To be _saved_, dear brethren, always supposes a previous danger. Thus, we say saved from drowning, saved from a fire, saved from a terrible accident. Also it supposes a person or thing that saves. Now, dear friends, we are met together here to-day, and it is Christmas Eve. The church tells us in the holy Gospel that Jesus Christ came to save his people. Let us think, then, for a few moments what danger it was that he came to save us from, and who he was who came to act the part of Saviour. The danger from which we were to be saved was the danger of sin. Sin is dangerous in the extreme. It is more dangerous than the most terrible disease, more perilous than the cholera or the plague. These things only kill the body; mortal sin kills the soul. If Jesus Christ had not redeemed us sin would have destroyed us. Adam and Eve brought sin into the world. Sin spread with the awful swiftness of an epidemic. It threatened to descend upon mankind and to bury everything beneath the ruins of everlasting death. Then, when poor human nature seemed about to be overwhelmed, Jesus came and saved it, washed us in his precious Blood, and snatched the uplifted sword from the hand of the enemy. Yes, the danger was great, but we were saved from it. But a little while ago we read in the papers of an awful calamity--the burning of the Brooklyn Theatre. {48} We can imagine how frightful was the scene of hundreds of human creatures fighting for life--the all too narrow door before them, the crying multitude around them, the scathing, ruthless flames behind them. What would we think of one who, saved from such a place, should afterwards make light of the danger and care nothing for the one who saved him? O brethren! it was not from the danger of earthly fire, from the peril of blazing rafters, falling beams, and a trampling multitude, that Christ saved you and me. 'Twas from the fire of hell that he snatched us. 'Twas from the danger, the all-surrounding danger, of sin. And what have we done, many of us? We have turned back, let go the hand that held us, and gone back into the appalling peril. Because men do not see a _material_ danger they will not believe there is _any_. Dear friends, there is danger. You that have gone back into the ways of sin, you that are in mortal sin now, at this moment--you are in an awful danger. Save your lives, then; take the hand held out to you or you are lost! Brethren, some of those poor creatures who perished in the Brooklyn fire were so charred, so burnt that they could not be recognized. Take care that you do not become so disfigured by sin that at the last day God will say to you: "I know ye not."