"If you stand faithful to my words, you are truly my followers; and you shall understand the truth, and the truth shall make you free." [Illustration: "I am the light of the whole world. He who follows me and obeys my words will not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life"] "What do you mean by those words, 'You shall be made free'?" said the people. "We are sprung from Abraham, and have never been slaves. How can we be made free?" "In very truth, I tell you," answered Jesus, "every one who sins is a slave. Now the slave does not stay in the home always, but the son stays, for it is his home, and he has a right to be there. So, if the Son of the heavenly Father sets you free from sin, you will be free indeed." As Jesus went on speaking, the people who listened became very angry. At last he said: "Your great father Abraham longed to see the day when I should come to the earth; and he saw it coming, and it made him glad." "Why," the Jews said, "you are not fifty years old, and do you say that Abraham saw you?" "I tell you truly," answered Jesus, "before Abraham was born, I was living!" At this, they picked up stones to throw at him; but Jesus hid himself from them and left the Temple. [Illustration: The so-called tower of David in Jerusalem] The Blind Man at the Pool of Siloam CHAPTER 56 ON A SABBATH morning, which was not Sunday, but Saturday, the Jewish day of rest and church-going--Jesus and his disciples were on their way to the service in the Temple, when they passed a blind man. They had seen this man before and knew that he had been blind all his life. He had come into the world without eyesight, to the great sorrow of his father and mother; and he lived upon the little coins that people gave him as they were on their way to the Temple. The Jews believed that every disease was caused by some act of sin; that if a man became ill, it was because he had done some wicked deed and was being punished for it; and if a child was born blind, or dumb, or crippled, it must have been because either its father or mother had sinned against God's law. Some of the scribes, who were the teachers of the law, said that each soul lived many times on the earth; that when a man died, his soul went into a body that was born at that moment; and if the new-born baby was blind, or diseased, it was because it had done wrong in some life before that one. None of these things are believed now since Christ has taught men, but they were held by nearly all people while Jesus was on the earth. As the disciples were passing by this blind man, one of them said to Jesus: "Teacher, whose sin was it that caused this man to be born blind? Was it the fault of his parents? Or was it his own fault?"