12 The Acorn The Great Guest Comes While the cobbler mused there passed his pane A beggar drenched by the driving rain. He called him in from the stony street And gave him shoes for his bruised feet. The beggar went and there came a drone; Her face with wrinkles of sorrow sown. A bundle of fagots bowed her back, And she was spent with the wrench and rack, He gave her his loaf, and steadied her load As she took her way on the weary road. Then to his door came a little child, Lost and afraid in the world so wild, In the big, dark world. Catching it up, He gave it milk in the waiting cup. And led it home to its mother's arms, Out of reach of the world's alarms. The day went down in the crimson west, And with it the hope of the blessed guest; And Conrad sighed as the world turned gray: "Why is it. Lord, that your feet delay? Did you forget that this was the day?" Then soft in the silence a voice was heard; Lift up your heart, for I kept my word; Three times I came to your friendly door. I was the beggar with bruised feet; I was the woman you gave to eat; I was the child on the homeless street." Edwin Markham. The Acorn 13 Friends and Associates The good are attracted toward the good, and the evil towards the evil. In every society there is a sphere of quality, prevading the whole; and all who come into it, and voluntarily remain there, are more or less strongly affected by this sphere, they think and feel with the rest. Let a man, who has respect for order and obedience to law, go into a mob, and voluntarily remain there; he will be surprised to find his liveliest sympathies on the side of mob law, because he feels the sphere of the quality of that mob's affection he is in it, and breathes it, and feels an impulse to act through it. From this we can clearly see the great importance of choosing, with care, our associates. If we mingle with those who make light of both human and divine laws, we shall be led into some error, and sink instead of rising in the scale of moral excellence. But if we choose more wisely our companions, we shall not only be elevated ourselves, but help to elevate others. It not unfrequently happens, that young men, either from feeling the dangers attendant upon associations with others, or from a natural unwillingness for society, seclude themselves and take for companions books and their own thoughts, becoming hermits in the very midst of society. This carried to the extreme is an error that prevents development of character. One of the first laws of our being is the law of association, and whoever disregards it, disregards not only his own, but the common good. Society is a man in larger form, and we are all members, and must in concert with the rest, and do our duty to the whole or we shall find ourselves like a hand that lies inactive; appropriating the life blood that flows into it, without doing anything for the whole body gradually losing our power, and withering away into mental inability. All the members of the body act in harmony: the eye sees not for itself; the hand works not for itself; the ear hears not for itself; but all labor for the common good, while each part is sustained from the whole. If any part ceases to perform its functions, that part at once begins to suffer decay; its muscles shrink, its veins and arteries decrease in volume, the blood circulates feebly through it; it becomes weak and helpless, and affects the whole body with disease more or less serious. Just such will be the effect produced in every case where a man deliberately withdraws himself from the uses of society. Where