with welcome honour or cordiality in society, is a direct encouragement to vice and an equal discouragement to virtue.[45] Confirmed Vice must not be brought into intimate relations with young Virtue. It is a crime, a stupidity, to do so. On the other hand, no inquisitorial investigation of private life is desirable or permissible. A great duty also exists towards the erring and the vicious, towards all those who have oftentimes fallen into vice rather than voluntarily chosen it, who are the victims of circumstances, of gradual unforeseen deterioration. These fellow-beings demand the tenderest pity, the strongest sympathy, the wisest help. Clever or frivolous, unstable or hardened, charming or repellent, they are still precious human creatures, and the insight of large sympathy--that most powerful influence which Providence has intrusted to us--should be extended to all; but such sympathy can only be exerted by the experienced, the strong, and the right way of doing this must be sought for. One duty is perfectly clear: No persons of acknowledged licentious life should be admitted to the intimacy of home; no such persons should be welcomed with honour in society, no matter what lower material or intellectual advantages may be possessed. Their acquaintance is even more to be dreaded for sons than for daughters. The corrupt conversation so general amongst immoral men is a source of great evil to the young. As the perusal of licentious books marks the first step in mental degradation, vicious talk is often the second decided advance downward.