ufficient strength to break this rope. I
am sure that no twenty boys and girls could pull hard enough to break
it.

[Illustration: Rope.]

Here is a very strong string. Perhaps a couple of boys, possibly four
boys, might be able to break it. But here is a thinner string. Possibly
I may be able to break this. Yes, I can, but with great difficulty. It
takes all the strength I have to break it.

Now, here is some that is still thinner. It is about as thick as heavy
thread. I can break it very easily.

But now, when I take this heavy rope and cut off a piece, if I unwind
these different strands, I find that this rope is made by twisting
smaller ropes together. If I untwist this smaller rope, which I have
taken out of the larger rope, I find that it in like manner is also made
of smaller ropes, or strings. If I take these smaller strings, and
untwist them, I find that they are made of still smaller strings; if I
take any of these smaller strings out of the rope, I can break them
easily, but when I twist several of them together, I cannot break them.

[Illustration: String.]

I think that these smaller cords, out of which this rope is made, will
very fittingly illustrate habits. It is a very dangerous thing to form
bad habits. We should be very careful to form good ones, but bad ones
are very dangerous. The boy who remains away from Sunday-school but
once, thinks little of it. The boy who remains away from church, or
stays at home from school, or disobeys his parents, or spends the
evenings on the streets instead of in the house reading good books, or
breaks the Sabbath, or does any one of many things, may think very
little of it at the time; but do you know that when we go on repeating
the same thing over and over again, the habit grows stronger and
stronger until at last we are not able to break loose from that habit?
There are men who think that they can stop smoking. They began with only
an occasional cigarette or a cigar, until the habit grew upon them, and
now possibly they think they are able to stop, but when they undertake
to break off smoking, they find that it is a very difficult task, and
very few smokers who undertake it succeed permanently. The old habit is
likely to overcome them again and again.

So it is with swearing, and with telling falsehoods, and with being
dishonest, and with drinking liquor, and everything else that men and
boys often do. These habits at last become very strong, until they are