232. Ruinous Company

Ruinous Company

Pro_13:20 : ’93A companion of fools shall be destroyed.’94

’93May it please the Court,’94 said a convicted criminal, when asked if he had anything to say before sentence of death should be passed upon him, ’93may it please the Court, bad company has been my ruin. I received the blessings of good parents, and, in return, promised to avoid evil associations. Had I kept my promise I should have been saved this shame, and been free from the load of guilt that hangs round me like a vulture, threatening to drag me to justice for crimes yet unrevealed. I, who once moved in the first circles of society, and have been the guest of distinguished public men, am lost through bad company.’94

This is but one of the thousand proofs that the companion of fools shall be destroyed. It is the invariable rule. There is a well man in the wards of a hospital, where there are a hundred people sick with ship fever, and he will not be so likely to take the disease as a good man would be apt to be smitten with moral distemper if shut up with iniquitous companions. In olden times, prisoners were herded together in the same cell, and each one learned the vices of all the culprits; so that instead of being reformed by the incarceration, the day of liberation turned them out upon society beasts, not men.

We may, in our places of business, be compelled to talk to and mingle with bad men; but he who deliberately chooses to associate himself with vicious people is engaged in carrying on a courtship with Delilah, whose shears will clip off all the locks of his strength, and he will be tripped into perdition. Sin is catching, is infectious, is epidemic. I will let you look over the millions of people now inhabiting the earth, and I challenge you to show me a good man who, after one year, has made choice and consorted with the wicked. A thousand dollars reward for one such instance. I care not how strong your character may be, associate with gamblers, you will become a gambler; clan with burglars and you will become a burglar; go among the unclean and you will become unclean.

Not appreciating the truth of my text, many a young man has been destroyed. He wakes up some morning in the great city, and knows no one except the persons into whose employ he has entered. As he goes into the store, all the clerks mark him, measure him, discuss him. The upright young men of the store wish him well, but perhaps wait for a formal introduction, and even then have some delicacy about inviting him into their associations. But the bad young men of the store, at the first opportunity, approach and offer their services. They patronize him. They profess to know all about the town. They will take him anywhere that he wishes to go’97if he will pay the expenses. For if a good young man and a bad young man go to some place where they ought not, the good young man has invariably to pay the charges. At the moment the ticket is to be paid for, or the champagne settled for, the bad young man feels around in his pockets and says: ’93I have forgotten my pocket-book.’94 In forty-eight hours after the young man has entered the store the bad fellows of the establishment slap him on the shoulders familiarly, and, at his stupidity in taking certain allusions, say: ’93My young friend, you will have to be broken in;’94 and they immediately proceed to break him in.

Young man, in the name of God I warn you how you let a bad man talk familiarly with you. If such a one slap you on the shoulder familiarly, turn round, and give him a withering look, until the wretch crouches in your presence. There is no monstrosity of wickedness that can stand unabashed under the glance of purity and honor. God keeps the lightnings of heaven in his own scabbard, and no human arm can wield them; but God gives to every young man a lightning that he may use, and that is the lightning of an honest eye. Those who have been close observers will not wonder why I give the warning, ’93Beware of bad company.’94

First, I warn you to shun the sceptic’97the young man who puts his fingers in his vest, and laughs at your old-fashioned religion, and turns over to some mystery of the Bible, and says: ’93Explain that, my pious friend; explain that.’94 And who says: ’93Nobody shall scare me; I am not afraid of the future; I used to believe in such things, and so did my father and mother, but I have got over it.’94 Yes, he has got over it, and if you sit in his company a little longer, you will get over it too. Without presenting one argument against the Christian religion, such men will, by their jeers and scoffs and caricatures, destroy your respect for that religion which was the strength of your father in his declining years, and the pillow of your old mother when she lay a-dying. Alas! a time will come when that blustering young infidel will have to die, and then his diamond ring will flash no splendor in the eye of Death as he stands over the couch waiting for his soul. Those beautiful locks will be uncombed upon the pillow, and the dying man will say: ’93I cannot die’97I cannot die.’94 Death, standing ready beside the couch, says: ’93You must die; you have only half a minute to live; let me have it right away’97your soul.’94 ’93No,’94 says the young infidel, ’93here are my gold rings, and these pictures; take them all.’94 ’93No,’94 says Death, ’93what do I care for pictures! your soul.’94 ’93Stand back,’94 says the dying infidel. ’93I will not stand back,’94 says Death; ’93for you have only ten seconds now to live. I want your soul.’94 The dying man says: ’93Don’92t breathe that cold air into my face. You crowd me too hard. It is getting dark in the room. O God!’94 ’93Hush!’94 says Death; ’93you said there was no God.’94 ’93Pray for me,’94 exclaims the dying infidel. ’93Too late to pray,’94 says Death; ’93but three seconds more to live, and I will count them off’97one’97two’97three.’94 He has gone! Where? Where? Carry him out’97out, and bury him beside his father and mother, who died while holding fast the Christian religion. They died singing; but the young infidel only said: ’93Don’92t breathe that cold air into my face. You crowd me too hard. It is getting dark in the room.’94

