falls below His lawful claim, but also fails to satisfy our profoundest aspirations.  As Augustine puts it, “Thou hast made us for Thyself; our hearts are restless, until they find rest in Thee.”  But it may be asked, Does love to God exclude all other loves?  By no means.  The second commandment in the law, “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself,” is inseparable from the first.  It is impossible to obey the one without obeying the other.  Obedience that does not regard both is partial, and therefore futile.  The reason is plain.  God is immanent in creation.  The Christian beholds God in everything, and everything in God.  Thus it comes to pass that his supreme love—­his love to God—­intensifies, ennobles, and hallows every other.  If you would have an example of the highest type of love—­love to God manifesting itself as love to man—­go to a Christian home, and you will find it there in all its charm, uniting husband and wife, parents and children, master and servants, making the house a veritable “paradise regained.”

There is a sense in which the Christian even loves the world—­loves it as no other man can love it—­that is, when the term is applied to the wondrous system of nature.  He loves sometimes to wander in the fields, where innumerable lovely forms, both animate and inanimate, reveal their beauty to the eye; and at other times to meditate upon the illimitable expanse of heaven, crowded by ten thousand worlds, which all declare the glory of Him who is Lord over all.  Paul could not have had this meaning in his mind when he spoke of Demas as having, through loving the present world, made shipwreck concerning his faith.  He was thinking rather of the sum-total of those pursuits, pleasures, and ambitions which bind man to earth, hamper his spiritual growth, and lead him to his ruin.  The “world” in this sense is God’s rival; to love the “world” is to hate God.

What does separation from God imply, and when can it be said to take place?  God is everywhere; who can flee His presence?  God is a spirit; who can do Him injury?  These are questions that have always presented some difficulty.  It was asked in the days of Malachi, “Will a man rob God?” as if such a thing were beyond the range of possibility.  At the day of judgment, those on the left hand will ask the Judge, “Lord when saw we Thee an hungered, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto Thee?” as if the things laid to their charge were without foundation.  Now, the objectors in the days of Malachi who asked, “Wherein have we robbed thee?” were answered, “In the tithes and offering.”  And the objectors at the day of judgment will be answered, “Verily, I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to Me.”  Evidently, therefore, God—­or God in Christ—­and His cause are in a very real sense identical; so that he who forsakes the one, of necessity forsakes the other also.