Fort Worth weekly gazette. [volume] (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1889-07-04
The Sacred and Divine Art Of
Making and Keeping Friends.
The Best Friend Man Ever Had APP
peared at Some Juncture when He
Was Especially Rombarded.
What Would Man do without Friends, Personal
Friends, Business Friends and
Family Friends?
HOW TO MAKE FRIENDS

BROOKLYN, N. Y, June 30.-At the
Tabernacle this morning, after the pas
tor, Rev. T. Dewitt Talmage, DID,,
had made an exposition of a passage of
scripture, the congregation, led by cor
net and organ, sang the hymn begin
nlng:
Now I have found friend.
Jesus is mine.
Dr. Talmage's subject was CHOW to
Make Friends - and his text, Proverbs
xviii 4, "a: GA man that hath friends
must show himself friendly He said:
About the sacred and divine art of MAX
ing and keeping friends I speak-a subject
on which never heard of any one preach
ing-and yet God thought it of enough
Importance to put it III the middle of the
Bible, these writings of Solomon, bound
ed on one side by the popular Psalms of
David, and on the other by the writings
of Isaiah, the greatest of the prophets
It seems all matter of haphaZard how
many friends we have, or whether we
have any friends at all; but there is moth
ing accidental about it. There is a law
which ,. governs the aceretion and
dispersion of friendships. They did
not ''just happen 500 any more
than the tides just happen TO rise
or fall, or the sun just happens to rise or
set. 1t is a science, an art, God given
regulation. Tell me how friendly you
are to others and l will tell you how
friendly others are to you. do not say
you will not have enemies; indeed, the
best way to get ardent friends is to have
ardent enemies if you got their enmity in
ojr fho 10Th
women will always have enemies because
their goodness is a perpetual rebuke to
evil; but this antagonism of foes will
make more intense the love of your adj
herents. Your friends will gather closer
around you because of the attacks of
your assailants. The more your enemies
abuse you, the better your cOadjutOrs
will think of you. The best friends we
ever had appeared at some juncture
when we were especially bombarded.
There have been times in my life when
unjust assault multiplied my friends, as
near as could calculate, about fifty a
minute. You are
BOUND TO SOME PEOPLE BY MANY CORDS
that neither time nor eternity can break,
and l will warrant that many of those
cords were twisted by hands malevolent.
Human nature was shipwrecEed about
fiftY-nine centuries ago, the captain Of
that craft, one Adam, and his first mate,
running the famous cargo aground on q
snag in the river Hiddekel; but there
was at least one good trait of human ma
ture that waded safely ashore from that
shiDwreck, and that is the disposition to
take the part of those unfairly dealt with.
When it is thoroughly demonstrated that
some one is beinS prosecuted, although
cl1
enough, defenders finally gather around
as thick as honey bees on trells Of
bruised honeysuckle. If, when set upon
by the furies, you can have grace enough
to keep your mouth shut, and preserve
your equipoise, and let others fight your
battles, you will find yourself after a
while with whole Gordon of allies. Had
not the world given to Christ on His ar
rival at Palestine a very cold shoulder,
there would not have been one-half as
many angels chanting glory out of the
hymn books of the sky bound in black
lids of midnight. Had it not been for
the heavy and jagged aud torturous
cross, Christ would not have been the adj
mired and loved Of more people than any
being who ever touched foot on either the
Eastern or Western hemisphere. In
stead, therefore, OF giving up in despair
because you have enemies, rejoice in the
fact that they rally for you the most
helpful and enthusiastic admirers. In
other words, there is no virulence, hu-
man or diabolic, that can hinder my text
from coming true: g. man that hath
friends must show himself friendly.
YOUR FRIENDSHIP MUST NOT BE PRE-
TENSE.
It is my ambition to project, especially
upon the young, a thought which may
benignly shape their destiny for the here
and the hereafter. Before you show
yourself friendly you must be friendly.
do not recommend a dramatized gent
atty. There is such thing as pretend
ing to be en- rapport with others when we
are their dire destructants, and talk
against them and wish them calamity.
Judas covered up his treachery by a re-
sounding kiss, and caresses may be de-
noniacal. Better the NEUROLOGICAL
Cerberus, the three headed dog of hell,
at US, than the wolf in sleeps
clotlnag, its brlndled hide covered up
by deceptive wool, and its death
full howl cadenced into an limo
cent bleating Disraeli writes of Lord
Manfred, who after committing many
outraaes upon the people, seemed sud-
denIT to become friendly, and invited
them TO banquet. After most of the
courses of food had been served he blew
q horn, which was in those times a sig
nal for the servants 20 bring on the des-
sert, but in this case it was signal for
assassins to enter and slay the guests.
His pretended friendliness was a cruel
fraud, and there are now people whose
smile is falsehood. Before you begin
to show yourself friendly you must be
friendly. Get your heart right with God
and man and this grace will become
easy. You may by your own resolution
get your nature into a semblance of this
virtue, but the grace of God can sublimely
lift you into it. Sailing on the River
Thames two vessels ran aground. The
owners of one got one hundred horses
and pulled on the grounded ship and
pulled it to pieces. The owners of the
other grounded vessel waited till the
tides came in and easily floated the ship
out of all trouble. So, we may pull and
haul at our grounded human nature, and
try to get into better condition; but there
is nothing like the oceanic tides of God
uplifting grace to hoist US into this kind
illness 1 am eulogizing. If when under
the flash of the Holy Ghost we see our own
foibles and defects and depravities, we
will he very leuiaut and very easy with