HEARTHFIRE GIRLS

Evening Star, Issue 17644, 25 April 1921, Page 7

HEARTHFIRE GIRLS

AT TRINITY CHURCH. \ Trinity Church was well filled last night, wlm tire girb of the Hoarthfirc Clubs, to the number of over lOC, attended a service conducted by the Rev. M. A. Rugby Pratt. Throughout tho service special music was rendered. Mies Victoria Balk sang tho aria ‘0 Rest in the Lord,’ and tho choir rendered two anthems under the baton of Mr Lawn Miss Hartley, presided at the organ. The Rev M. A, Rugby Pratt addressed the. girls upon the subject of ‘ Perilous Friendfihips.' Ho referred to the fact that to make tho best of life, worthy friendships wore essential. Friendship might exalt and inspire, or it might wreck the moral balance. Tho beginning of folly and sin often lay in un.viso comradeships. It was fatally easy to glide into disastrous friendships. Golden friends were not picked up on street corners. To 'he young the choice of friends was of supreme importance. From the ago of sixteen to twenty-five hero worship was at its highest and tho imitative faculty at its strongest, AL (his period the young were apt to base their ideas on what their heroes did and said. A groat peril arose from the inexperience and curiosity of youth. The attraction of the unknown often led to peril. Let their, not enter into tho unknown by forcing tho door or allowing the mind to dwell on tho sweetness of forbidden things. Our friends exhaled an influence that operated to mould us into (heir likeness. Friendship thus affected our character. But it refected our character, too. Our choice of friends revealed our inner thoughts and tendencies, and advertised the quality of our own hearts, which naturally gravitated to a congenial circle. In these moral affinities which drew the like-minded together some temperanents had more to struggle against than ethers. If there was any taint in tho life, any hereditary lire of passion in tho blood, there was the need for greater caro. It was simple folly to expose natural weakness to influences that might work our undoing. Knave? often put on the clothes of friendship to gain base ends. A man with a glib tongue and fascinating presence might yet bo destitute of true nobility. No man was worlhj»of friendship who held his vows lightly. Sometimes one who had sworn at the altar loyalty to the woman who took his name would try,to impose upon innocent girls with flattering words. His specious ‘deceits were an insult. His falseness to another proclaimed the falsity of his pretences to his intended victim. Such spurious friends should be shunnetf tor the blackguards that they are. v The preacher warned his hearers against companionship with thos whose life was unclean, or whoso talk inflamed the imagination. Young women wielded a potent influence over their men friends. Many a lad had received his first downward impulse, his baser nature had first been stirred, his faith in womanhood first shaken, by the immodest dress, suggestive attitude, an 1 provoking banter of unthinking girls. Let the girls not “cheapen” themselves. Lot ihem not be passive and acquiescent- to fondling touches, nor indulge in sentimental talk in secluded places. Remember that liberty granted to-day might he license indulged in to-morrow. No true man really respected tho girl who fanned a flame that would scorch her purity into nothingness. To young men ho would say that every young woman had the right to demand from ho; lover a purity as stainless and undamaged as her own. Tho companion who spoko lightly of women, who sneered at virtue, whoso talk enfeebled high resolve, who told unclean talcs, who said purity was a pretence and religion weakness was no real friend. True friendship could only exist where there was fellowship in moral qualities and sympathy with the, best and highest in each. Tho. reality of friendship was proved by its power to ennoblo. Friends should be chosen for their real inner worth. If they wore pure and Christ-loving themselves they coaid not chocec friends who scorned virtue and derided the Christ, True friendship was based upon religion. If Jeans Christ were made tho test of all other friends, our lives would be well safeguarded. If Ho were followed Ho would guide to friends whose affinity was for tho, things that aro pure and noblo and good. The preacher conclud"d with an appeal for consecration to the highest