to call it--for the impression thus made, is better seen and felt than
described. The bad behaviour of a young woman, in these circumstances,
is, indeed, equally influential--nay, more so, inasmuch as the current
of human nature sets more readily downward than upward. Still, a good
example is influential--greatly so: would that it were generally known
how much so!

Suppose now that by your good behaviour and pious example in the
Sabbath school, you are the means of turning the attention of one
younger companion, male or female, to serious things, and of bringing
down upon that young person the blessing of Almighty God. Suppose that
individual should live to teach or to preach, or in some other form to
bless the world, by bringing numbers to the knowledge, and love, and
inculcation of the very truth which has saved his own soul--and these
last, in their turn, should become apostles or missionaries to others,
and so on. Is there any end, at least till the world comes to an end,
of the good influence which a good Sabbath school pupil _may_ thus
exert?

But this is something more than a supposed case. Is it not, in effect,
just what is actually taking place around us in the world continually?
Not, indeed, that a long train of good influences has been frequently
set agoing in the Sabbath school--for Sabbath schools are but of recent
origin. But people have always been led along to virtue or vice, to
piety or impiety, to bless the world or to prove a curse to it, by one
another. A word or a look from a relative, or friend, or acquaintance,
in the school or somewhere else, has often given a turn to the whole
character. A word, it is said, may move a continent. Something less
than a word--a look or a smile of approbation--may move more than a
continent. It may move not merely a West, [Footnote: A mother's kiss,