THE EXCELLENT OF THE EARTH. Now, our ordinary Social intercourse belongs to the class for which it is difficult or impossible to lay down rules which are applicable to all occasions. It is a divine maxim from which we cannot swerve, that our "speech should be always with grace, seasoned with salt." Whatever is offensive or unholy should not be once named among us; but still it is difficult to lay down any rules which apply to every case. On the one hand, there are men with whom intercourse the most cordial may be cherished, nay, earnestly coveted. Where "they that fear the Lord speak often one to another, while the Lord hearkens and hears," the man of God may expect to find what will gladden his soul. "The excellent of the earth" can impart blessings of the highest order, for the law of the Lord is on their lips. But, on the other hand, there are the profane, the godless, who walk through the world trampling on the laws of the Eternal, and with these we can hold no willing intercourse, unless we would catch their spirit, and at last share their doom--"The companion of fools shall be destroyed." But between these two classes there are various shades of character; and it is in reference to /these/ that our difficulties in life actually occur. THE ASSEMBLY OF THE UNGODLY. There is one passage in the Word of God[39] which may throw light upon this subject. A patriarch is speaking of certain cruel deeds, which he contemplates with strong emotion. Aware that man cannot be much in contact with what is immoral without being polluted, or associate with the profane without learning profanity, he thus expresses, in graphical language, the recoil of a pure or an upright mind: "O my soul, come not thou into their secret; unto their assembly, mine honour, be not thou united." He is referring to his own sons, but he feels that his honour would be laid in the dust were he associated with them in some of their doings; and he therefore plants a beacon over the spot of danger, to warn us away from what may end in death. He enforces the words, "Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness." He, in substance, asserts what Paul asserted seventeen centuries thereafter, "Evil communications corrupt good manners." He takes up the language of John, and says in effect, "He that bids God-speed to an ungodly man becomes a partaker of his evil deeds;" and thus we have, at least, a general rule for universal guidance--The godly cannot /choose/ the godless for their associates.