eart; and though the work was oftentimes unpopular and
disagreeable, Nehemiah did it both boldly and fearlessly.

The wheel of time goes round, and history, which works ever in a circle,
constantly repeats itself, and so also does sin. The sin of Nehemiah's
days is still to be seen; the same temptation which beset those
Jerusalem Jews, besets us even in these more enlightened days.

We all love company. There is in us a natural shrinking from being alone
and desolate. That feeling is born in us; we inherit it from our first
father Adam. 'It is not good for the man to be alone,' said the Lord in
His tenderness and His pity.

But a choice lies before us, a choice of friends. Our relatives are
given us by God, no man can choose who shall be his father, or mother,
or brother, or sister. But our friends are of our own choosing, and we
do not sufficiently consider that upon that choice may hang our
eternity. Heaven with all its brightness, hell with all its darkness
and misery, which shall be for me? The answer may hang, it often does
hang, on the choice of a friend.

For there are only two divisions in this world of ours, only two
companies, only two flocks. The kingdom of darkness and the kingdom of
light, the Lord's people and those who are none of His, the sheep and
the goats. From which division, from which company, from which flock
shall I choose my friends?

'Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers, for what
fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion
hath light with darkness?'

Especially careful should we be in that nearest and dearest of
friendships, in the choice of the one who is to be to us our other self.
Would we be made one, would we link ourselves by that firm and sacred
tie, whilst knowing all the time that the one who is to be dearer to us
than life itself is outside the fold? No blessing can surely rest on
such a marriage. Jesus cannot be an invited guest at that marriage
feast. For clear and unmistakable is the trumpet call of the great
Captain of our salvation:

'Come out from among them, and be ye separate, said the Lord, and touch
not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, and will be a Father unto
you, and ye shall be My sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.'

CHAPTER XVI.

God's Remembrance.

How fond people are of collecting old books, and what a large price old
books will fetch! Those who are so fortunate as to obtain possession