Sometimes, when I am going by train into Sussex - perhaps to see Haggerston children in their holiday-home at Buxted, perhaps to be all by myself on the South Downs - I walk over London Bridge. If I have time I stop, lean on the parapet, look at the barges and tugs, watch the cranes loading and unloading ships, see the Tower Bridge open (did you know that I am four years older than it?). The parapets, or walls, are like the ten commandments on either side of the Christian’s road through life; they keep him from losing his way, or falling off [I will tell you next week the reasons for 4 and 6 in the picture].

When I get out of the train, at a place with the queer name Hassocks, as though it was meant to kneel on in church, (if I am not going to Buxted), there is in peace-time a sign-post in a lane which points the way to the Downs. [But it would be no use to me if I was blind.] The ten commandments are like both the walls and the sign-post: they keep Christians on the right road, and point it out to them (Psalm 143, 10). There is no Christian who is blind in soul; though some, poor dears, are blind in body - like the old lady in Tuilerie Street (which you, and she, as has been said, pronounce Too-ler-ee) to whom I take Holy Communion every Tuesday morning [sometimes you see me, on your way to school, carrying The Blessed Sacrament through our streets, and the boys take their hats off as I pass]. For every Christian has a conscience, the Eye of the Soul to see the protecting walls and read the sign-post. (People who are not Christians also have consciences, and often wish they hadn’t.)

Because of the ten commandments and my conscience
I SEE THE WAY

So do you. But whether we keep to it, or climb over the walls, or try to find another way, depends on our Free Will (2). And it is not an easy way (St. Matthew 7, 13 and 14: “strait” meaning “narrow”).