Boys are easily influenced either for right or for wrong, but especially for the wrong; hence it is the duty of parents to select good companions for their children, and it is the duty of children to avoid bad company as they would avoid carrion or the most loathsome object. A boy with a match box in a powder magazine would be in no greater danger than in the company of most of the lads who attend our public schools and play upon the streets. It is astonishing how early children, especially boys, will sometimes learn the hideous, shameless tricks of vice which yearly lead thousands down to everlasting death. Often children begin their course of sin while yet cradled in their mother's arms, thus early taught by some vile nurse. Boys that fight and swear, that play upon the streets and disobey their parents, may be wisely shunned as unfit for associates. In many instances, too, boys whose conduct is in other respects wholly faultless sometimes indulge in vice, ignorant of its real nature and consequences. At the first intimation of evil on the part of a companion, a boy who is yet pure should flee away as from a deadly serpent or a voracious beast. Do not let the desire to gratify a craving curiosity deter you from fleeing at once from the source of contamination. Under such circumstances do not hesitate a moment to escape from danger. If an evil word is spoken or an indecent act of any sort indulged in by a companion, cut the acquaintance of such a boy at once. Never allow yourself to be alone with him a moment. On no account be induced to associate with him. He will as surely soil and besmear with sin your moral garments as would contact with the most filthy object imaginable your outer garments. It were better for a boy never to see or associate with a lad of his own age than to run any risk of being corrupted before he is old enough to appreciate the terrible enormity of sin and the awful consequences of transgression. It should be recollected also that not only young boys but vicious youths and young men are frequently the instructors in vice. It is unsafe to trust any but those who are known to be pure. Bad Language.--We have often been astonished at the facility with which children acquire the language of vice. Often we have been astounded to hear little boys scarcely out of their cradles, lisping the most horrible oaths and the vilest epithets. The streets and alleys in our large cities, and in smaller ones too in a less degree, are nurseries of vice, in which are reared the criminals that fill our jails, prisons, work-houses, school-ships, and houses of correction. Many a lad begins his criminal education by learning the language of vice and sin. At first he simply imitates the evil utterances of others; but soon he learns the full significance of the obscene and filthy language which he hears and repeats, and then he rapidly progresses in the downward road.