Evil company.
--The following beautiful allegory was translated from the German:‘ Sophrenius, a wise teacher, would not suffer even his grown up sons and daughters to associate with those whose conduct was not pure and upright.
’ "Dear father," said the gentle Eulalia to him one day, when he forbade her, in company with her brother, to visit the volatile Lucinda, "dear father, you must think us childish if you imagine that we should be exposed to any danger by it."
The father took in silence a dead coal from the hearth, and reached it to his daughter.
"It will not burn, my child, take it."
Eulalia did so, and behold! her delicate white hand was soiled and blackened, and, as it chanced, her white dress also.
"We cannot be too careful in handling coals," said Eulalia in vexation.
"Yes, truly," said her father, "you see, my child, that coals, even if they do not burn, blacken. So it is with the company of the vicious."
