Strange Company

One of the things most evident in our shifting way of life is the severing of old ties, the abandonment of old associations, the uprooting from things to which we have been long attached. In the great displacement that has come about, with floods of humanity surging here and there, the steadying influence of lifelong bonds is ofttimes quickly broken. When acquaintances is well-seasoned and friendship enjoys natural growth, men are likely to find themselves in the company of those with whom they can share common ideals. But when suddenly someone is moved among strangers, in the quick grasping for new associations mistakes may be made, mistakes that lead to bad company, wrong habits, careless attitudes and sometimes things yet worse. For a seasoned traveler, or an experienced judge of human nature, it isn’t difficult to estimate men after brief association; but to young people, lonely, and far removed from the counsel they have been accustomed to seek, the old idea of “any port in a storm”any friend in an unknown town is often the forerunner of grave consequences, because men tend to take on the characteristics of the company they keep. The first of all the Psalms takes note of this thing in its admonition against bad association: “Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly.”2 The write of Proverbs has expressed himself in different language, but in like thought: “My son, if sinners entice thee, consent thou not. If they say, Come with us, …cast in thy lot among us; …My son, walk not thou in the way with them; refrain thy foot from their path: For their feet run to evil…Walk in the way of good men, and keep the paths of the righteous…whoso hearkeneth…shall dwell safely, and shall be quiet from fear of evil.”3 Here then is wisdom: When we find ourselves in strange company we should be discriminating in those we take into our confidence, a discriminating in our conduct also.