THE BEGINNINGS OF DEFILEMENT.
By John Harvey Kellogg
In 1 Cor. 15:33 we read: "Evil communications corrupt good manners." This sentence has been rendered thus: "Vicious companionships corrupt good morals." Without spending a moment to consider the translation, we do not hesitate to offer the opinion that the above rendering fairly represents the idea of the text. Vicious associates and associations exert an influence over us of which we may be quite unconscious. It is to be doubted that any person ever was or is fully conscious of the danger of evil associations, or of the effect produced upon himself. They blunt the sensibilities, even when they fail to pervert the judgment. A man was brought up in Massachusetts—brought up to abhor slavery as a very great wrong. He spent eight or ten years in Georgia. To test the power of association, we asked him if his views of the wrong of slavery were modified. He said they were not; that he considered it as great a wrong as he did in the days of his youth. "But how do you feel in regard to it? Does it impress your feelings now as it did before you resided in its midst?" "No," he replied; "my judgment condemns it as strongly as ever; but no one can associate with it for years, and keep his sensibilities alive to the greatness of the wrong. Unconsciously I came to overlook that which, at first, shocked me exceedingly." And this is the experience of all, in regard to wrong of every kind. The oft-quoted words of the poet, Pope, are strictly true:— "Vice is a monster of so hideous mien,
That, to be hated, needs but to be seen.
But seen too oft, familiar with its face,
We first endure, then pity, then embrace."
While unhallowed associations are confessedly dangerous to all, they are especially dangerous to children and youth. And yet many parents seem quite oblivious of this fact. A lady called at a place where we were once visiting, and as noon approached she said she must go home and prepare dinner for her children, as school would soon be dismissed. In answer to a remark she said she always had her children come home at noon. They enjoyed dinner better; the walk back and forth was as good exercise as playing on the school grounds; and she knew that they were not with evil associates during the noon hour. The lady of the house, whose children were then grown, said that, no matter how near she lived to the school, she always had her children take their dinners, as she was then rid of them through the day! To us this answered as an explanation. One of her children was a firm believer in the truth, a member of the church, and no doubt a conscientious woman. But in cases of trial her sympathies were invariably on the wrong side; there was no manner of iniquity for which she could not frame an excuse, and which she would not shield. So persistent was she in her opposition to discipline that she was the occasion of great trouble to the church. No doubt all this was the result of wrong associations in her early days. And there are many mothers who feel and act as this one did; who risk the ruin of their children for the sake of a little quiet in the house for a short time. Even if children are kept from evil companions, they are in constant danger; for it is dangerous for them to hear profane or obscene words, and they can scarcely go onto the street without hearing them. We will notice a few of the reasons why there is so great danger in children hearing vile language:— 1. The minds of children are easily impressed. They cannot reason in regard to consequences as adults can; therefore they are compelled to take things on trust; to receive their impressions from others. They receive readily that which strikes their fancy or their feelings favorably, without much regard to its nature or tendency. This must be so from the very nature of the case. 2. The memories of children are very tenacious. They readily receive impressions of that which interests the mind, and these impressions are never lost. We have known very old people who had lost the power to receive strong impressions, who could not remember from one day to the next what was told them, yet they would remember and faithfully relate what they had seen or heard in their childhood. We have known those who could not identify their nearest neighbors, or the members of their own church, who would give a clear and intelligent testimony of their early Christian experience, and the reason of their hope. They could not lose the impressions received in early life. 3. It is thus seen that if the impressions received in childhood are evil, they must rise to trouble them in after life, and especially in old age, when new impressions cannot be received. Consider the case of persons whose early years are all spent with evil companions. Day after day, month after month, and year after year, their memories are storing up obscene jests, vulgar stories and songs, and horrid blasphemies. In after years they make a change, profess Christianity, and lead upright lives, but if they live to be old people, the impressions of early years rise up to plague them when they have not strength to repress them. In proof of this, note the following fact: A lady who had many years led an upright Christian life, and was respected by all for her correct deportment, was taken with severe sickness. When her mind was weak, in moments of partial delirium, her friends were deeply mortified to hear her repeat portions of obscene songs which she had heard in her childhood. In all probability she had not thought of them in years; but, though they had been kept in subjection, they had retained their place in the memory.73A man who had spent a large part of his life in the service of the gospel, said that he could never think of a certain place, where he spent some time in his youth, without thinking of certain persons who had tried to excel in blasphemous expressions, whose words would rush into his mind. More than a thousand times he had wished that he had never heard such language. And such is the experience of many conscientious Christian people, whose seasons of meditation are intruded upon by suggestions of Satan bringing to their minds the disagreeable scenes and words seen and heard in their childhood. They are to be pitied. Many of them were early thrown under evil influences without any fault of their own, and vile words come unbidden to their minds, when they think of certain places and persons, by the involuntary association of ideas. It is an evil against which they have to maintain a constant warfare. God only knows how often and how earnestly our desire has been expressed that, in time of sickness, we may not be bereft of reason, nor our memory be left to the influence of the multitude of vile and profane things which we heard in early life. Now consider the case of a person whose childhood was watched over by conscientious and judicious parents. His early years were passed under the influence of correct teachings and pure associations, and good impressions had undisputed possession of his memory. His active life, the period of manly strength, is marked by a uniform display of Christian graces. When old age comes on, his thoughts are pleasant and profitable, and his words are the utterances of a heart and mind imbued with good things,—with that which is a consolation to both himself and his friends. We highly commend the work of the "White Cross Army." It is doing much to arouse attention to the danger and the sin of harboring impure thoughts. If harbored, they lead to evil as naturally and as certainly as effect follows cause. "Out of the heart proceed evil thoughts;" "these are the things which defile a man." The psalmist prayed thus: "Give ear to my words, O Lord, consider my meditation." "Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my strength, and my redeemer." Happy is the man whose words and thoughts are all acceptable to God.