When the gods of the nations fell, when the Father which is in heaven manifested Himself to the world in the Gospel, adopting as His children those who received into their hearts the glad tidings of reconciliation with God, all these men became brethren, and this fraternity created liberty. From that time a mighty transformation went on gradually, in individuals, in families, and in society itself. Slavery disappeared, without wars or revolutions. Unhappily, the sun which had for some time gladdened the eyes of the people, became obscured; the liberty of the children of God was lost; new human ordinances appeared to bind men’s consciences and chill their hearts. The Reformation of the sixteenth century restored to the human race what the middle ages had stolen from them; it delivered them from the traditions, laws, and despotism of the papacy; it put an end to the minority and tutelage in which Rome claimed to keep mankind for ever; and by calling upon man to establish his faith not on the word of a priest, but on the infallible Word of God, and by announcing to everyone free access to the Father through the new and saving way--Christ Jesus, it proclaimed and brought about the hour of christian manhood. An explanation is, however, necessary. There are philosophers in our days who regard Christ as simply the apostle of political liberty. These men should learn that, if they desire liberty outwardly, they must first possess it inwardly. To hope to enjoy the first without the second is to run after a chimera. The greatest and most dangerous of despotisms is that beneath which the depraved inclination of human nature, the deadly influence of the world, namely, sin, miserably subjects the human conscience. There are, no doubt, many countries, especially among those which the sun of christianity has not yet illumined, that are without civil liberty, and that groan under the arbitrary rule of powerful masters. But, in order to become free outwardly, men must first succeed in being free inwardly. In the human heart there is a vast country to be delivered from slavery--abysses which man cannot cross alone, heights he cannot climb unaided, fortresses he cannot take, armies he cannot put to flight. In order to conquer in this moral battle, man must unite with One stronger than himself--with the Son of God. If there is anyone, in the present state of society, who is fatigued with the struggle and grieved at finding himself always overcome by evil, and who desires to breathe the light pure air of the upper regions of liberty--let him come to the Gospel; let him seek for union with the Saviour, and in his Holy Spirit he will find a power by which he will be able to gain the greatest of victories. We are aware that there are men, and good men too, who are frightened at the word ‘liberty;’ but these estimable persons are quite wrong. Christ is a deliverer. _The Son_, He said, _shall make you free_. Would they wish to change Him into a tyrant?