whole moral and religious
character. He must be first, whoever comes second, and between the first
and the second there is a great gulf fixed.

Remember that this postponing of all other duties, relationships, and
claims to Christ's claims and relationships, and to our duties to Him,
lifts them up, and does not lower them; exalts, and does not degrade,
the earthly affections. They are nobler and loftier, being second, than
when perversely, and, in the literal sense, _preposterously_, they
assume to be first. The little hills in the foreground are never so
green and fair as when they are looked at in connection with the great
white Alps that tower behind them; and all earthly loves and
relationships catch a tinge of more ethereal beauty, and are lifted into
a loftier region, when they are rigidly subordinated to our love to Him.
Being second, they are more than when they bragged that they were first.

Again, if it must be Christ first, and everybody and everything besides
second, then to carry that out, it will often have to be Christ only,
and no one else. There will come in every man's life the need for a
sharp decision between conflicting allegiances. Life is full of harsh
alternatives, and it is of no use to kick against the pricks. The
divine order is Jesus first and all things second. But we sometimes
break that order, and then it comes to be, 'Very well, then, if you
cannot keep the lower in their right places, you must learn to do
without them altogether; and if you will not have Him first and them
second, you must not have them at all.' 'If thine eye offend thee, pluck
it out,' it would be far better for thee to keep it without offence. 'If
thine hand offend thee,' put it down on the block, and take the cleaver
in the other hand, and off with it, it would be better for thee to go
into life whole than maimed, but it is better to go into life maimed,
than to go into destruction whole. The abandonment of the father's bier
is second best; but it is sometimes imperative. When you find a taste, a
pursuit, a study, an occupation, a recreation coming between you and
Jesus Christ--when you do not know how it is, but, somehow or other, the
sky that was blue a minute or two ago has a doleful veil of grey
creeping all over it, be sure that something or other which ought to be
under has got topmost, and you will have to get rid of it in order to
come right again. If this man would certainly have come back had Jesus
let him