Is there anything like that in your life, my reader? In many an old castle the attention of the visitor is directed to a haunted room, where ghosts are said to walk at night; but in how many hearts there are dark subterranean apartments, where conscience, gagged and bound, lies imprisoned! Outwardly there is the gaiety and mirth as of a palace; but inwardly there is remorse, misery, unrest. In lonely hours there is a voice which pierces the thickest walls of your assumed indifference, and rings up into the house of your life, where the soul seeks to close its ear in vain. It is a sad, monotonous, heart-piercing cry which that voice repeats: "It is not lawful, not lawful, not lawful." Whenever there is a moment of silence and respite, you hear it--"Not lawful, not lawful." And nothing can stay it but repentance, confession, restitution, so far as may be, and the blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, which cleanseth from all sin. From time to time it would seem as though the strictness of John's imprisonment was relaxed. His disciples were permitted to see him, and tell him of what was happening in the world without; but stranger than all, he was summoned to have audiences with Herod himself. Another rendering of Mark vi. 19, 20, which is perfectly legitimate, and is favoured by the R.V., suggests that the king was ill at ease, and swept to and fro by very different currents. First, he was deeply incensed. As he thought of the manner in which the Baptist had treated him, denouncing him before his court, the fire of anger burnt fiercely within his breast; and he had beside him a Lady Macbeth, a beautiful fiend and temptress, who knew that while the Baptist lived, and dared to speak as he had done, her position was not safe. She knew Herod well enough to dread the uprising of his conscience at the appeals of truth. And perpetually, when she saw her chance, she whispered in Herod's ear, "The sooner you do away with that man the better. You don't love me perfectly, as long as you permit him to breathe. Unmannerly cur!" "Herodias set herself against him, and desired to kill him; but she could not." On the other side, Herod was in fear. He feared John, "knowing that he was a righteous man and a holy." He feared the people, because they held him for a prophet. And, beneath all, he feared God, lest he should step in to avenge any wrong perpetrated against his servant. Between these two influences he was "much perplexed" (Mark vi. 20, R.V.). When he was with Herodias, he thought as she did, and left her, almost resolved to give the fatal order; but when he was alone, the other influence made itself felt, and he would send for John: "I would like to see him again, chamberlain--tell the gaoler to send the Baptist hither; let his coming to my private room be, however, kept secret. I don't want all my court blabbing."