FREEDOM AND LOVE | AdventAI

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Mar 25, 1897

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 23, No. 12.

FREEDOM AND LOVE.

DID not Christ buy us with his own blood that we might be free from the bondage of sin? This fact should lead us to give to him the deepest affection of our soul and the best service of our life.

There is a story told by a man who, years ago, was taken captive in the Mediterranean by one of the corsairs which used to sweep those seas. He was sold as a slave, and endured the rigors of Mohammedan bondage. One day an Englishman came on board the vessel where he was, and talking with his owner, made a bargain for him, paid the price and bought the slave.

The poor captive bitterly reproached his purchaser: “You, a free-born Englishman, buy me for a slave!”

But the purchaser said, “I have bought you to set you free.” At once the captive’s sorrow was turned to joy and his reproach to gratitude; and falling at the feet of his new master, he said, “I will be your servant forever.”

Thenceforth nothing was too hard for him to do for a master who had bought him with a price, that he might set him free. So Jesus has bought us, and so ought we to serve him.—Selected.