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 of a book which is four or five hundred years old may put their own price upon it, for some antiquarian will be sure to purchase it.