Page:TheYoungMansGuide.djvu/364

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strong, and virtue weak, every possible reason to avoid similar occasions!

3. And in regard to this subject, I must warn you against another great danger! Those unfortunate women, whether married or single, those dregs of their sex who imitate the shameless wife of Putiphar, are still existing in the present day, and are oven more numerous than ever.

But if ever, when you come to live in large cities, such a diabolical serpent in human form should present itself to you in a more or less fascinating manner, O then do not delay, do not delay a single instant, I beseech and implore you by all that you hold dear and sacred, but act as Joseph formerly did in Putiphar's house, fly, fly immediately. Your only chance of salvation lies in flight!

4. The enemy of innocence is especially to be found in the form of immoral companions and associates. To this class chiefly belong those persons who, by their evil and immodest bearing, seek to lead you, and others also, to commit every kind of sinful and vicious actions. Such persons are the decoy birds of Satan, by means of which he seeks to entrap others. They are rotten fruit, which spoils that which is sound. They are graves full of corruption, which exhale a pestilential effluvium. Their lascivious and suggestive conversation is an insidious poison, which by imperceptible degrees effects the death of innocence.