MAKE THE LORD'S COMPANY PARAMOUNT

MAKE THE LORD’S COMPANY PARAMOUNT

I hope you and ———— will soon go to the seaside, and that while you continue to enjoy one another’s company, you will be jealous lest the Lord should lose any of your company; and that you will seek that you only prepare one another the more for seclusion with Him. I was asked once what was the most desirable thing on earth; and my answer was, ‘A congenial companion — or counterpart’; but now I am afraid of any one or any thing which might supplant the Lord, even for a moment. Not that I do not enjoy the company of some, but I feel I must deny myself when I have the opportunity of gratifying myself. Denying oneself, when one has nothing to deny, is easy; but when one has, then the real acquired power is declared.

I was showing them on Sunday that power, however latent, indicates itself by the height at which it aspires.

You know I rejoice in your aspirations, because they ^[p. 115] indicate exercise and taste within; and I am cheered in my own heart at the deepening interest that I am made conscious of, for some at least, that they might be in full suitability for Christ, all glorious within, clothing of wrought gold. It is such an interest, that at times the poor heart would almost like to be freed of it; and yet nothing so really delights and invigorates the heart, even of man, as the depth and purity of the affection which controls it. For ———— it has grown from year to year, and though it is not so matured for you, yet I am sure that it is of the same divine order, because it is your prosperity which gratifies it, not what you are to me. I mean that when the interest in another is of that order, it is gratified, not by the return it gets, but by the progress and gain of the object of it.