the congregation with which he worships, the city or tow11, tho country, the Church at largP, the world. II. REASONS FOR ADOPTmG THIS ORDER. 1. That which is nearest is usually best known. It.ls needs can be best perceived, and how to meet them. 2. It appeals most powerfully to our hearts. Partly because best known. The eye affects tho heart (Lam. iii. 61). Partly because of the natural affections which belong to the closer relationships. Now the emotions of the heart are both a call to duty and a qualifi- cation for its efficient performance. Words spoken, gifts bestowed, with feeling, are most powerful for good. 3. It has the first claim upon us. God has placed men in close relationships and proximity in order that they may be mutually helpful as occasion a.rises. We nolate the Divine order when we care for the distant to the neglect of the near. 4. We can most easily reach it. 5. We may hope for more success in dealing with it. Because our work will be with more knowledge and more heart, and less waste of resources ; and will carry with it the weight of known character, of personal sympathy, and the thousand influences which spring from family life, friendship, neighbourhood, &c. A man can nowhere work with so much effect as " over against his house." 6. In caring for it we may be most effectually protecting our houses. As those priests and others who built up the piece of wall nearest them. There are perils to us and our families which may be averted by doing our duty to those nearest to us ; perils from the sullen enmity which indiffer- ence and neglect may generate in them ; perils from their ignorance, grossness, or vice ; perils from their diseases, &c. 7. When each does the work nearest to him, the whole work will be most surely and rapidly done. Christians have yet thoroughly to follow this order. Nevertheless, it must be admitted that there is much to be done which cannot thus be reached. There were many parts of the wall at Jerusalem which were opposite the house of no one, or of none able to repair them ; and there were many able and willing to assist in the work whose dwellings were not in Jeru- salem, or, if in the city, not near the wall. And so they bad to labour at a distance from their houses. In like manner, there is much Christian work to be done where no Christians exist, or none capable of doing it ; and so there is ample room for those organisations which enable the benevolent to do good at a distance, and even in far-off lands. HOMILIES BY VARIOUS AUTHORS. Ch. iii.-.The Church engaged in a work of moral repair. I. THAT THE CHURCH lS ENGAGED IN REPAIRING MORAL RUIN. "And next unto them repaired Meremoth" (ver. 4). Jerusalem was once a strong_ and beautiful city; now it is in ruins. Society bas not always been a ruin. Man bas not always been a wreck. 1. '.!'ha desolation was extensive. The entire city was waste ; not a wall or gate remamed intact. And man's entire intellectual and moral nature is laid waste by sin ; he has no unfallen faculty. 2. The desolation was varied. The sheep gate, the doors, the beams, the locks bad all been destroyed ; and so all the manifold capabilities of man have been injured by sin. 3. The desolation was pitiable. It was sad to see Jerusalem in ruins; but much more so to see the ruin of the human soul. 4. The desolation was visible. Travellers saw the ruined city; the fallen condition of man is evidP21t to alL II. THE METHOD WHICH THE CHURCH SHOULD PURSUE IN ITS WORK OF MORAL REPARATION. 1. There must be good official leadership. "Then Eliashib the high priest rose up" (ver. 1). 2. There must be a wise use of individual talent. "Gold- smiths," "apothecaries" (ver. 8). 3. There must be pur~ued a common purpose through a variety of tasks. 4. There must be a recog;mtion of_ the power o~ the domestic affections (ver. 29). 5. There must be a Htrict attent10n to the mmute detail of the work. "And set up the doors thereof, and the locks thereof, and the bars thereof" (ver. 6). 6. There are always those in the Church who refuse to aid in its enterprise. -E.
Cb. iii.-Doing Goas wark. Under Nehemiah's direction, and inspired with ~is own eamestness1 the children of Israel gave themselves to the good work of enc1r- C:H. 111. 1-32.] THE BOOK OF NEHEMIAH. 36