Hence it is an important matter, and especially for Catholic young men, to consider the injurious results of the unavoidable contact with those in the world who are more or less infected with erroneous views, or have become the victims of debasing vices. Such characters are to be found in nearly every department of business. It often happens that a young man, when he begins to work, is obliged to enter a sphere beyond the control of his parents, where he will be in close proximity to blatant infidels, who claim an intellectual superiority on account of their unbelief. Business engagements may compel a Catholic young man to be within hearing of shallow sceptics, who take every opportunity to ask questions--not to get information, but merely to ventilate their contempt for all religious teaching. These hostile influences have produced in many of our young men very deplorable results. By a sort of indifference, resembling the dry rot, they have allowed themselves to get into a very unsafe state of mind regarding their duties to God. Enlightened self-interest should prompt every young man to keep a sharp lookout for all that is injurious to him. He may have the best religious training, together with the virtuous surroundings of a good home, but these will not be sufficient without his own personal activity. If he selects by preference heretics and freethinkers as the companions of his leisure hours; if he is so puffed up with the idea of his own ability that he can find no Catholic associates worthy of his notice; if he is so confident of his own strength that he habitually neglects to receive Holy Communion, he has become a traitor to the King of Heaven. Our Lord wants his followers to attain the highest standard of human excellence. {34} To those who love him and fearlessly keep his commandments he gives the courage which belongs to true manliness; and their piety has power to surmount every obstacle on the way to heaven. ------------------- Sermon VIII. The Voice In The Wilderness. _Make straight the way of the Lord._ --John i. 23. This expression, dear brethren, is no new one in Holy Scripture, and it fell on no unaccustomed ears. More than seven hundred years before Jesus Christ the great prophet Isaias spoke about "the voice of one crying in the desert: Make straight in the wilderness the paths of our God." Again, three hundred years later, another prophet, Malachias, wrote: "Behold, I send my angel, and he shall prepare the way before my face." Again, about six months before Jesus Christ was born, an aged priest, Zacharias, took his own little child, who was only eight days old, in his arms, and in the beautiful hymn of the _Benedictus_ says of him: "Thou, child, shalt be called the prophet of the Most High; for thou shalt go before the face of the Lord to prepare his way."