2. _Guard against the temptations of the times._ Far be it from me to utter a word that would debar you from the recreations and excitements appropriate to your age. Joy and cheerfulness are your strength and heritage. Monkish austerity and sanctimoniousness are rarely virtues. But our modern civilization has multiplied, under the name of pleasure, the facilities of vice. The perils that assail young men in great cities are so many, so seductive, and so ruinous to body and soul, as to make an observer tremble. If, then, you would be obedient to the heavenly teaching, you must resolutely resolve not to “go in the way of evil men.” There was a time in England when places of business were homes. The employer admitted young men to the domestic sanctities of his family. They received aid from him in the formation of acquaintances, and had even access to his own circles of recreation. Now, young men in cities can scarcely be said to have a home. Some have not even the privilege of a common room, or a fire in their chamber. They are open, therefore, to every allurement that promises pleasure. Places of business, moreover, are huge establishments where the loose moralist can cover vice by self-deceivableness, and where the subtle infidel, the scoffer, and the licentious mingle together. Religion is ridiculed, and the clergy spoken of with a sneer. Filthy books are sold and circulated—books of infamy, which minister to the vilest tastes, which taint and befoul the imagination with unclean images, and which a man can no more look at without defilement than he can touch soft pitch and be clean.