Commemoration Day.

Let us now take up God's honour list, and see who are entered upon it.
We shall find it filled with the names of those who have been dead more
than 2000 years, but whose names are not forgotten; they stand out fair
and clear in the Book of God, all are entered on the great list of
honours, and are remembered for what they have done.

Where shall we find God's great honour list? It is the list of all those
who responded to Nehemiah's appeal, and who rebuilt the walls of
Jerusalem. In Neh. iii. we have a list of their names, not one is
omitted. There those names have stood for 2000 years; there they will
stand to the end of time. Brave men, noble men were those Jews, who, as
soon as the scheme was laid before them, cried, 'Let us arise and
build;' and who not only responded by word of mouth, but who at once set
to work to do what they had promised.

Let us take a walk round the walls of Jerusalem and watch the builders
at work. We will begin where they began, ver. 1, at the Sheep Gate on
the east side of the city. As we stand by the gate we see beneath us the
Kedron valley, and beyond it the slopes of the Mount of Olives. Close by
us, but inside the city, is the sheep-market, where the sheep and lambs
are sold to those who wish to sacrifice in the temple, and near this
market is the pool where the sheep are washed before being led up into
the temple courts. This is the pool mentioned in John v. 2, where in
later times lay the impotent man waiting to be healed.

Who are these who are busily engaged repairing the Sheep Gate and the
wall beyond it; they are the priests, who have left their work in the
temple courts close by, and who, with their loins girded and their long