ng sure
that our influence over others is for good. We have also a duty to
ourselves. As we possess the gift of influence over others, so we in
turn are affected by every life which touches ours. Influence is like
an atmosphere exhaled by each separate personality. Some men seem
neutral and colorless, with no atmosphere to speak of. Some have a bad
atmosphere, like the rank poisonous odor of noxious weeds, breeding
malaria. If our moral sense were only keen and true, we would
instinctively know them, as some children do, and dread their company.
Others have a good atmosphere; we can breathe there in safety, and have
a joyful sense of security. With some of these it is a local delicate
environment, sweet, suggestive, like the aroma of wild violets: we have
to look, and sometimes to stoop, to get into its range. With some it
is like a pine forest, or a eucalyptus grove of warmer climes, which
perfumes a whole country side. It is well to know such, Christ's
little ones and Christ's great ones. They put oxygen into the moral
atmosphere, and we breathe more freely for it. They give us new
insight, and fresh courage, and purer faith, and by the impulse of
their example inspire us to nobler life.

There is nothing so important as the choice of friendship; for it both
reflects character and affects it. A man is known by the company he
keeps. This is an infallible test; for his thoughts, and desires, and
ambitions, and loves are revealed here. He gravitates naturally to his
congenial sphere. And it affects character; for it is the atmosphere
he breathes. It enters his blood and makes the circuit of his veins.
"All love assimilates to what it loves." A man is moulded into
likeness of the lives that come nearest him. It is at the point of the
emotions that he is most impressionable. The material surroundings,
the outside lot of a man, affects him, but after all that is mostly on
the outside; for the higher functions of life may be served in almost
any external circumstances. But the environment of other lives, the
communion of other souls, are far more potent facts. The nearer people
are to each other, and the less disguise there is in their
relationship, the more invariably will the law of spiritual environment
act.

It seems a tragedy that people, who see each other as they are, become
like each other; and often it is a tragedy. But the law carries as
much hope in it as despair. If through it evil works