never been intimately associated with any one, even in early youth, without having received from them some bias of feeling, either towards good or evil; and the more our affections were engaged in this intimacy, the more decided this bias has been. What, then, has been the nature of our influence upon them?—upon all to whose bosom- confidence we have been admitted? Is this solemn query to be reserved for the hour of death? or is it not the wiser part of youth to begin with its practical application, while the character is yet fresh and pliant, and before the traces of our influence, if wrong, shall have become too deep to be eradicted?
If your friend is farther advanced in religious experience than yourself, be willing, then, to learn from her example; but be watchful, also, to point out with meekness and gentleness, her slightest deviations from the line of conduct which a Christian professor ought to pursue; and by this means you may not only materially promote her highest interests, but you may also assist in promoting the interests of religion itself, by preserving it from the calumny and disrespect for which such deviations so naturally give occasion.
If your friend is less advanced than yourself in religious experience, or if, as is most probable, you are both in a backward and defective state, suffer not your mind on any account to become regardless of the important fact, that in proportion to the degree of confidence you have enjoyed with that friend, and in proportion with the hold you have obtained of her affections, is the responsibility you incur with regard to her moral and spiritual advancement. It is fruitless to say, "I see her faults, I mourn over her deviations, but I dare not point them out, lest I wound her feelings, or offend her pride." I know the task is difficult, perhaps the most so of any we ever undertake. But our
