Let a young man, however upright and pure, associate habitually with those who are profane, Sabbath-breaking, intemperate, and unprincipled--who are given to gambling, licentiousness, and every low, brutal and wicked practice--and but a brief space of time will elapse before he will fall into like habits himself, and become as great an adept in iniquitous proceedings as the most thorough-paced profligate among them. When a young woman associates with girls who are idle, disrespectful and disobedient to parents--who are vulgar, brazen-faced, loud talkers and laughers--whose chief occupation and delight is to spin street-yarn, to run from house to house and store to store, and walk the streets in the evening, instead of being at home engaged in some useful occupation--whose whole conversation, and thoughts, and dreams, relate to dress, and fashion, and gewgaws, and trinkets, to adorn the person, utterly negligent of the ornaments of the mind and heart--whose reading never extends to instructive and useful books, but is confined exclusively to sickly novels and silly love-stories;--how long will it be before she will become as careless and good-for-nothing as they? This predisposition of the young to imitate the characteristics of those with whom they associate, has been so well and so long known, that it has given rise to the old proverb--"Show me your company, and I will show you your character." So perfectly did Solomon understand this, that he uttered the wise maxim--"Make no friendship with an angry man; and with a furious man thou shalt not go; lest thou learn his ways, and get a snare to thy soul." The young should remember, that people will judge them by the company they keep. This principle is perfectly correct. In selecting their associates, they act _voluntarily_. They choose such as they please. When they seek the society of the ignorant, the vulgar, the profane and profligate, they give the best of reasons for believing that they prefer profligacy and vulgarity to virtue and purity. To what other conclusion can the observer come? If they preferred virtue and purity, they would certainly seek pure and virtuous associates. Hence society have adopted the very correct principle of judging the young, by the character of their associates. If they would be thought well of, they should strive to associate with those who are known to be virtuous and good. However blameless and upright young persons may have been, if they begin to associate with those whose reputation is poor, and whose conduct is improper, they will soon be esteemed no higher than their companions.