I hope, my dear nephew, that you will improve this advantage to the utmost. In your intimacies, however, endeavour to be guided rather by judgment than by mere fancy. Sameness of pursuits, similarity of dispositions and inclinations generally contribute much to throw men together; but be careful not to attach yourself to any man as a _friend_, unless he is a man of moral worth, and of real religious principle. Intimacy with a man who is unrestrained by religion, _must_ be attended with great danger. Your own natural appetites will continually solicit you to forbidden indulgences, and will not be kept in due subjection without difficulty. If their solicitations are seconded by the example and by the conversations of an intimate associate, your peril will be extreme. Intimacy with a man of bad principles and immoral character, may utterly blast all your prospects of happiness both in this world and the next. You will of course have the greater power of _selection_, if your general acquaintance is pretty extensive. I acknowledge, that my opinion is rather in favour of your forming an extensive acquaintance, provided that you never suffer it to encroach upon your time, or to lead you into any compromise of religious principle. Going to the University constitutes a sort of entrance into the world, an introduction to manly life; but this advantage is lost if you seclude yourself altogether from society. In order, however, to acquire or to retain such an acquaintance, your manners and general demeanour must be acceptable or popular. One of the first requisites, in order to be thus acceptable, is the neglect, the forgetfulness of _self_--a readiness to put _self_ in the back-ground. Any obtrusion of self, any appearance of self-love, self-interest, self-conceit, or self-applause, tends to expose a man to dislike, perhaps to contempt. One way in which this disregard, this abandonment of self, must show itself, is real unaffected humility. Most of the external forms and modes of modern politeness, its bows and obeisances, its professions of respect and service, its adulations, are nothing but an affectation of such humility, and bear witness to its value when it exists in reality. When it does so exist, and still is free from any servility of manner, any unworthy compliances, nothing contributes more to make a man acceptable and popular in society. It inflicts no unnecessary wounds on any one's pride or self-love. And, you will observe, that it is the temper and behaviour, inculcated by the general spirit and by the particular precepts of religion, which bids us _in honour to prefer one another_; and says, _in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself_.