Rensselaer Republican, Volume 21, Number 40, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 June 1889 — A COMPANION OF FOOLS. [ARTICLE]

A COMPANION OF FOOLS.

SHUN THE COMPANIONS OF PEOPLE OF LEISURE. Mischief May Come to Those Who Ho Not Care for Work— Be Cdurteous and Firm—Plant a Christian Character and Reap an Cp- — Fight Ijife. r 5 Rev. Dr. Talmage Preached at Brooklyn Sunday. Text: Prov., xiii., 20.* He said: The companion of fools shall be destroyed. It is the invariable rule. There is* well man in theiwards of a hospital, where there affe a hundred people sick with Bhip fever, and he will not be so apt to disease as a good man would be apt to be smitten with moral distemper if shut up with iniquitous companions. We mav, 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 a Delilah, whose shears will clip off all the locks of his strength, and he will be tripped into perdition. Sin is catching, is infections, is epidemic. I wifi 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 Buc.h 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 rem.measurehimand discuss him. Tae upright young men of the store wish n.m 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. Tney patronize him. They profess to know till about the town. They will, take him anywhere that he wishes to go—if he will pay the expenses. For if a good young man and a bad young man go to 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; “I have forgotten my pocketboox.” In forty-eight hours after the young man has entered the store the. bad fellows of the establishment siap him on the shoulder familiarly, and, at his stupidity in taking certain allusions, say; “My young friend, you will have to be broken in. and they immediately proceed to break him in. Young man, in the name of God I warn you to beware how you let a bad man talk familiarly with you. If such an one slap you on the shoulder familiarly, turn around and give him a withering look until the wretch croutches 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 giveß to every young mafi 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 warning to young men and say: “Beware of bad company.” First, I warn you to shun the skeptic —the young main who puts his fingers in his vest and laugHS at your oldfashioned religion, and turps over to some mystery of the Bible and says: “Explain that,my pious friend; explain that;” and who says: “Nobody 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.” Yes, he has got over it, and if you sit in his company a little longer you will get over it, too. Again, I urge you to shun the companionship of idlers. There are men hanging around every store, and office, and ahop, 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 tashionable hotel or an elegant restaurant, wishing to give you the idea that that is the place where they dine. But t hey do not dine there. They are sinking down lower and lower, day by day. Neither by day nor by night have any thing to do with the idlers. Before you admit a man into vouracquaintance ask him, politely. “What uo you for a living?” If he says, “Nothing; I am a gentleman,” look out for him. He may have a very soft hand and very 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 drees. Business will become to you drudgery, and after a while you wi'l lose yotlr place, and afterward your respectability, and, last of all, your soul. Idleness is next door to villainy. Thieves, gamblers, burglars, shop lifters and as eassina are made from the class who have nothing to do. W hen the police go to hunt op and arrest a culprit they seldom go to look in among busy clerks or in the busy carriage factory, but they go among the groups of idlers. The play is going on in 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 oi a young man, saying; “I want yon, str.” He has not worked during the day, but somehow has raked together a shilling or two to get into the top galiery. He is an idler. The man on his right hand is an idler and the man on his left hand is an idler. Bhrink back horn idleness in yourself and others if you would maintain a right position. No man is ttioug enough to be idle. Again: I urge you to avoid the perpetual oleasure seeker. I believe in recreation and amusement. I need it as much as I need bread, and go t<. my dai!r*t x, rcis'j-witti as consci ntiooa a purpae as 1 go to the Ljrd’s tapper.

and all persons of perament must have amusement and yecreatiom God would not have made ns with the (capacity to laugh if he had not intended ns 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 lor his life work does not understand for what God made him. Our amusements are intended to help us in some earnest mission. The thunder-cloud hath an edge exquisitely purpled, but, with voice that jars the earth, it declares: “I go to water the green fields,” The wild flowers under the fence are gay, but they say: “We stand here to make a beautiful edge for the wheat field, and to refresh the husbandmen in thefi nooning.” The stream sparkles and foams, ani frolics, and says: “I 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 cradle muckshaw and water lily.” And so, whilethe 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 grand in their places. I never derived 6o much advantage from any ministerial association as from a ministerial club that 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 maxe it their life occupation to sport. There are young men whose industry and usefulness have fallen overboard from the yacht on the Hudson ox the Schuylkill. There are men whose businers 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 Bong* 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 these of us who toil in the grand industries of Church and State. But the fife business of pleasure seeking always makes in the end a criminal or a sot. Such men will crowd around your desk or counter or work bench or seek to decoy you off. They will want you to bread out in the midst of your husy- day to take a ride with—them to Coney Island or to Central Park. They will tell you of some people you must see, of some excursion you must take, ql some Sabbath day "that you ought; to dishonor. They will tell you of exquisite wines tnat 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 reinember that, while at the end of a useful life you may be able to look back to kindness done, to poverty helped, to a good name earned, to Christian influence exerted, to a Sayior’s cause advanced—these pleasure Beekers 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 uo demand tbat you ever sacrifice politeness. Always be courteous, but at the same time be firm. Learn to say no as if you meant it. Have it understood in store, and shop, and street, that you will not stand in the companionship of the skeptic, the idle, 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 oi God have been pressed into the tankards. The sons and the 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. Decide this soon, oh, young man, what direction you will take. There comes such a moment of final decision —why not this?