No!  Affection in the heart towards the great and glorious God is the sum and substance of religion, and whoever is destitute of it is irreligious and sinful in the inmost spirit, and in the highest degree.  His fault relates to the most excellent and worthy Being in the universe.  He comes short of his duty, in reference to that Being who more than any other one is entitled to his love and his services.  We say, and we say correctly, that if a man fails of fulfilling his obligations towards those who have most claims upon him, he is more culpable than when he fails of his duty towards those who have less claims upon him.  If a son comes short of his duty towards an affectionate and self-sacrificing mother, we say it is a greater fault, than if he comes short of his duty to a fellow-citizen.  The parent is nearer to him than the citizen, and he owes unto her a warmer affection of his heart, and a more active service of his life, than he owes to his fellow-citizen.  What would be thought of that son who should excuse his neglect, or ill-treatment, of the mother that bore 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