Here is a very strong string. Perhaps a couple of boys, possibly four boys, might be able to break it. But here is a thinner string. Possibly I may be able to break this. Yes, I can, but with great difficulty. It takes all the strength I have to break it.
Now, here is some that is still thinner. It is about as thick as heavy thread. I can break it very easily.
But now, when I take this heavy rope and cut off a piece, if I unwind these different strands, I find that this rope is made by twisting smaller ropes together. If I untwist this smaller rope, which I have taken out of the larger rope, I find that it in like manner is also made of smaller ropes, or strings. If I take these smaller strings, and untwist them, I find that they are made of still smaller strings; if I take any of these smaller strings out of the rope, I can break them easily, but when I twist several of them together, I cannot break them.
String.
I think that these smaller cords, out of which this rope is made, will very fittingly illustrate habits. It is a very dangerous thing to form bad habits. We should be very careful to form good ones, but bad ones are very dangerous. The boy who remains away from Sunday-school but once, thinks little of it. The boy who remains away from church, or stays at home from school, or disobeys his parents, or spends the evenings on the streets instead of in the house reading good books, or breaks the Sabbath, or does any one of many things, may think very little of it at the time; but do you know that when we go on repeating the same thing over and over again, the habit grows stronger and stronger until at last we are not able to break loose from that habit? There are men who think that they can stop smoking. They began with only an occasional cigarette or a cigar, until the habit grew upon them, and now possibly they think they are able to stop, but when they undertake to break off smoking, they find that it is a very difficult task, and very few smokers who undertake it succeed permanently. The old habit is likely to overcome them again and again.
So it is with swearing, and with telling falsehoods, and with being dishonest, and with drinking liquor, and everything else that men and boys often do. These habits at last become very strong, until they are not able to break loose from them.
Now, if you take one of these strong habits from which a man is not able to break loose, and untwist it, you will find that it was made strong by a repetition of small habits. Habits are made strong by doing the same thing over and over again. It is just the same as when I take this spool of thread and wrap it around the feet of a boy. I can wrap it around and around, and while it would be easy for him to break the thread if it was wrapped once or twice, or three or four times around his feet; yet after I have succeeded in placing it ten or twelve, or twenty-five or fifty times around his feet, he is not able to walk at all.
Hands Bound.