Selected by Rev. J. H. VINCENT, D.D.

[Sunday, November 4.]
MORAL DISTINCTIONS NOT SUFFICIENTLY REGARDED IN SOCIAL INTERCOURSE.

That “a man may be known by the company he keeps,” has passed into a proverb among all nations, thus attesting what has been the universal experience. The fact would seem to be that a man’s associates either find him, or make him like themselves. An acute but severe critic of manners, who was too often led by his disposition and circumstances to sink the philosopher in the satirist, has said: “Nothing is so contagious as example. Never was there any considerable good or ill action, that hath not produced its like. We imitate good ones through emulation; and bad ones through that malignity in our nature, which shame conceals, and example sets at liberty.”

This being the case, or anything like it, all, I think, must agree that moral distinctions are not sufficiently cared for in social intercourse. In forming our intimacies we are sometimes determined by the mere accident of being thrown together; sometimes by a view to connections and social position; sometimes by the fascination of what are called companionable qualities; seldom, I fear, by thoughtful and serious regard to the influence they are likely to have on character. We forget that other attractions, of whatsoever nature, instead of compensating for moral unfitness in a companion, only have the effect to make such unfitness the more to be dreaded.

Let me introduce what I have to say on the importance of paying more regard to moral distinctions in the choice of friends, by a few remarks on what are called, by way of distinction, companionable qualities, and on the early manifestation of a free, sociable, confiding turn of mind. Most parents hail the latter, I believe, as the best of prognostics; and in some respects it is. It certainly makes the child more interesting as a child, and more easily governed; it often passes for precocity of talent; at any rate, men are willing to construe it into evidence of the facility with which he will make his way in the world. The father is proud of such a son; the mother idolizes him. If from any cause he is brought into comparison with a reserved, awkward, and unyielding boy in the neighborhood, they are ready enough to felicitate themselves, and others are ready enough to congratulate them, on the difference. And yet I believe I keep within bounds, when I say that, of the two, there is more than an even chance that the reserved, awkward, and unyielding boy will give his parents less occasion for anxiety and mortification, and become in the end the wiser and better man. The reason is, that if a child from natural facility of disposition is easily won over to good courses, he is also, from the same cause, liable at any time to be seduced from these good courses into bad ones. On the contrary, where a child, from rigor or stubbornness of temper, is peculiarly hard to subdue or manage, there is this hope for a compensation: if by early training, or the experience of life, or a wise foresight of consequences, he is once set right, he is almost sure to keep so.

It is not enough considered, that, in the present constitution of society, men are not in so much danger from want of good dispositions, as from want of firmness and steadiness of purpose. Hence it is that gentle and affectionate minds, more perhaps than any others, stand in need of solid principle and fixed habits of virtue and piety, as a safeguard against the lures and fascinations of the world. A man of a cold, hard, and ungenial nature is comparatively safe so far as the temptations of society go: partly because of this very impracticableness of his nature, and partly because his companionship is not likely to be desired or sought even by the bad: he will be left to himself. The corrupters of innocence in social intercourse single out for their prey men of companionable qualities. Through his companionable qualities the victim is approached, and by his companionable qualities he is betrayed.

Let me not be misunderstood. Companionable qualities are not objected to as such. When they spring from genuine goodness of heart, and are the ornament of an upright life, they are as respectable as they are amiable; and it would be well if Christians and all good men cultivated them more than they do. If we would make virtue and religion to be loved, we must make ourselves to be loved for our virtue and religion; which would be done if we were faithful to carry the gentleness and charity of the gospel into our manners as well as into our morals. Nevertheless, we insist that companionable qualities, when they have no better source than a sociable disposition, or, worse still, an easy temper and loose principles, are full of danger to their possessor, and full of danger to the community; especially where, from any cause, but little regard is paid to moral distinctions in social intercourse. We also say, that in such a state of society the danger will be most imminent to those whom we should naturally be most anxious to save—I mean, persons of a loving and yielding turn of mind.

[Sunday, November 11.]

And this brings me back again to the position taken in the beginning of this discourse. The reason why companionable qualities are attended with so much danger is, that society itself is attended with so much danger; and the reason why society is attended with so much danger is, that social intercourse is not more under the control of moral principles, moral rules, and moral sanctions.

