Christ is necessary to the Christian, but is not the obverse true also.
If both are bound up in the same life, can one be injured without
suffering to the other? This is the lesson which a recent writer finds
taught by the ivy:
Some of the creeping plants, it is said, such as the ivy,
entwine themselves so intimately with the masonry to which
they cling that it would be unsafe to try to remove them--the
building would be injured by their being torn away. And so our
Lord Christ, with reverence, be it said, can not endure the loss
of one of His members: He would be injured, mutilated, by only
one of them being taken away, so close is the union between Him
and them. (Text.)
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