man who was, because of his sin, unable to speak and was bound down until, instead of standing a man six feet high, as he should have done, he was like a dwarf. he came to Christ in the old Mission, and when kneeling at the altar he accepted him, as if by a miracle Jesus set him free also, and when he stood up the bonds were snapped that held him, and he had his old stature back again. His speech, however,

was not entirely recovered. It is the custom in the Mission for one to observe his anniversary each year and to give a testimony. Whenever the anniversary of this man occurred he always had another read his lesson, then he would stand before the people bowed down as he had been in sin and suddenly rise before them in the full dignity of his Christian manhood, glorifying God in his standing. This was like the woman of the text, and, oh, that it might be like some one here who, bound by an appetite or a passion, shall be set free by the power of God.

The difference between this woman in the one case, bound and wretched, and in the other straight and glorifying God, is the difference between Christians when bound by appetite, pride or sin and set free by the power of Christ. It is the difference between the average Christian experience and what God means should be.

Two things this woman had:

we

First, His word, when He said,