The Massachusetts Spy

TO YOUNG MEN.

To pass through life with any degree of honour to himself, the young man, on his first entrance into the world, should make a choice of proper company. It is not enough that his principles be of the right kind; neither is it sufficient that his mind is pure and his intentions right. His associates must be among the wise, and his companions selected among the excellent of the earth. Vices are infectious, and the purest principles are liable to be corrupted. The company of the profane swearer, the liar, the drunkard, and the impure, is extremely dangerous. When vice becomes familiarized to our view, we lose the abhorrence of it almost insensibly; and though we may still appear to walk in the path of obedience, yet we gradually recede from virtue, and by a continuance in such courses, we soon are prepared to commit downright wickedness. But this is not all: the wise and prudent will even shun the society of him whose associates are among the vilest of the vile. But there is yet a kind of intercourse with the world, which ever tends to lessen a young man in the opinion of men of pure lives and nice sentiments of honour and propriety: this is a spirit of accommodation of the low and vulgar. A courteous deportment towards all, is undoubtedly commendable; for all may justly lay claim to common civility and good offices; but no one is under obligation to receive, as bosom companions, the ignorant, the profligate, or the vicious. The sober and discreet man will not often visit him who is ever surrounded with the refuse of the earth; neither will a man of good sense and delicacy trust himself among the brawlers of the streets. These considerations should induce those who are forming their characters, to erect a standard of company and conversation; and while they are solicitous to treat all with respect, beware of lessening their own value in the opinion of men of virtue and understanding. Let them equally avoid the haughty and distant carriage, which will most assuredly bring contempt; and, by a life regulated by the precepts of unerring wisdom, and proper sentiments of honour and dignity, secure to themselves the friendship of the virtuous, and the approbation of their own consciences. [N. Haven Herald.]