sermons of the sacred orators, lie will continue in vice, according to the celebrated maxim: ” Examples make greater impressions than words." Hence the Royal Prophet has said: ” With the elect thou wilt be elect, and with the perverse thou wilt be perverted." (Ps. xvii. 27.) St. Augustine says, that familiarity with sinners is as it were a hook which draws us to communicate in their vices. Let us, said the saint, avoid wicked friends, ” lest by their company we may be drawn to a communion of vice." St. Thomas teaches, that to know whom we should avoid is a great means of saving our souls. Firma tutela salutis est, sciro quem fugiamus."
2. "Let their way become dark and slippery, and let the angel of the Lord pursue them." (Ps. xxxiv. 6.) All men in this life walk in the midst of darkness and in a slippery way. If, then, a bad angel that is, a wicked companion, who is worse than any devil pursue them, and endeavour to drive them into an abyss, who shall be able to escape death? ” Talis eris," says Plato, “qualis conversatio quam sequeris ?" And St. John Chrysostom said, that if we wish to know a man‟s moral habits, we have only to observe the character of the friends with whom he associates; because friendship finds or makes him like his friends. ” Vis nosse hominem, attende quorum familiaritate assuescat: amicitia aut pares invenit, aut pares fecit." First, because, to please his friends, a man will endeavour to imitate them; secondly, because, as Seneca says, nature inclines men to do what they see others do. And the Scripture says: * They were mingled among the heathens, and learned their works." (Ps. cv. 35.) According to St. Basil, as air which comes from pestilential places causes infection, so, by conversation with bad companions, we almost imperceptibly contract their vices. ” Quemadmodum in pestilentibus locis sensim attractus aër latentem corporibus morbuin iujicit sic itidem in prava couversatione maxima a nobis mala hauriuntur, etiamsi statim incommodum non sentiatur." (St. Bas., Hom, ix., ex var. quod Deus, etc.) And St. Bernard says that St. Peter, in consequence of associating with the enemies of Jesus Christ, denied his Master.
