him, upon the ground that he had never cheated a fellow-man and
had been scrupulous in all his mercantile transactions! This but feebly
illustrates the relation which every man sustains to God, and the claim
which God has upon every man. Our first duty and obligation relates to
our Maker. Our fellow-creatures have claims upon us; the dear partners of
our blood have claims upon us; our own personality, with its infinite
destiny for weal or woe, has claims upon us. But no one of these; not all
of them combined; have upon us that _first_ claim, which God challenges
for Himself. Social life,--the state or the nation to which we
belong,--cannot say to us: "Thou shalt love me with all thy heart, and
soul, and mind, and strength." The family, which is bone of our bone, and
flesh of our flesh, cannot say to us: "Thou shalt love us, with all thy
soul, mind, heart, and strength." Even our own deathless and priceless
soul cannot say to us: "Thou shalt love me supremely, and before all
other beings and things." But the infinite and adorable God, the Being
that made us, and has redeemed us, can of right demand that we love and
honor Him first of all, and chiefest of all.

There are two thoughts suggested by the subject which we have been
considering, to which we now invite candid attention.

1. In the first place, this subject _convicts every man of sin_. Our
Lord, by his searching reply to the young ruler's question, "What lack I
yet?" sent him away very sorrowful; and what man, in any age and country,
can apply the same test to himself, without finding the same
unwillingness to sell all that he has and give to the poor,--the same
indisposition to obey any and every command of God that crosses his
natural inclinations? Every natural man, as he subjects his character to
such a trial as that to which the young ruler was subjected, will
discover as he did that he lacks supreme love of God, and like him, if he
has any moral earnestness; if he feels at all the obligation of duty;
will go away very sorrowful, because he perceives very plainly the
conflict between his will and his conscience. How many a person, in the
generations that have already gone to the judgment-seat of Christ, and in
the generation that is now on the way thither, has been at times brought
face to face with the great and first command, "Thou shall love the Lord
thy God with all thy heart," and by some particular requirement has been
made conscious of his utter oppos