It is of no small importance in life to be cautious what company we keep, and with whom we enter into friendship; for though we are ever so well disposed ourselves, and free from vice, yet if those with whom we frequently converse, are engaged in a lewd, wicked course, it will be almost impossible for us to escape being drawn in with them. If we are truly wise, and would shun those rocks of pleasure upon which so many have split, we should forbid ourselves all manner of commerce and correspondence with those who are steering a course, which reason tells us is not only not for our advantage, but would end in our destruction. All the virtue we can boast of, will not be sufficient to insure our safety, if we embark in bad company; for though our philosophy were such as would preserve us from being tainted and infected with their manners, yet their characters would twist and entwine themselves along with ours, in so intricate a fold, that the world would not take the trouble to unravel and separate them. Reputation is of a blending nature, like water; that which is derived from the clearest spring, if it chance to mix with a foul current, runs on undistinguished, in one muddy stream, and must ever partake of the colour and condition of its associate.
THE HUSBANDMAN AND HIS SONS.
A Husbandman, at the point of death, being desirous that his Sons should pursue the same innocent course of agriculture in which he himself had been engaged all his life, made use of this expedient. He called them to his bed-side, and said: All the patrimony I have to bequeath to you, my sons, is my farm and my vine-yard, of which I make you joint heirs; but I charge you not to let them go out of your own occupation, for if I have any treasure besides, it lies buried somewhere in the ground within a foot of the surface. This made the Sons conclude that he talked of money which he had hidden: so after their father’s death, with unwearied diligence, they carefully dug up every inch, and though they found not the money they expected, the ground, by being well stirred and loosened, produced so plentiful a crop of all that was sown in it, as proved a real, and that no inconsiderable treasure.
APPLICATION.
The good name and the good counsel of a father, are the best legacies he can leave to his children; and they ought to revere the one, and keep in mind the other. The wealth which a man acquires by his honest industry affords him greater pleasure in the enjoyment, than when acquired in any other way; and men who by personal labour have obtained a competency, know its value better than those can who have had it showered upon them without any efforts of their own. Idleness engenders disease, while exercise is the great prop of health, and health is the greatest blessing of life, which consideration alone ought to stimulate men to pursue some useful employment; and among the almost endless number of those, to which good laws and well-organized society give birth and encouragement, there are none equal to the culture of the earth, none which yield a more grateful return. The pleasures derived both from agriculture and horticulture, are so various, so delightful, and so natural to man, that they are not easily to be described, and are never to be excelled: for in whatever way they are pursued, the mind may be constantly entertained with the wonderful œconomy of the vegetable world; and the nerves are invigorated and kept in proper tone by the freshness of the earth, and the fragrancy of the air, which blush the countenance with health, and give a relish to every meal.
