The influence of individual character extends from one generation to another.  The world is moulded by it.  Does not history turn on the influence exercised by the first and second Adam?

No one questions the reality of the influence of a bad character upon others.  The existence of evil persons here or elsewhere, and their power to infect other persons through the foul malaria of the evil in which they live, may be unaccountably mysterious when seen in the light of God’s infinite love; but they are, nevertheless, the most certain facts within the field of our own observation and experience.

This malign influence is of every degree—­from the undesigned yet real injury which is done to others by the merely slothful or indifferent man, who never, as he says, “intended to injure any one,” and “never thought” he was doing so, but who, nevertheless, injures many a cause, and freezes and discourages many a heart, by his selfishness in not thinking and not doing;—­up to the injury which is done by the cool, designing villain, who, in his plots and plans to sacrifice others to himself, has reached the utmost limit which distinguishes the bad man from the demon.

The evil influence exercised by wicked parents on their families; by wicked companions upon their fellows; by wicked books upon their readers; by wicked persecutors and tyrants upon the world—­needs neither proof nor illustration.  Yet let us remember, for our strength and comfort, that because we are not things but persons, it is impossible to compel any man, from whatever influence, to prefer the darkness to light, or to choose the evil instead of the good.  Hence the power which was designed to lead us into evil may be converted by ourselves into a power for good, while it strengthens our moral principles, demands a firmer faith in God, and prompts more earnest desires and efforts to overcome the evil by the good.  It is thus too, in the wonderful providence of God, that while evil remains evil, it has nevertheless been the indirect means of calling forth the noblest efforts on the part of man, and on God’s part the most glorious revelations of His character in conquering it, and such as, without evil in the universe, could not, as far as we can see, have been possible.

But no less real is the influence upon others of a holy character.  “The evil men do lives after them;” but we do not believe that “the good is oft interred with their bones.”  No, it is as immortal as the Divine Being in whom it originates.  The good must ever live, and “walk up and down the earth,” like a living spirit guided by the living God, to convey blessings to the children of men, and is more powerful, diffusive, and eternal than the power of evil.  It lives in humanity, in some form or other, like the subtile substance of material things, which though ever changing never perishes, but adds to the stability, the beauty, and the grandeur of the universe.  The influence of the holy character passes even beyond the stars, giving joy to our angel brothers, and to our elder brother Jesus Christ, who, in seeing reflected in His people His own love to His God and our God, to His neighbour and ours, beholds the grand result of the travail of His soul, and is “satisfied.”