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.”  Says the wise Lord Bacon:  “It is a good discretion not to make too much of any man at the first; because one cannot hold out that proportion,” and that is so, for some of the strongest bonds of friendship ever felt have been woven without thought of pleasure on either side at the commencement.

“Saul and Jonathan were lovely and pleasant in their lives, and in their death they were not divided.”  “I am distressed for thee, my brother, Jonathan:  very pleasant hast thou been unto me:  thy love to me was wonderful, passing the love of woman.”

“Very few friends,” says Sydney Smith, “will bear to be told of their faults; and, if done at all, it must be done with infinite management and delicacy; for if you indulge often in this practice, men think you hate, and avoid you.  If the evil is not very alarming, it is better, indeed, to let it alone, and not to turn friendship into a system of lawful and unpunishable impertinence.  I am for frank explanations with friends in cases of affront.  They sometimes

SAVE A PERISHING FRIENDSHIP,

and even place it on a firmer basis than at first; but secret discontent must always end badly.”

Let us love our friends for what they are to-day—­not for what they will be when we come to make unreasonable demands on them.  The sun is beautiful and delightful.  It will not shine for us in the night nor, in the daytime shine for us alone.  We were bereft of our minds did we, therefore, enter a cave and forswear all further pleasure in its genial rays.

IT IS EASIER TO RAIL

against friendship than to enact our parts in that drama of life which is to elevate the term.  Thus we hear Goldsmith cry—­

     What is friendship but a name,
       A charm that lulls to sleep,
     A shade that follows wealth or fame,
       And leaves the wretch to weep.

Yet this same Goldsmith was a burden on his friends.  He did his duty to posterity, in leaving them beautiful literature and song, but to his own associates he was unsparing in his good-natured demands.  It is safe to say that he who tries to ennoble friendship is best worthy of the name of friend, and he who belittles it, has fewer claims to man’s humanity.  Everytime we deny the existence of a satisfying, friendship, we proclaim aloud our own baseness.  Let us avoid it.