pected from them, and every means of perdition is continually employed by them, with a sure and dreadful efficacy. In their company temptations are contrived and presented, which the young, ignorant, and inexperienced victims of their influence would elsewhere never have found; and sins proposed and committed, of which elsewhere they never would have formed a conception. Hence they contract, here, a pollution, a debasement, a degeneracy, a preparation for eternal death, which elsewhere they would finally have escaped.

To youths, let it be remembered, these observations are peculiarly applicable. Youth is the most innocent, comparatively the safest, and clearly the best, season of human life for all religious purposes, and for the consummation of them all, the attainment of endless glory. But youths are more inexperienced, more unguarded, more thoughtless of danger, and of course more naturally exposed to corruption from without, than men of superior years and discretion. Youths discern less readily, less clearly, and less perfectly, the character and the designs of those with whom they consort.

To the arts of seduction they are chiefly strangers. Rarely do they suspect those around them, particularly those who wear a plausible appearance, and make a fair profession. They naturally believe in the sincerity of others, because they are themselves sincere: and, as they design nothing but what is kind and well meant, they easily believe the designs of others to be of the same nature. Particularly the pleasantness, civility, apparent good-will, and agreeable flattery, of their companions are readily admitted by them as proofs of friendly and upright intentions.

Accordingly, Solomon in choosing his example to prove the easiness, power, and certain success, of seduction, points us to a youth. "I beheld," says he, "among the simple ones, I "discovered among the youths, a young man void of under"standing, passing the street by the corner; and he went the

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way to her house. And behold, there met him a woman, with "the attire of an harlot, and subtle of heart. With her "much fair speech she caused him to yield: With the flattery of her lips she forced him. He goeth after her straight

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way, as an ox goeth to the slaughter, or a fool to the cor"rection of the stocks. Till a dart strike through his liver: "As a bird hasteth to the snare of the fowler, and knoweth 66 not that it is for his life."

To this scheme his instructions are generally and intentionally conformed throughout the book of Proverbs, which, he says, was written to give subtlety to the simple, and to the young man knowledge and discretion.

Youths, then, are, in the sight of God, thus in danger from evil companions. To this congregation, so generally composed of such as are young, these considerations come home with supreme energy, and by every youth present ought to be regarded as of all possible importance.

In these discourses you have heard the danger of evil company briefly explained, and the miserable consequences of frequenting the retreats where they are found. By the mouth of God himself you have been taught that the companions of fools shall be destroyed. He is the best of all friends, the wisest, the most sincere, the most affectionate, the most faithful. With infinite tenderness he loves your souls, and seeks your eternal well-being. Prompted by his unlimited benevolence, and to promote this inestimable object, he wrote for you the salutary, the indispensable admonition in the text. He cannot but know, he cannot but declare that, and that only, which is true. His omniscient eye, glancing at once with an intuitive survey over all the nations of the earth, and discerning the nature of all human conduct, saw with perfect certainty the tendency of frequenting evil company, its malignant influence, and its dreadful consequences. To warn and to save you, he has caused this affecting declaration to be written in the Scriptures of truth, and to be brought out this day, in his holy place, for your instruction and safety. Hear his voice, I beseech you, and while you hear, obey.

To this awful voice experience joins her suffrage, and reason hers. All mankind who have spoken on this subject, have spoken only in the same manner. The danger, the ruin, of evil companions have engaged the attention of thinking men in every country and in every age. "Evil communications,"

said a heathen poet and philosopher, "corrupt good manners." "Evil communications corrupt good manners," says the eternal God, condescending, for wise reasons, to adopt this just and interesting declaration into the canon of his word, with an especial design, perhaps, to show how perfectly accordant the dictates of sober experience and rectified reason are with his own truth.

Can a truth so uttered, so evidenced, fail of being embraced by you? Can you hesitate for a moment to shun a danger so great, an evil so pernicious? Why would you shun a viper? You reply," Because his bite is poisonous and fatal." A sinful companion is infinitely more venomous and deadly. Why would you avoid a precipice?" Because," you answer, "a "single heedless step might hurry me to destruction." To a destruction more sure, as being less dreaded, and infinitely more complete, you will be hurried by evil companions. Fly them, therefore, with more anxiety than you would fly from a viper. Tremble whenever you approach them with more dread than you experience when you approach a precipice. These enemies can destroy your bodies only, those will destroy your souls. souls. Flee from them, therefore, not as you would flee from a temporal enemy, but as you would flee from perdition and escape from hell. To hell, to perdition, evil companions, if you leave them not, will soon conduct you.

