Friends and Associates.
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A lack of prudence in the use of money, at the beginning, may be confirmed into habits that will mar a man's fortunes for life — but a lack of due caution in regard to ourassociates is fraught with consequences far more direful! The effects of the first error are felt mainly in the inconveniences and disabilities of natural life; but the effects of the latter reach far deeper, and impress themselves upon man's mind and soul.
The laws of friendship are governed by mental and moral affinities, and are based upon qualities of mind and heart. The good are attracted toward each other, and the same thing occurs with the evil, when reciprocal interchanges of thoughts and feelings take place.
Now, in every association of either the good or the evil, there is a sphere of the quality of that association pervading the whole; and all who come into it, and voluntarily remain there, are more or less strongly affected by this sphere, and think and feel with the rest. Let a man who has a respect for order and obedience to the laws, go into a mob, and voluntarily remain there for a time, and he will be surprised to find his liveliest sympathies on the side of mob law; and the reason of it is, he feels the sphere of the quality of that mob's mind set — he is in it, and breathes it, and feels an impulse to act from it. Who does not from his heart condemn the reprehensible practice of steamboat racing, for instance? yet who has ever stood upon the deck of a noble boat during a trial of speed with another boat of nearly equal or superior capacity, and among a crowd of eager spectators — who has not forgotten all danger and waived all disposition to censure the officers of the boat, in his sympathy with the general feeling?
From these two instances may clearly be seen the great importance of choosing, with care, our associates. If we mingle with those who make light of both human and divine laws — we shall be led into the same error, and sink, instead of rising, in the scale of moral excellence. But if we choose more wisely our companions, we shall not only be elevated ourselves, but help to elevate others.
Only just so far as each man elevates himself by refraining from all evil acts, does he, or can he, do anything for the general return to true social order. He may build churches, and send forth missionaries, and be devout in his observances of all religious ordinances; but still he has done nothing in this great work, unless he has actually shunned evils in his own life, as sins. If this is done, he has really and truly removed some evil in the world, and made way for the influx of good.
Every young man may see how much depends upon his choice of associates. If he mingles with those who are governed by right principles, his own good purposes will be strengthened, and he will strengthen others in return. But if he mingles with those who make light of virtue, and revel in selfish and sensual indulgences, he will find his own respect for virtue growing weaker, and he will gradually become more and more in love with the grosser enjoyments of sense, which drag a man downward, instead of lifting him upward, and throw a mist of obscurity over all his moral perceptions.
Let every young man, then, seek for associations in life; but let him be exceedingly careful how he makes his selection. Almost everything depends upon its being done with prudence.
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