Strange Company – Sunday, August 2, 1942
One of the things most evident in our shifting way of life is the severing of old ties, the abandonment of old associations, the uprooting from things to which we have been long attached.
In the great displacement that has come about, with floods of humanity surging here and there, the steadying influence of lifelong bonds is ofttimes quickly broken.
When acquaintance is well-seasoned and friendship enjoys natural growth, men are likely to find themselves in the company of those with whom they can share common ideals. But when suddenly someone in his formative years is snatched from his native soil and thrust among strangers, in the quick grasping for new associations mistakes may be made, mistakes that lead to bad company, wrong habits, careless attitudes—and, sometimes, things yet worse.
For a seasoned traveler, or an experienced judge of human nature, it isn’t difficult to estimate men after brief association; but to confused young men, lonely, and far removed from the counsel they have been accustomed to seek, the old idea of “any port in a storm”— any friend in an unknown town—is often the forerunner of grave consequences, because men tend to take on the characteristics of the company in which they travel. The first of all the Psalms takes note of this thing in its admonition against bad association: “Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly.”— (Psalm 1:1.) The writer of Proverbs has expressed himself in different language, but in like thought! “My son, if sinners entice thee, consent thou not. If they say, Come with us…. cast in thy lot among us; … my son, walk not thou in the way with them; refrain thy foot from their path: For their feet run to evil…. Walk in the way of good men, and keep the paths of the righteous. . . . Whoso hearkeneth … shall dwell safely, and shall be quiet from fear of evil.” (Proverbs 1: 10, 11, 14, 15, 16, 33; 2:20). Here then is wisdom: When we find ourselves in strange company we must not be less discriminating in those we take unto ourselves, nor less discriminating in our conduct when we find ourselves in strange places.
By Richard L. Evans, spoken from the Tabernacle, Temple Square, Salt Lake City, Sunday, Aug. 2, 1942, over Radio Station KSL and the nationwide Columbia Broadcasting System. Copyright-1942.
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August 02, 1942
Broadcast Number 0,676