Again, I urge you to shun the companionship of idlers. There are men hanging around every store and office and shop who have nothing to do, or act as if they had not. They are apt to come in when the firm are away, and wish to engage you in conversation while you are engaged in your regular employment. Politely suggest to such persons that you have no time to give them during business hours. Nothing would please them so well as to have you renounce your occupation and associate with them. Much of the time they lounge around the club-rooms or the doors of engine-houses, or after the dining hour stand upon the steps of a fashionable hotel or an elegant restaurant, wishing to give you the idea that that is the place where they dine. But they do not dine there. They are sinking down lower and lower, day by day. Neither by day or by night have anything to do with idlers. Before you admit a man into your acquaintance, ask him politely: ’93What do you do for a living?’94 If he says, ’93Nothing; I am a gentleman,’94 look out for him. He may have a very soft hand and faultless apparel, and have a high-sounding family name, but his touch is death. Before you know it you will in his presence be ashamed of your work dress. Business will become to you drudgery, and after a while you will lose your place, and afterwards your respectability, and last of all your soul. Idleness is next door to villainy. Thieves, gamblers, burglars, shoplifters and assassins are made from the class who have nothing to do. When the police go to hunt up and arrest a culprit, they seldom go to look in among busy clerks, or in the busy carriage factory, but they go among the group of idlers. The play is going on at the theater, when suddenly there is a scuffle in the top gallery. What is it? A policeman has come in, and, leaning over, has tapped on the shoulder a young man, saying: ’93I want you, sir.’94 He has not worked during the day, but somehow has raked together a shilling or two to get into the top gallery. He is an idler. The man on his right hand is an idler, and the man on his left hand is an idler. Shrink back from idleness in yourself and in others if you would maintain a right position. Good old Ashbel Green, at more than eighty years of age, was found busy writing, and some young man said to him: ’93Why do you keep busy? It is time for you to rest.’94 He answered: ’93I keep busy to keep out of mischief.’94 No man is strong enough to be idle.

Are you fond of pictures? If so, I will show you one of the works of an old master. Here it is: ’93I went by the field of the slothful, and by the vineyard of the man void of understanding; and lo! it was all grown over with thorns, and nettles had covered the face thereof, and the stone wall was broken down. Then I saw and considered well. I looked upon it and received instruction. Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep. So shall thy poverty come as one that traveleth, and thy want as an armed man.’94 I do not know of another sentence in the Bible more explosive than that. It first hisses softly, like the fuse of a cannon, and at last bursts like a fifty-four pounder. The old proverb was right: ’93The devil tempts most men, but idlers tempt the devil.’94

A young man came to a man ninety years of age and said to him: ’93How have you made out to live so long and be so well?’94 The old man took the youngster to an orchard, and, pointing to some large trees full of apples, said: ’93I planted those trees when a boy, and do you wonder that now I am permitted to gather the fruit of them?’94 We gather in old age what we plant in youth. Sow to the wind, and we reap the whirlwind. Plant in early life the right kind of a Christian character, and you will eat luscious fruit in old age, and gather these harvest apples in eternity.

