We at
once behold mankind forced to flee to God's kind institution of the
family and the home to escape a desolation of the heart which follows
fruitless efforts to kindle a blaze out of the damp driftwood of life's
general associations.
Now, what is possible? Spot friendship is possible, and delightful.
"To-morrow do thy worst, for I have lived to-day." Man is a social
animal. He "gregates," he flocks. Of nothing am I fonder than the
sparkle of a friend's eye, and the gabble of half an hour, or three
hours. But I ought not to build on any future gabbles, for, to-morrow,
lo! my friend may have discovered my ignoble reality, whereas he has
heretofore been shaking hands with my noble ideality.
ANOTHER THING
should always be considered: "Kindred weaknesses" says Bovee, "induce
friendships as often as kindred virtues." Here is Herder's beautiful
view: "As the shadow in early morning, is friendship with the wicked; it
dwindles hour by hour. But friendship with the good increases, like the
evening shadows, till the sun of life sets." "People young, and raw, and
soft-natured," says South, "think it an easy thing to gain love, and
reckon their own friendships a sure price of any man's: but when
experience shall have shown them the hardness of most hearts, the
hollowness of others, and the baseness and ingratitude of almost all,
they will then find that
A TRUE FRIEND IS THE GIFT OF GOD,
and that He only who made hearts can unite them.
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