I know that the impression is abroad among some people that religion bemeans and belittles a man; that it takes all the sparkle out of his soul; that he has to exchange a roistering independence for an ecclesiastical strait-jacket.  Not so.  When a man becomes a Christian, he does not go down, he starts upward.  Religion multiplies one by ten thousand.  Nay, the multiplier is in infinity.  It is not a blotting out—­it is a polishing, it is an arborescence, it is an efflorescence, it is an irradiation.  When a man comes into the kingdom of God he is not sent into a menial service, but the Lord God Almighty from the palaces of heaven calls upon the messenger angels that wait upon the throne to fly and “put a ring on his hand.”  In Christ are the largest liberty, and brightest joy, and highest honor, and richest adornment.  “Put a ring on his hand.”

I remark, in the first place, that when Christ receives a soul into His love, He puts upon him the ring of adoption.  Eight or ten years ago, in my church in Philadelphia, there came the representative of the Howard Mission of New York.  He brought with him eight or ten children of the street that he had picked up, and he was trying to find for them Christian homes; and as the little ones stood on the pulpit and sung, our hearts melted within us.  At the close of the services a great-hearted wealthy man came up and said:  “I’ll take this little bright-eyed girl, and I’ll adopt her as one of my own children;” and he took her by the hand, lifted her into his carriage, and went away.

The next day, while we were in the church gathering up garments for the poor of New York, this little child came back with a bundle under her arm, and she said:  “There’s my old dress; perhaps some of the poor children would like to have it,” while she herself was in bright and beautiful array, and those who more immediately examined her said that she had a ring on her hand.  It was a ring of adoption.

There are a great many persons who pride themselves on their ancestry, and they glory over the royal blood that pours through their arteries.  In their line there was a lord, or a duke, or a prime minister, or a king.  But when the Lord, our Father, puts upon us the ring of His adoption, we become the children of the Ruler of all nations.  “Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God.”  It matters not how poor our garments may be in this world, or how scant our bread, or how mean the hut we live in, if we have that ring of Christ’s adoption upon our hand we are assured of eternal defenses.