Again: I urge you to avoid the perpetual pleasure-seeker. I believe in recreation and amusement. I need it as much as I need bread, and go to my daily exercise with as conscientious a purpose as I go to the Lord’92s Supper; and all persons of sanguine temperament must have amusement and recreation. God would not have made us with the capacity to laugh if he had not intended us sometimes to indulge in it. God hath hung in sky and set in wave and printed on grass many a roundelay; but he who chooses pleasure-seeking for his life-work does not understand for what God made him. Our amusements are intended to help us in some earnest mission. The thundercloud hath an edge exquisitely purpled, but, with voice that jars the earth, it declares: ’93I go to water the green fields.’94 The wild flowers under the fence are gay, but they say: ’93We stand here to make a beautiful edge for the wheat field, and to refresh the husbandmen in the nooning.’94 The stream sparkles and foams and frolics and says: ’93I go to baptize the moss. I lave the spots on the trout. I slake the thirst of the bird. I turn the wheel of the mill. I rock in my crystal cradle muckshaw and water-lily.’94 And, so, while the world plays, it works. Look out for the man who always plays and never works.

You will do well to avoid those whose regular business it is to play ball, skate, or go a-boating. All these sports are good in their places. I never derived so much advantage from any ministerial association as from a ministerial club the members of which went out to play ball every Saturday afternoon in the outskirts of Philadelphia. These recreations are grand to give us muscle and spirits for our regular toil. I believe in muscular Christianity. A man is often not so near God with a weak stomach as when he has a strong digestion. But shun those who make it their life-occupation to sport. There are young men whose industry and usefulness have fallen overboard from the yacht on the Hudson or the Schuylkill. There are men whose business fell through the ice of the skating-pond, and has never since been heard of. There is a beauty in the gliding of a boat, in the song of skates, in the soaring of a well-struck ball, and I never see one fly but I involuntarily throw up my hands to catch it; and, so far from laying an injunction upon ball-playing, or any other innocent sport, I claim them all as belonging of right to those of us who toil in the industries of Church and State. But the life-business of pleasure-seeking always makes in the end a criminal or a sot. George Brummell was smiled upon by all England, and his life was given to pleasure. He danced with peeresses, and swung a round of mirth and wealth and applause, until, exhausted of purse and worn out of body and bankrupt of reputation and ruined of soul he begged a biscuit from a grocer, and declared that he thought a dog’92s life better than a man’92s. Such men will crowd around your desk or counter or work-bench, or seek to decoy you off. They want you to break out in the midst of your busy day to take a ride with them to some haunt of pleasure-seekers. They will tell you of some play you must see; of some excursion that you must take; of some Sabbath day that you ought to dishonor. They will tell you of exquisite wines that you must take; of costly operas that you must hear; of wonderful dancers that you must see; but before you accept their convoy or their companionship, remember, that at the end of a useful life you may look back to kindnesses done, to honorable work accomplished, to poverty helped, to a good name earned, to Christian influence exerted, to a Saviour’92s cause advanced’97these pleasure-seekers on their death-bed have nothing better to review than a torn play-bill, a ticket for the races, an empty tankard, and the cast-out rinds of a carousal; and as in the delirium of their awful death they clutch the goblet and press it to their lips, the dregs of the cup falling upon their tongue will begin to hiss and uncoil with the adders of an eternal poison. Cast out these men from your company. Do not be intimate with them. Always be polite. There is no demand that you ever sacrifice politeness. A young man accosted a Christian Quaker with: ’93Old chap, how did you make all your money?’94 The Quaker replied: ’93By dealing in an article that thou mayest deal in if thou wilt’97civility.’94 Always be courteous, but at the same time firm. Say ’93No’94 as if you meant it. Have it understood in store and shop and street that you will not stand in the companionship of the sceptic, the idler, the pleasure-seeker.

Rather than enter the companionship of such, accept the invitation to a better feast. The promises of God are the fruits. The harps of heaven are the music. Clusters from the vineyards of God have been pressed into the tankards. The sons and daughters of the Lord Almighty are the guests, while standing at the banquet, to fill the cups, and divide the clusters, and command the harps, and welcome the guests is a daughter of God on whose brow are the blossoms of Paradise, and in whose cheek is the flush of celestial summer. Her name is Religion.

Her Ways Are Ways of Pleasantness,

And all her paths are peace.

Decide soon, O young man, what direction you will take. There comes such a moment of final decision’97why not this? God help you. To hesitate is to die.

Autor: T. De Witt Talmage