The St. Johns herald., 1889-09-19
GIRLS COMPANY.
Care in Choosing 1t Of the Great
 est Importance.

Dear girls, what kind of company do you keepP We are, I suppose, all moro or less fond of thinking and speaking of our individuality. Some times it would almost seem as though we thought we stood alone. an utter.y unique species of man or woman kind; while the fact is we are, every one of us. a experimentation of ourselves and every body we come in contact with.
 There will, undoubtedly. always re- main to us some traits of character and expressions of features, some hab- it's of motion and tricks of movement. that are individually and permanently ours. But even these are often changed in great degree by our sur roundlngs and habits of life and thought, or, I should say, thought and life. bekce life is a direct result Of thought And to what is thought due? Largely to those among whom we Hive and move and have our being" Now. girls, you will see at once that since life is the direct result Of thought. and thought is due largely to those among whom we move. that we should be extremely careful about our companions and associates.
 Some one has wlttily and wisely re- marked that "A man is known by the company he keeps out Of :" You may be placed in position where you can not secure good companions, but you will never be placed where you can not be alone; and better, thousand times, is solitude and loneliness than unfit companionship. And there are ex- tremely few people who can not get a good book for companion when they will.
 The man or woman who firts, and tries to convince you that flirting is right; who laughs at you when you declare that you do not care to tamper with any pastime that even mag do harm; who assures you "every one must take care of himself" and you need not be looking out for every body;' who makes a sin seem like something that perhaps is foolish, but pleasantly foolish, met wrong, is one whose company you should keep out of The companion who assures you that you may daily with tempta- tion and sin (and call all things sin which blunt one's finer instincts and make him more readily degraded), that you may be something less than pure, a little less than white-hearted, is one whose company you had better dispense with.
 Those who habitually use slang, or take the fine edge off of language by vulgarisms, are people with whom we should converse as little as possible. Those who are low in mind. habit or expression, whether this lowness shows itself in well-chosen language or coarse words, should not be our friends or companions.
 Now it seems to me I hear some of 'our girls" say: ''Why, the sort of people of which you have spoken could have no influence over me! might be in the presence of one of them every day for weeks, and be just as much of 8 woman as l am how. We can not be ha med by those we despise!'
 Now. girls, wish l could take each one of you by the hand and look into your eyes. while 1 assure you that if you take up that line of argument, and conform to it in action, you are very likely to "die," that is, die to much that is essential to your well be- ing. ''for want of knowledge" The fact is cUery one with whom you come in contact has an influence, recognized or unrecognized, over you.
 1 wish every school above the in- termediate was obliged to teach one thing which comes under the head of metaphysics; namely, that two minds can not come in contact without one leaving an influence upon the other. The law in this case is as certain, un- varying and inevitable as the law of gravitation. The fact that few peo- pie, comparatively. understand that such a law exists, or the workings of it, does not make it less a fact You think you can not be influenced by one whom you despisea The fact that thousands of people are going down to terrible depths every year, under the influence of people they once despised. but in whose company they dared to finger, proves that people are in- tluenced by those for whom they can never have respect,