BROKEN; alas! Shivered and broken! The gift of the Most High—the tables inscribed with the Law which was uttered in the thunders of Sinai, with the commandments which Israel had thrice vowed to keep—all broken through the baseness of man! But man is not willing to own this. He has gathered the broken fragments together, as the shivered pieces of a precious ancient vase were once gathered, and has placed them together, fitting bit to bit, and has fastened them firmly, as he deems, with the cement of his own self-righteousness. He believes that there are few particles missing. Perhaps, indeed, he has not kept the Fourth Commandment in all its integrity; perhaps some fragments are wanting in the Tenth; but still, on the whole, he believes that he can present fair, almost faultless, tables, on which God will look with approval, and fellow-creatures with applause. When the Pharisee's eye rested on the tables of the Commandments—that proud eye detected no flaw—he cried, "God, I thank Thee that I am not as other men!" When the young ruler was questioned by the Lord, he, too, marked no breach in the heaven-given Law: "all these things have I kept from my youth up," was the complacent answer of a conscience at rest. The Lord Jesus, the Source and Fountain of Light, threw such radiance on the Law of God, which man had broken, that the flaws and fractures in it became terribly manifest to every unblinded eye. Christ showed that the Commandment extends to the words of the lip and the thoughts of the heart. How self-righteousness melts under the burning power of that declaration from the Saviour, which sums up all the Commandments in two! "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the First Commandment. And the Second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." No one, but Him who gave the Law, could keep that Law unbroken! Yet still, even to the present day, man takes self-righteousness to cement the fragments, and in his secret soul believes his work to be successful. He regards the Tables of Stone as holy; he knows that they were given by God; and his object, sometimes secret, but sometimes even avowed, is to make of them stepping-stones in the way to Heaven, so that he may pass the river of death without fear. He says, in his heart, that he has so carefully kept the Commandments, that he may safely rest upon them, and so receive the reward of obedience.