The meaning of our Lord is not that there is in these human ties any thing contrary to God's law, for his commandment to us is, "Honor thy father and thy mother;" "Love thy neighbor as thyself." {335} The meaning of the text is; if your father, or your mother, or your wife or children, or your brother or sister, or even your own life, should stand in the way of your duty to God, then they must be subordinated, or even sacrificed, to your obedience and duty to Him. Our duty to God is supreme; and when the question arises of obeying Him or clinging to something else we possess or prize, He is content with nothing less than an unconditional surrender. So, then, self-denial is practised not to deny one's self of any thing that is a real good, but in regulating what is disorderly, in repressing what is excessive, in renouncing what is evil, that we may come in possession of our sovereign good. It aims at restraining the excesses of our animal instincts, and holding them in subjection to reason, and not at their destruction. For, in themselves considered, there is nothing even in our animal instincts which is irreconcilable with the perfection of the soul. The same may be said of all human relationships; if they are not made to stand in the way of our salvation, and the keeping of the Divine Law, they render our natural life the more complete, and the obligation for their renunciation ceases. {336} Did not Christ look upon mankind with human eyes, and make all our human feelings his own? As a son He obeyed his mother until his death; and even while suffering on the cross, such was his filial love and solicitude for her welfare, that He gave her in charge to his beloved disciple. As a friend, He wept at the death of Lazarus. In fine, all human sympathies, sorrows, and woes, found a home in his bosom. No, there is nothing in all created things, nor in human nature, even in its lowest appetites and passions, which may not be brought into harmony with reason, be reconciled with what holds the first place in the rank of our duties, and be made to contribute and adorn the perfection of the soul. For it is not the purpose of Christianity to supersede man's nature; it supposes his nature. Christianity would be of no account independent of human nature. Christianity finds us men, and leaves us men; gentle, not cowardly; child-like, not childish; amiable, not effeminate; zealous, not fanatical; earnest, not narrow-minded; pious, not weak; humble, not abject; full of faith, and yet rational; obedient, not slavish; mortified, not mutilated; for Christ died to save man, and not to transmute man into something else. Christianity demands for its fullest manifestation the most complete nature. The more we are men, the greater our capacity for Christianity. {337}