Let me especially warn you of a danger from this source of which nothing hitherto said in these discourses will make you aware, and which nevertheless you ought peculiarly to dread. The persons who will become your first tempters will very imperfectly sustain this character which I have given of evil companions. Generally, they will be like yourselves, so far at least as you will perceive, will sustain a fair reputation, will be free from any gross faults, and will intend perhaps as little as yourselves to accomplish any part of this work of temptation and ruin. They will only love pleasure better than business, and sin better than duty, as you possibly may do even more than they. From such persons you will apprehend no evil, and they probably will intend none. Perhaps they may have more to apprehend from you than you from them. But wher

ever this character exists, all in whom it is found are in danger, and that the more, because the danger is wholly unsuspected. The beginnings of sin are peculiarly to be dreaded, because the evil is then unseen, and peculiarly to be watched, because it may be easily and certainly avoided. The first thing commonly done in this case is to neglect the proper studies of the day, and yield it up, or a part of it, to idleness, sport, and useless conversation. Even this is ordinarily done at first with some sincere intentions not to do it again. But the interview is too pleasant not to be repeated; and at every repetition becomes more pleasant. At every repetition also the resolutions of not repeating it again becomes weaker, till they cease to be found at all, and the disposition to study declines, till it finally vanishes. Idleness, amusement, and dissipation have now taken possession of the mind, and by insensible degrees established their dominion. The twinges of conscience have become less and less painful, and more and more easily resisted. The reproofs of parents and instructors having been sustained a few times, become more easily sustained. Excuses in the meantime are so often necessary, and so often devised, that the mind becomes ingenious and hackneyed in the business of devising them; and although often suspected, have been so frequently admitted that they are considered as a sufficient source of safety in future difficulties and dangers. The loss of reputation in the meantime is so gradual as at no particular period to awaken any serious pain, or to excite even a distant apprehension that it may ever be finally lost. In this manner such companions proceed, and have always proceeded, from idleness, trifling conversation, a waste of time, the abuse of talents, and the sacrifice of privileges, to obscenity, gaming, profaneness, a general course of irreligion, a general desertion of their proper business and duty, frequently to excessive drinking, always to the ruin of their character, and almost always to the ruin of their souls.

The commencement of this course is therefore the thing which is to be peculiarly shunned by the youths in this house. Their danger chiefly lies where they apprehend no danger. Their rain commences where they feel themselves safe. Neither intends to corrupt, nor to be corrupted, yet both, yet all,

are corrupted and corruptors. Dread, therefore, the first approaches of idleness, of keeping company with the idle, of losing the hours of study, of trifling and dissipation, as a gulf to which there is no bottom, and out of which, if you fall, you will never rise again.

Almost every youth who has been ruined in this seminary within my knowledge, has been ruined in this manner. I speak not of those who were ruined at home, who entered these walls tainted with vice, and, spreading their infection through the better and healthier minds of those around them, became nuisances to the institution, a blast to the hopes of parents, and a curse to their children. These persons have at times brought with them, in different gradations, the character, the arts, and the corruptions mentioned in the preceding discourse, and settling here in unsuspected silence, blighted the harvest of worth, apparently advancing towards full maturity. I speak of such youths as have come hither with no peculiar corruption, with a reputable freedom from vice, with fair hopes, and with honourable designs. Of these some have found here means and motives which have operated to their ruin. But probably not more than one in one hundred of those who have been destroyed has accomplished the destruction for himself. Left to themselves, unsolicited and unseduced by others, the ninetynine would, at their return home, have in all probability become the joy of their parents and blessings to mankind. But here, where so many youths assemble, and where some of course will be of a vicious character, they become the prey of evil companions, and of the sophistry, the arts, and the tricks which I have described. Let it be remembered, that I have been almost thirty years a resident in this seminary, that I entered it when a child, and that I continued in it without interruption for twelve years, and that a great part of the modes of corruption mentioned in these discourses I have personally seen and heard. Nay, not a small number of them have been practised upon me. I can therefore speak with certainty, as well as with strong feelings, on this subject. Every one of you may rest assured, that I have not mistaken the case, nor any part of