There is an exterior relation in human life, and an interior. There is an external relation of men to God; and there is another, that is higher, more spiritual. This is declared here, perhaps first, when Christ raises his disciples from the rank of duty to the rank of love. They were his servants before; they did whatsoever he commanded them; they knew something of him; but he says: “Hereafter I shall call you friends. I tell you everything, cleanheartedly, as I have known it from my Father.”

The ordinary experience of Christian men by no means expresses the experience that is shadowed forth in Christ's teaching. The difference between an average experience in a Christian congregation and a possible one is as great as the difference between the ground on which we tread and the airy atmosphere above our heads, full of light and warmth and life.

A tree is a tree to everybody, but it is not alike to everybody. It is one thing to a lumberman, who looks upon it and thinks how much it will cut, and of its value in the market, quite irrespective of everything else.