We find that there are many preachers in our time to whom the Lord puts the question, “Lovest thou me more than these?” Not, however these _fisheries_, but these _lands_, cattle, horses, mules, bank stocks, railroad stocks, houses, barns, mills, shops, stores, offices, politics, wives, children, fathers or mothers. He is very exacting and speaks very decidedly. “If you love these more than me, _you can not be my disciples_.” This is most fearful language. What is the test? The test is simply this, if we love the Lord more than these, we will follow him and do his work. If we love the Lord less than these, we will forsake the Lord’s work and follow these. This is a matter that preaching brethren ought to put to their consciences. Can men who have the ability to preach Christ, who have tried it and know they can succeed, and whom the Lord has blessed in their efforts, turn from this great work to the pursuits of the world, at will, with impunity? We do not believe they can. It is a fearful thing for them to do so. We know men of great ability—men who can shake up society from its center to its circumference, if they will try, whose talents are measurably buried, or what is the same thing, devoted to the world. These will certainly give a most strict account. MAN’S ACCOUNTABILITY. Every sane man _can_ and _does believe_ and _decide_ that _he will do this_, and that _he will not do that_, every day of his life. Hence our Lord, when he wept over Jerusalem, cried, “O Jerusalem! Jerusalem! how oft would I have gathered your children as a hen gathers her brood, but _ye would not_.” In this view of the subject, the man of God could say, “_Choose_ ye this day whom ye will serve.” In the same spirit, the Lord says, “If any man _will_ come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow me.” To the same amount, the apostle Paul says, “To whomsoever _you yield yourselves_ servants to obey, his servants ye are.” In the same Spirit, the New Testament closes, saying, “Whoever _will_, let him come.” This justifies the Lord in saying, “He is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.” This all being so, the Lord, in referring to the last judgment, refers to the wickedness of man, as the ground of their condemnation. He says, _they who have done evil_, shall come forth to the resurrection of damnation. They who _do his commandments_, shall enter by the gates into the city, and have a right to the tree of life. The Lord says, “Because I have called and ye refused; I have stretched out my hand and no man regarded; but ye have set at naught all my counsel, and would none of my reproof: I also will laugh at your calamity, and mock when your fear cometh; when your fear cometh as desolation, and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind; when distress and anguish cometh upon you. Then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer; they shall seek me early, but they shall not find me; for