as he grows up has not joy in the Holy Spirit, and does not enjoy
doing right and pleasing God, and being like the Lord Jesus Christ,
then he will enjoy doing wrong, and pleasing himself, and being
unlike the Lord Jesus Christ; and so he will set a bad example, and
be a temptation to all young people of his own age, ready to lead
them into sin, and draw them away to those sinful and unholy
pleasures in which he takes delight,--whether it be to rioting and
drinking, or to uncleanness and unchastity, or to sneering and
laughing at godliness, and at good people. And that, as you know by
experience, may be the worse for you and the worse for your
children. Is that the sort of young person with whom you would wish
to see your children keeping company? Is that the sort of young
person next door to whom you would wish to live? Is not such a
person a curse, just because he is a person, a spiritual being with
an evil spirit in him, which can harm you, and tempt you, and act on
you for evil; just as if he had been a righteous person, with the
holy and good Spirit in him, he would have helped you, and taught
you, and worked on you for good? But so it is: we are members one
of another, and if one member goes wrong, and gets diseased, and
suffers, all the other members are sure to suffer more or less with
it, sooner or later: you feel it so in your bodies--be sure it is
so in God's church. But if one member is sound and healthy, all the
other members must and will be the better for its health, and
rejoice with it, and be able to do their own work the more freely,
and strongly, and heartily.

Just think for yourselves; consider, you who are grown up, and have
had experience of life, the harm you have known one bad man do, the
sorrow he will cause, even to people who never saw him; and the good
which you have seen one good man, not merely do with his own hands,