My argument does not make it necessary to exaggerate the evils and dangers of modern society. I am willing to suppose that there have been times when society was much less pure than it is now; and again, that there are places where it is much less pure than it is here; but it does not follow that there are no evils or dangers now and here. On the contrary, it is easy to see that there may be stages in the progressive improvement of society, where the improvement itself will have the effect, not to lessen, but to increase the danger, so far as good men are concerned. In a community where vice abounds, where the public manners are notoriously and grossly corrupt, good men are put on their guard. They will not be injured by such society, for they will have nothing to do with it. A broad line of demarcation is drawn between what is expected from good men, and what is expected from bad men; so that the example of the latter has no effect on the former except to admonish and to warn. But let the work of refinement and reform go on in general society until vice is constrained to wear a decent exterior, until an air of decorum and respectability is thrown over all public meetings and amusements, and one consequence will be that the distinction between Christians and the world will not be so clearly seen, or so carefully observed, as before. The standard of the world, from the very fact that it is brought nearer to the standard of the gospel, will be more frequently confounded with it; Christians will feel at liberty to do whatever the world does, and the danger is, that they will come at length to do it from the same principles.

Besides, are we sure that we have not formed too favorable an opinion of the moral condition of general society—of that general society in the midst of which we are now living, and to the influence of which we are daily and hourly exposed? We should remember that in pronouncing on the character of public opinion and public sentiment, we are very likely to be affected and determined ourselves, not a little, by the fact that we share in that very public opinion and public sentiment which we are called upon to judge. I have no doubt that virtue, in general, is esteemed by the world, or that, other things being equal, a man of integrity will be preferred on account of his integrity. But this is not enough. It shows that the multitude see, and are willing to acknowledge, the dignity and worth of an upright course; but it does not prove them to have that abhorrence for sin, which it is the purpose and the tendency of the gospel to plant in all minds. If they had this settled and rooted abhorrence for sin, which marks the Christian, and without which a man can not be a Christian, they would not prefer virtue to vice, “other things being equal,” but they would do so whether other things were equal or not; they would knowingly keep no terms with vice, however recommended or glossed over by interest or worldly favor, or refined and elegant manners.

Now, I ask whether general society, even as it exists amongst us, will bear this test? Is it not incontestable that very unscrupulous and very dangerous men, if they happen to be men of talents, or men of fashion, or men of peculiarly engaging manners, find but little difficulty in insinuating themselves into what is called good society; nay, are often among those who are most courted and caressed? Some vices, I know, are understood to put one under the social ban; but it is because they offend, not merely against morality and religion, but against taste, against good-breeding, against certain conventions of the world. To be convinced of this it is only necessary to observe that the same, or even a much larger amount of acknowledged criminality, manifested under other forms, is not found to be attended with the same result. The mischiefs of this state of things are felt by all; but especially by those who are growing up in what are generally accounted the most favored walks of life. On entering into society they see men of known profligacy mingling in the best circles, and with the best people, if not indeed on terms of entire sympathy and confidence, at least on those of the utmost possible respect and courtesy. They see all this, and they see it every day; and it is by such flagrant inconsistencies in those they look up to for guidance, more perhaps than by any other one cause, that their own principles and their own faith are undermined. And besides, being thus encouraged and countenanced in associating with dissipated and profligate men in what is called good society, they will be apt to construe it into liberty to associate with them anywhere. At any rate the intimacy is begun. As society is constituted at present, corrupting intimacies are not infrequently begun amidst all the decencies of life, and, it may be, in the presence and under the countenance and sanction of parents and virtuous friends, which are afterward renewed and consummated, and this too by an easy, natural, and almost necessary gradation, amidst scenes of excess—perhaps in the haunts of ignominy and crime.

[Sunday, November 18.]

If one should propose a reform in this respect, I am aware of the difficulties and objections that would stand in his way.

Some would affirm it to be impracticable in the nature of things. They would reason thus: “The circle in which a man visits and moves is made for him, and not by him: at any rate, it is not, and can not be, determined by moral considerations alone. Something depends on education; something on family connections or mere vicinity; something on similarity in tastes and pursuits; something also on equality or approximation in wealth and standing. A poor man, or a man having a bare competency, if he is as virtuous and industrious, is just as respectable as a rich man; but it is plain that he can not pitch his style of living, or his style of hospitality, on the same scale of expense. It is better for both, therefore, that they should visit in different circles.” Perhaps it is; but what then? I am not recommending an amalgamation of the different classes in society. I suppose that such an amalgamation would neither be practicable nor desirable in the existing state of things. All I contend for is, that in every class, open and gross immorality of any kind should exclude a man from reputable company. Will any one say that this is impracticable? Let a man, through untoward events, but not by any fault or neglect of his own, be reduced in his circumstances,—let a man become generally odious, not in consequence of any immorality, but because, perhaps, he has embraced the unpopular side in politics or religion—let a man omit some trifling formality which is construed into a vulgarity, or a personal affront, and people do not appear to find much difficulty in dropping the acquaintance. If, then, it is so easy a thing to drop a man’s acquaintance for other reasons, and for no reason,—from mere prejudice, from mere caprice,—will it still be pretended that it can not be done at the command of duty and religion?

