s and prospects. He, and He alone,
brings these things to light. His word, whether it comes from His lips
or from the deeds which are part of His revelation, or from the voice of
the Spirit which takes of His and speaks to the ages through His
apostles, should be 'the end of all strife.' What He says, and all that
He says, and nothing else than what He says, is the creed of the
Christian. He, and He only, is 'the light which lighteth every man that
cometh into the world.' In this day of babblements and confusions, let
us listen for the voice of Christ and accept all which comes from Him,
and let the language of our deepest hearts be, 'Lord, to whom shall we
go? Thou only hast the words of eternal life.'

Again, our relation to Jesus Christ demands exclusive love to Him.
'Demands' is an ugly word to bracket with love. We might say, and
perhaps more truly, permits or privileges. It is the joy of the
betrothed that her duty is to love, and to keep her heart clear from all
competing affections. But it is none the less her duty because it is her
joy. What Christ is to you, if you are a Christian, and what He longs to
be to us all, whether we are Christians or not, is of such a character
as that the only fitting attitude of our hearts to Him in response is
that of exclusive affection. I do not mean that we are to love nothing
but Him, but I mean that we are to love all things else in Him, and
that, if any creature so delays or deflects our love as that either it
does not pass, by means of the creature, into the presence of the
Christ, or is turned away from the Christ by the creature, then we have
fallen beneath the sweet level of our lofty privilege, and have won for
ourselves the misery due to distracted and idolatrous hearts. Love to
one who has done what He has done for us is in its very nature
exclusive, and its exclusiveness is all-pervasive exclusiveness. The
centre diamond makes the little stones set round it all the more
lustrous. We must love Jesus Christ all in all or not at all. Divided
love incurs the condemnation that falls heavily upon the head of the
faithless bride.

Dear friends, the conception of the essence of religion as being love is
no relaxation, but an increase, of its stringent requirements. The more
we think of that sweet bond as being the true union of the soul with
God, who is its only rest and home, the more reasonable and imperative
will appear the old commandment, 'Thou shalt love Him with all