* * * * * "What a negative sort of outlook!" exclaims someone; and we must thank that one for reminding us that there is a _positive_ side. There is One whom we _may_ choose for our Companion. (How amazing that I should be allowed to _choose Him_!) And it is just because we have already chosen the one Companion who will not leave us that we may not choose anyone else--not even a husband or wife--without reference to Him. As soon as we choose Him, then He does all our choosing for us. According to old Oriental custom, marriages were arranged by parents with the aid of a middleman. Sometimes when things went wrong after marriage one of the couple, or both, would blame the middleman. When marriages are made after the Western pattern, there is no one to blame but oneself. Before I left America I used to think that marriages arranged by parents, through middlemen, must necessarily be unhappy. But after I had been on the field for a time I decided that in China the proportion of happy marriages among those outside of Christ was greater than marriages of those of the same group in America, even though almost all the marriages in China were made after the old traditional style! People who choose partners for themselves do not always choose wisely. Older people, with more experience, may make a wiser choice than the young people themselves would have done. It _may_ be better to have a trustworthy middleman than to try to do the choosing oneself! If this is true of an earthly middleman, how much more it is true of the One who chooses for _us_! The earthly middleman may do very well in many cases, but certainly he makes some mistakes. The One who chooses for us makes no mistakes. So whether it be a matter of accepting a fellow worker you would rather not have, or of letting go one whom you would like to keep--remember the One who does the choosing for us makes no mistakes. CHAPTER 10 _The Right to Feel Superior_ The meeting of the Missionary Union had closed. The Bible Institute students were leaving the room in groups, and many of them were discussing the message which they had just heard. "What did you think of his last point?" asked one. "That about race prejudice, you mean? About not thinking that because our skin is white, we're better than anyone else? To tell the truth, it seemed a bit superfluous to me. I suppose race prejudice and race pride still do exist, but not in a group like this. Why, we're practically all missionary candidates!" "Just what I thought myself!" rejoined the first. "You'd think he'd gotten his audience mixed. But he knew he was talking to missionary candidates, all right. That's the strange part. The rest of his talk--it was the real stuff. But that one point--I just couldn't make it out."