When a man commits one sin, he is guilty of disobedience to all the commands of God; for "he that offendeth in one point is guilty of all." Here is a chain containing twenty links. If I break one of them I have broken the chain. True, there are nineteen perfect links; but if number twenty is snapped, down goes the cage over the mouth of the mine, and the miners are killed. Suppose that I should be required to produce a perfect vase of alabaster, or clear crystal, as a present to the Queen. But my servant-maid has chipped it just a little. What is to be done? I may possibly find somebody to use some patent cement, and fasten the little pieces in their places; but when all is done, it is chipped; it is not perfect; and if it must be perfect before royalty can accept it, I must got another vase, for this one will not do. Now, dear friend, while I am talking to you about a chip here and a chip there in your life, I am sure you must be saying, "Do not talk so, sir. Why, some of us have not only got chipped, but we are smashed right up. And as to broken links; why, we have fairly melted the chain; there is not a link loft. We have nothing, absolutely nothing, that we can bring before God." I am glad to hear it. If you are lost, you are the very ones Christ came to save; and if you have no righteousness of your own, you have got to the halfway house of salvation. When you strip a man, you are partly on the way to clothing him. When a man is changing his old clothes for better, he must get the old ones off first. Oh, how glad I am to meet with a real sinner! There are many sham sinners about. I saw, one day, in Italy, a fellow sticking out his arm, with an awful sore, and he begged of me. As I suspected that he had manufactured that sore with a little sulphuric acid, or by some such process, I did not feel the least pity for him. We have lots of people who come confessing their sins: "Oh, yes, we are sinners; we are sinners." They do not mean it: they are only sham sinners. A real sinner, one who feels his guilt, is a "sacred thing", as Hart says; "the Holy Ghost has made him so." He is an empty vessel that God is going to fill. He is a broken heart that God is going to make anew. But here is our trouble; that the mass of people are not aware how perfect, how complete, any righteousness must be, before God can accept it. The next difficulty is, that men do not know that God has provided a righteousness for all believers. For every soul of Adam born, who will believe in Christ, there is a perfect righteousness; not ours, but God's. God came here in human form, not bound to be obedient; but "being found in fashion as a man, he became obedient"; obedient to his own law, and fulfilled every jot and tittle of it. He was "obedient unto death, even the death of the cross." And his obedience is ours, if we believe. God looks at us as if we had done what his Son has done. Christ died, and rose again; and God regards us as having died in him, and reckons that we are risen with him, and now live in him. Our righteousness is the righteousness of another, even of the Son of God—a perfect righteousness, a divine righteousness, an everlasting righteousness. In the book of Daniel it is written that Messiah, the Prince, should "finish the transgression, make an end of sins, make reconciliation for iniquity, and bring in everlasting righteousness." He was "made sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him." Alas! how many there are who do not know that God justifieth the ungodly; that sinners can be regarded as just, through what Christ has done and suffered; and that, believing in the precious Christ whom God has set forth to be a propitiation, the vilest are fair to look upon in God's esteem, and the far-off ones are made nigh by the blood of Christ! Oh, I wish that men knew it! I have sometimes thought that if they did but know it, if they did but really hear the gospel; they must believe it. You that preach Christ in the streets, go on preaching him. I saw