AT THE MERCY OF OUR ASSOCIATIONS.--Through the law thus operating we are in a sense at the mercy of our associations, which may be bad as well as good. We may form certain lines of interest to guide our thought, and attention may in some degree direct it, but one's mental make-up is, after all, largely dependent on the character of his associations. Evil thoughts, evil memories, evil imaginations--these all come about through the association of unworthy or impure images along with the good in our stream of thought. We may try to forget the base deed and banish it forever from our thinking, but lo! in an unguarded moment the nerve current shoots into the old path, and the impure thought flashes into the mind, unsought and unwelcomed. Every young man who thinks he must indulge in a little sowing of wild oats before he settles down to a correct life, and so deals in unworthy thoughts and deeds, is putting a mortgage on his future; for he will find the inexorable machinery of his nervous system grinding the hated images of such things back into his mind as surely as the mill returns to the sack of the miller what he feeds into the hopper. He may refuse to harbor these thoughts, but he can no more hinder their seeking admission to his mind than he can prevent the tramp from knocking at his door. He may drive such images from his mind the moment they are discovered, and indeed is guilty if he does not; but not taking offense at this rebuff, the unwelcome thought again seeks admission. The only protection against the return of the undesirable associations is to choose lines of thought as little related to them as possible. But even then, do the best we may, an occasional "connection" will be set up, we know not how, and the unwelcome image stands staring us in the face, as the corpse of Eugene Aram's victim confronted him at every turn, though he thought it safely buried. A minister of my acquaintance tells me that in the holiest moments of his most exalted thought, images rise in his mind which he loathes, and from which he recoils in horror. Not only does he drive them away at once, but he seeks to lock and bar the door against them by firmly resolving that he will never think of them again. But alas! that is beyond his control. The tares have been sown among the wheat, and will persist along with it until the end. In his boyhood these images were given into the keeping of his brain cells, and they are only being faithful to their trust.