Again, it may be objected that, if you banish a man from general society for his immoralities, you will drive him to despair, and so destroy the only remaining hope of his reformation. What! are you going to keep society corrupt in the vain expectation that a corrupt state of society will help to reform its corrupt members? Besides, I grant that we should have compassion on the guilty; but I also hold that we should have compassion on the innocent too. Would you, therefore, allow a bad man to continue in good society, when the chances are a thousand to one that he will make others as bad as himself, and not more than one to a thousand that he himself will be reclaimed? Moreover, this reasoning is fallacious throughout. By expelling a dissipated and profligate man from good society, instead of destroying all hope of his recovery, you do in fact resort to the only remaining means of reforming one over whom a fear of God, and a sense of character, and the upbraidings of conscience have lost their power. What cares he for principle, or God, or an hereafter? Nothing, therefore, is so likely to encourage and embolden him to go on in his guilty course, as the belief that he will be allowed to do so without the forfeiture of the only thing he does care for, his reputable standing in the world. On the other hand, nothing is so likely to arrest him in these courses, and bring him to serious reflection, as the stern and determined threat of absolute exclusion from good society, if he persists.

Another objection will also be made which has stronger claims on our sympathy and respect. We shall be told that the innocent as well as the guilty will suffer—the guilty man’s friends and connections, who will probably feel the indignity more than he does himself. God forbid that we should needlessly add to the pain of those who are thus connected! But we must remember that the highest form of friendship does not consist in blindly falling in with the feelings of those whom we would serve, but in consulting what will be for their real and permanent good. If, therefore, the course here recommended has been shown to be not only indispensable to public morals, but more likely than any other to reclaim the offender, it is clearly not more a dictate of justice to the community, than of Christian charity to the parties more immediately concerned. Consider, also, how much is asked, when a good man is called upon to open his doors to persons without virtue and without principle. Unless the social circle is presided over by a spirit which will rebuke and frown away immorality, whatever fashionable names and disguises it may wear,—unless your sons and daughters can meet together without being in danger of having their faith disturbed by the jeers of the infidel, or their purity sullied by the breath of the libertine, neither they nor you are safe in the most innocent enjoyments and recreations. Parents at least should take a deep interest in this subject, if they do not wish to see the virtue, which they have reared under the best domestic discipline, blighted and corrupted before their eyes by the temptations to which their children are almost necessarily exposed in general society—a society which they can not escape except by going out of the world, and which they can not partake of without endangering the loss of what is of more value than a thousand worlds.

[Sunday, November 25.]

I have failed altogether in my purpose in this discourse if I have not done something to increase your distrust of mere companionable qualities, when not under the control of moral and religious principle; and also of the moral character and moral influence of general society, as at present constituted. Still you may ask, “If I associate with persons worse than myself, how can it be made out to be more probable that they will drag me down to their level, than that I shall lift them up to mine?” The answer to this question, I hardly need say, depends, in no small measure, on the reason or motive which induces the association. If you mix with the world, not for purposes of pleasure or self-advantage—if you resort to society, not for society as an end, but as a means to a higher end, the improvement of society itself—you do but take up the heavenly mission which Christ began. For not being able to make the distinction, through the hollowness and corruption of their hearts, the Pharisees thought it to be a just ground of accusation against our Lord, that he was willing to be accounted the friend of publicans and sinners. Let the same mind be in you that was also in Christ Jesus, and we can not doubt that the spirit which inspires you will preserve you wherever you may go. It is of such persons that our Lord has said: “Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy; and nothing shall by any means harm you.” Very far am I, therefore, from denying that we may do good in society, as well as incur danger and evil. Even in common friendships frequent occasions will present themselves for mutual service, for mutual counsel and admonition. Let me impress upon you this duty. Perhaps there is not one among you all, who has not at this moment companions on whom he can confer an infinite blessing. If there is a weak place in their characters, if to your knowledge they are contemplating a guilty purpose, if they are on the brink of entering into dangerous connections, by a timely, affectionate, and earnest remonstrance you may save them from ruin. Remember, we shall all be held responsible, not only for the evil which we do ourselves, but for the evil which we might prevent others from doing; it is not enough that we stand; we must endeavor to hold up our friends.

Very different from this, however, is the ordinary commerce of society; and hence its danger. If we mix with the world for the pleasure it affords, we shall be likely to be among the first to be reconciled to the freedom and laxity it allows. The world is not brought up to us, but we sink down to the world; the drop becomes of the consistence and color of the ocean into which it falls; the ocean remains itself unchanged. In the words of an old writer: “Though the well-disposed will remain some good space without corruption, yet time, I know not how, worketh a wound in him, which weakness of ours considered, and easiness of nature, apt to be deceived, looked into, they do best provide for themselves that separate themselves as far as they can from the bad, and draw as nigh to the good, as by any possibility they can attain to.” “He that walketh with wise men shall be wise; but a companion of fools shall be destroyed.”