Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1885-06-11
A Chapter on Friendship.

a Chapter on Friendship.
Where mutual esteem does not ex-
ist friendship cannot live. There can
be no true friendship between knaves;
for it is quite impossible for a pair of
rogues, known to each other as rOgues,
to cherish any esteem for one another.
T0pers in their cups become maudlin,
and, shedding berry tears of berry af-
lection, swear eternal friendship for
one another. It is not friendship al
ALT is simply companionship, and
very poor companIonShip at that. If
we engage with others in any dishon-
orable pursuits we have companship
with them-sympathy with them, so
far as that pursuit goes, but no further.
Wa may engage with others in a pur-
suit purely honorable-that again is
companionship, may ripen into friend
ship, but it discs not itself constitute
it. The circle of our lives may touch
only at that one single point of con>
tact, from which point they may
branch out into quite different and
quite irreconcilable directions.
Friendship is not life touching life at
one single point merely-lt is rather
sympathetic mingling OF life
with life at all points. Love-" says
Tennyson, reflects the thing belov-
ed" Our, lives would be lightened of
much disappointment, perhaps, if we
could bear this more In mind There
it, after all, no such thing in the
world as false friend. Friendship
can no more be false to friendship
than love can be false to love. When
falseness steps in, friendship, if it ever
existed, has departed long before.
Asks the poet:
''Is aught so fair
: In the bright eye of Hesper, or the morn,
In natures fairest forms, is aught so fair
AS virtuous friendship"
It is rare thing, a rarer thing, per-
haps, than conjugal love. Rarely does
friendship formed in youth, outlive
adverse shocks of fortune, or even the
slow wearing of the even tenor of the
quietly passing years. What is a
friend as the world goes? A pleasant
companion in a convivial social hour
"a man who dimes with us now and
then-a man with whom We dine now
and then. That's about ali. Such
SO called friends are, too often, like
the shadow on the SUM- ial-only to
De seen in fine weather. When the
clouds gather over us, when the bitter
winds Of adversely blow upon us,
when the pitiless rain Of an evil fate
assails US, they are seen not at all.
We have not felt friendship for an
other, another has got felt it for us,
unless we have felt our two lives
alphabetically meeting somewhat at
ali points. Only then do we feel
friendship. Only then do we feel
that subtIy and sweetly sympathetic
something which makes us feel sure
of finding a counsellor In difficulty,
a comforter in sorrow, a guide in per-
plexlty, in adversely help.
THE friends thou hast and their adoption tried
Graphic them to thy soul with hooks of steel;
But do not dull thy palm with entertainment
Ofseach new-hatched, unfedged cOmrade''
When we hear people complain
that they have no friend, we hear the
best possible proof, perhaps, that they
have never deserved to have one. at,
tachment is not rare thing in this
world. The lives of people who are
sympathetic 60 out naturally and in
stinclvely to each other. The rare
thing Ill the world is the desert, the
merit, the sterling worth, that sym
pathetically attract attachment to it,
self and keeps it because it deserves it.
The suresC way to make friends is to
manifest friendliness. The soul is
then like wellstended garden into
which the seeds of friendship may fall
aud yield flowers of loneliness for the
enrichment and adornment of life.
When those flowers bloom, sorrow
symphathetically signs with sorrow,
hope rejoices with hope, soul grows
responsive to soul.
LAS birds of social feather help each
His fellows flight. we soar into the skies,
And cast the clouds beneath our feet and earth
With all her tardy, leaded-footed cares,
And talk the speech and eat the food of
Heaven
There should ever be presented to
the various offenders against society
opportunity for amendment. There
should ever be stretched out towards
them helping hands ready TO sustain
them aud 10 guide them GA their
amended way. 1t is an awful power,
this power of forgiveness. IF we re-
fuse it to a stricken and contrite
brother we ring the knell OF all his
earthly hope-we bind the burden of
his sins the more firmly on his op,
pressed and wearied spirit Not only
of popes and priests. but of every
man, are the words true: Whose
soever sins ye remit, they are remit
led and whatsoever sins ye retain,
they are retained" The mercifulness
of every good man is revelation of
f, that mercifulness which is divine.
| The restoration of the erring by means
of human pardon, to the bosom of
that society they have outraged-to
the unstinted love and confidence of
their fellows-is prophetic of that
nobler restoration awaiting them, and
awaiting all, in that grander life that
is to be-
While this power of sympathy lives
f7e may not despair for the world ;
we may not despair for humanity. It
establishes brotherhood between the
high and the low, the noble and the
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