'Fashioning the chains to bind
Fashioning the chains to bind them forever!
It is said that one of the great prisons of this country was built by the prisoners themselves. They dressed the stones and built the walls which afterwards shut them in.
The legend is familiar, too, of the man to whom the devil came, ordering a chain of a certain length. Returning at the appointed time, he ordered the chain made longer, and then went away. When at last it was finished he came again, and with it bound the poor man who had fastened its links at his command.
In the same way, sinners are everywhere building their own prison walls, and with their own hands fashioning the chains to bind them forever!
We need to be on our guard perpetually against little sins of thought and practice, which grow into habits and character. They are mere gossamer threads at first, which will become strong cables at last, if we allow them to be enrapt about our souls!