A CHAPTER FOR BOYS 403 



Bad Company.— The influence of evil companion- 

 ship is one of the most powerful agents for evil against 

 which those who love purity, and are seeking to ele- 

 vate and benefit their fellowmen, have to contend, A 

 bad boy can do more harm in a community than can 

 be counteracted by all the clergymen, Sabbath-school 

 teachers, tract-distributers, and other Christian work- 

 ers combined. An evil boy is a pest compared with 

 which the cholera, smallpox, and even the plague, are 

 nothing. The damage which would be done by a ter- 

 rific hurricane sweeping with destructive force through 

 a thickly settled district is insignificant compared with 

 the evil work which may be accomplished by one vicious 

 lad. 



No community is free from these vipers, these 

 agents of the arch-fiend. Every school, no matter how 

 select, contains a greater or less number of these young 

 moral lepers. Often they pursue their work unsus- 

 pected by the good and pure, who do not dream of the 

 vileness pent up in the young brains which have not 

 yet learned the multiplication table, and have scarcely 

 learned to read. We have known instances in which 

 a boy seven or eight years of age has implanted the 

 venom of vice in the hearts and minds of half a score 

 of pure-minded lads within a few days of his first as- 

 sociation with them. This vice spreads like wild-fire. 

 It is more ** catching" than the most contagious dis- 

 ease, and more tenacious, when once implanted, than 

 the leprosy. 



Boys are easily influenced either for right or wrong, 

 but especially for the wrong; hence it is the duty of 

 parents to select good companions for their children, 

 and it is the duty of children to avoid bad company 

 as they would avoid carrion or the most loathsome 



