The ruin of multitudes of young men can be traced to the same origin--a bad selection of associates. I have in my mind's eye now, a case in point. A young man, born in this city, and known to most of you, was naturally endowed with the rarest abilities and the finest talents. He belonged to one of the most wealthy and respectable families. He had every advantage for cultivation, and for the highest and most thorough education. Had he been thoughtful and wise to have improved his opportunities, the way was open for him to the highest advancement. He might have been blessed with respectability, wealth, and honors. He could have risen to the most dignified positions in life. His voice might have been heard in strains of persuasive eloquence, from the sacred pulpit, or in the halls of justice, or in the senate chamber of our state or national councils. He might have occupied a seat on the bench of the highest courts, or have aspired to the executive chair of the nation. But where is he now, and what are his circumstances and his position in the world? See issuing from the door of yonder filthy groggery; a wretched specimen of humanity--the distorted caricature of a man! His garments are thread-bare and patched--his eyes are inflamed, sunken and watery--his countenance bloated and livid--his limbs swelled and tottering. Although but in the morning of his manhood, yet the lines of premature old age and decrepitude are deeply carved upon his pale, dejected face; and in his whole aspect, there is that forlorn, broken-spirited, anguished look of despair, which shows he himself feels that he has sunken, beyond earthly redemption, into the awful pit of the confirmed drunkard! This is the young man whose early opportunities were so favorable, and whose prospects were so bright and flattering. He has become a curse to himself, he has brought disgrace and wretchedness on his connections, and is an outcast and vagabond, with whom no young man who now hears me would associate for a single hour!