Emphasis and proportion enter into all affairs of life; and whether a life is false or true, whether sane or distorted, depends largely on where the emphasis has been placed and the right proportion has been observed. In art--if every feature and lineament of a face had been drawn exact in every detail, but out of their proper proportion, the portrait would be unrecognizable. In language--if every letter in a word were correctly sounded, pronunciation, enunciation, articulation perfect, only the emphasis (accent) on the wrong syllable, the word would be unintelligible. So, likewise, if every doctrine of the gospel be truly presented, but the proportion God gave it lost sight of and the emphasis misplaced, the result is not the truth of God any longer. It is a false gospel.

      There are some features of Christ's doctrine that have been made specially important by the Lord; not that smaller matters should be neglected, but that the greater should never be left out of view, and all the lesser should revolve around them as the planets circle about the sun. It was the shame of the Pharisees that they lost [13] themselves in minutiæ and ceremonial details, and had left the chief things out of view--a condition which always attends spiritual decay. "Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye tithe mint and anise and cummin, and have left undone the weightier matters of the law, justice, and mercy, and faith; but these ye ought to have done, and not to have left the other undone. Ye blind guides, that strain out the gnat, and swallow the camel!" (Matt. 23:23, 24.) We hear much exhortation not to "despise the day of small things." Would that some hero of God would usher in the day of big things among us, that our little things also may be done rightly and be well-pleasing to God! For "justice, and mercy, and faith"--when these are held most important, they will of themselves adjust the smaller matters, and will go far to settle minor questions and difficulties; while without them the smaller matters, though never so punctiliously attended to, are of no value before God.

      What if the church at Ephesus works and toils and beats for His name's sake without growing weary? What if they have tried the false apostles and opposed the Nicolaitans? They were losing their "first love." If that is not remedied, their Lord will move their candlestick out of its place, and their light shall shine no more, their testimony for Christ go out no longer. True love is shown by works; but what of the works that are done without love? "If I bestow all my goods to, feed the poor, and I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profiteth me nothing." (1 Cor. 13:3.) It appears from God's word that in the Christian life he has put love in the foremost place. Put the emphasis elsewhere, give chief prominence to any other feature, and [14] you have defaced and distorted the gospel.--February 11, 1909.

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