little impressibility. These may be neither the nobler nor the stronger natures, for a high degree of susceptibility to human influence is quite compatible with a robust and self-respecting individuality. But most of us are susceptible to a far greater degree than we are aware. The tides of life that pour upon us continually leave their impress for good or ill in our thoughts, our habits, and our characters. The majority of men belong to their own generation, in the sense that they are generically like their contemporaries. Here and there arises a stalwart individual who lives in advance of his time, and even presents a type of a generation to come. These are prophetic men, - great thinkers like Roger Bacon and Giordano Bruno and Ephraem Gotthold Lessing, and great reformers like Wicklif and Huss and Savonarola. But most men are children of their own time, the assimilating force of society being greater than the differencing force of individuality. In the narrow circle of each one's acquaintance the influence of companionship on character is most clearly seen. There is an old English proverb: "Tell me with whom. thou goest, and I'll tell thee what thou doest."

Our conduct is constantly and powerfully affected by those with whom we continually

associate. We cannot evade this influence. We may determine whether our associates shall be good or bad, and thus whether the influence upon us shall be helpful or harmful, but we cannot escape the dynamic environment. "Be not deceived," said Saint Paul, "evil companionships corrupt good morals." We almost inevitably take the moral tone of our chosen surroundings. This is one side of the truth, but there is another; if evil associates corrupt us, good associates purify and elevate us. But the truth that I would press upon your minds until you cannot forget it is this: Whatever your companionships may be, they must and will exert a profound influence on your characters. Ignorance of this truth, or disregard of it, is sure to result in serious damage. Do not think that you can company with coarse fellows and not grow coarse yourself. Do not think that you can associate habitually with the impure and at the same time preserve your own purity. Lavater said: "He who comes from the kitchen smells of its smoke; he who adheres to a sect has something of its cant; the college air pursues the student, and dry inhumanity him who herds with literary pedants." There is a Latin proverb: "If you always live with those who are lame, you will yourself learn to limp."

The most serious mistakes of ingenuous youth are made in the choice of companions. Susceptibility to the charms of cleverness and good fellowship, enthusiasm and ignorance of the world, combine to make them easy victims of the designing, or to blind them to the real character of those whom circumstance makes their companions. No generous young man coldly chooses to do evil, or knowingly accepts the bad as his associates. There are many who would shrink with horror from becoming vulgar and profane and licentious, who would passionately recoil from the thought of committing a deed of dishonesty or shame, who yet thoughtlessly allow themselves to enter into fellowship with those whose influence is evil; and in a little time imperceptibly their fine sense of honor is blunted, their purity is tainted, their good impulses are weakened and overborne, and in a few years they become capable of unanticipated grossness or even crime. There are many young men in this city to-night who not long ago came here comparatively pure, with instincts, if not principles, of truthfulness and uprightness; but already they have passed through a sinister transformation. They have become knowing with a questionable knowledge. Their speech is marked by smartness and ready innuendo that easily

fast indeed!.

opens into actual obscenity. They have learned to swear and swagger. They frequent the saloons, are familiar with the back entrances to the theatres, and know the way to places where shame holds perpetual carnival. Some of them have acquired the art of cheating washerwomen and boarding-house keepers, and of clandestinely borrowing money from their employer's till. They are fast young men, journeying fast down the road to physical and intellectual and moral ruin. Have I not sketched truly, if in outline, the biography of many a young man in every great city of our land? Again and again, with little variations of detail, does the Christian minister hear from the trembling lips of broken-hearted fathers the story of sons who have gone down into an earthly perdition, and the explanation of it all in the significant words: They began running

with bad company." So too there are young women in this city to-night whose permaturely faded cheeks bear the brand of vice and shame, whose "feet go down to death," whose "steps take hold on hell." Not very long ago some of these were innocent and full of good impulses; they meant no evil, but, careless. and wayward, they joined hands unwittingly with those whose touch was pollution, and

under the influence of such associates they have gone down a steep road to ruin, while desolated homes and broken hearts witness to the far-reaching malign influence of evil companionship. Few who are now sunk in wretchedness and social ruin would have gone to ruin alone; but the strong attraction of companions whose unscrupulousness was disguised under the form of friendship has drawn the simple out of the path of purity, and given that impetus toward vice which pushes the fallen rapidly down to death.

You to whom I speak may be, or may think yourselves to be, safe, but remember, however firm your resolution to be honest and pure, if you associate habitually with those who are bad, you subject yourselves to a dangerous test. By your choice the bad are in the majority, and they will at last make you like themselves.

But if evil companionship is powerful for evil, good companionship is equally powerful for good. Many a boy unhappily born amid vicious surroundings has been redeemed from vice by being placed among the pure. Under the constant influence of gentleness and purity and integrity his character gradually has acquired these qualities, and his life has developed into an ornament and a blessing to society.