It is thus that these works awaken extensively, in the minds of the young, associations unfavorable to the sterner and sterling virtues; and in many cases, these amiable qualities are so associated with vice as to render it attractive. It is thus that we are presented by popular novelists--and in such a manner as I know carries along the sympathies of many young men, while their imaginations are rendered familiar with the haunts of vice--with gentlemen robbers who rob in style; who are so generous that they never rob the poor; who never shed human blood if people will give up their money without it; and if they are occasionally obliged to blow out the brains of some agent of the law, they are really sorry for it, though they do not see how such impertinent fellows could expect any thing better. It is thus that the impression is received, that a certain class of impulses is sufficient to secure success in life, and even to excuse the want of principle; and young men with their heads full of pictures, not perhaps so bad as this, yet fundamentally the same, rush eagerly into life without fixed principles and fixed aims. To him who is without experience, there is no sight more beautiful than that of a young man of an ingenuous nature entering upon life, and resting upon his own good impulses to keep him from evil. But such a sight, even when there has been no corruption like that just spoken of, now causes apprehension in me; for I have seen him who had every thing, in his person and in his sensibilities, to excite admiration and love, tarrying long at the wine, and seeking mixed wine; I have seen him going to that "house" which "is the way to hell;" and therefore it is that I would utter a solemn protest against any thing which would divorce the beauty of virtue from the principle of virtue, or which would give an impression that there is security without fixed principle. Even "genius," with all these amiable qualities-- "Yet may lack the aid Implored by humble minds and hearts afraid, May leave to timid souls the shield and sword Of the tried faith and the resistless word; Amid a world of dangers venturing forth, Frail but yet fearless, proud in conscious worth, Till strong temptation, in some fatal time, Assails the heart and wins the soul to crime." Then, "All that honor brings against the force Of headlong passion, aids its rapid course; Its slight resistance but provokes the fire, As wood-work stops the flame, and then conveys it higher."