Page:Execution, or, The affecting history of Tom Bragwell.pdf/8

 the better of the scruples of even himself, and enticed all the three away with him.

So dangerous is it "to stand in the way sinners," that it is often, (as here it was proved  be,) but one step to a higher degree of wickedness  the "walking in the counsel of the ungodly"—What an awful lesson to parents?—I mean to  who unconcernedly suffer their children to  idly about the streets at any time, but especially  a Sunday evening.

Do such not consider, the obligation that they and all Christian parents lie under, to bring up their little ones in the nurture and admonition of the Lord? And what time more fit for this purpose than the evening of that day, when the poorest labourer among us enjoys the privilege of repose, and the most humble head of a family has sufficient leisure to devote his patriarchal powers to the best interests of those whom Providence has entrusted to his care.

"What a pity, my young men," I resumed, "that you should have been found by in such a situation as this.—A situation of idleness is the most dangerous in which a young man can be placed,—you have ho doubt heard the proverb, that, ‘when the devil finds a man idle, he generally sets him to work’—it was no wonder, then, that your depraved associate, who seems to be too much under the influence of the evil one, found you in this situation, an easy prey to his deceitful wiles." For it appeal's Tom had not the hardihood to propose the Bean Expedition all at once; No,—it was only "a walk in a fine evening;" that was