It is therefore advisable for young men to seek the fellowship of the good, and always to aim at a higher standard than themselves. Francis Horner, speaking of the advantages to himself of direct personal intercourse with high-minded, intelligent men, said, “I cannot hesitate to decide that I have derived more intellectual improvement from them than from all the books I have turned over.” Lord Shelburne (afterwards Marquis of Lansdowne), when a young man, paid a visit to the venerable Malesherbes, and was so much impressed by it, that he said,—“I have travelled much, but I have never been so influenced by personal contact with any man; and if I ever accomplish any good in the course of my life, I am certain that the recollection of M. de Malesherbes will animate my soul.” So Fowell Buxton was always ready to acknowledge the powerful influence exercised upon the formation of his character in early life by the example of the Gurney family: “It has given a colour to my life,” he used to say. Speaking of his success at the Dublin University, he confessed, “I can ascribe it to nothing but my Earlham visits.” It was from the Gurneys he “caught the infection” of self-improvement. Contact with the good never fails to impart good, and we carry away with us some of the blessing, as travellers’ garments retain the odour of the flowers and shrubs through which they have passed. Those who knew the late John Sterling intimately, have spoken of the beneficial influence which he exercised on all with whom he came into personal contact. Many owed to him their first awakening to a higher being; from him they learnt what they were, and what they ought to be. Mr. Trench says of him:—“It was impossible to come in contact with his noble nature without feeling one’s self in some measure _ennobled_ and _lifted up_, as I ever felt when I left him, into a higher region of objects and aims than that in which one is tempted habitually to dwell.” It is thus that the noble character always acts; we become insensibly elevated by him, and cannot help feeling as he does and acquiring the habit of looking at things in the same light. Such is the magical action and reaction of minds upon each other.