face of Christ; if we find enough in them for our hearts, and go not
beyond them for our true love; if they make us negligent of duty; if
they bind us to the present; if they make us careless of that loftier
affection which alone can satisfy us; if they clog our steps in the
divine life, then they are our foes. They need to be always
subordinated, and, so subordinated, they are more precious than when
they are placed mistakenly foremost. They are better second than
first. They are full of sweetness when our hearts know a sweetness
surpassing theirs; they are robbed of their possible power to harm
when they are rigidly held in inferiority to the one absolute and
supreme love. There need be no collision--there will be no
collision--if the second is second and the first is first. But
sometimes beggars get upon horseback, and the crew mutinies and would
displace the commander, and then there is nothing for it but
sacrifice. 'If thy hand offend thee, cut it off and cast it from
thee.' 'I communed not with flesh and blood,' and we must not, if ever
they conflict with our supreme devotion to Jesus Christ.

These other things and relationships are precious to us, but He is
priceless. They are shadows, but He is the substance. They are brooks
by the way; He is the boundless, bottomless ocean of delights and
loves. Shall we not always subordinate--and sometimes, if needful,
sacrifice--the less to the greater? If we do, we shall get the less
back, greatened by its surrender. 'He that loveth father or mother
more than Me is not worthy of Me' commands the sacrifice. 'There is no
man that hath left brethren or sisters, or father or mother, or wife
or children, for My sake and the Gospel's, but he shall receive a
hundredfold _now_, in this time' promises the reward.