The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1897-03-08

left at the. end cf the week or month are
not sufficient to start a bank account,
only enough for Encouragement and not
enough for hope. Extremity says spend
them. What good sickness? | cannot
meet it, Poverty? I cannot avoid it,
Social standing? | cannot attain unto it,
| Life is scarcely worth the living. And you
reach over to him, saying, I'VE be breth-
rem" You do for him what the church
| cannot do his surplus pennies becomes
| the nucleus, bolsterd by some and sus-
| tanned by many, to minister in time or
| need. Sickness comes, his manhood is re-
| tained and he takes as a right for whcn
| he has paid the help now necessary He
| has become a brother in a fraterity of
| brotherhood and is no longer am isolated
| being. Society is benefited by social help
| fulness; families are helped by practical
| means, and a man has come into loftier
| conceptions of manhood through the in
strumentality of agencies which your
society has set in notion Here We re-
peat, This does not dsparage the church,
| for if to these things there comes the
| consecrated energies of a saved soul, II
| earthly benefactions shall be plus Divine
| benedictions then the every highest rela-
| tions of life are assured and the standing
| mark of most potential influence will be
the church with its promise not alone of
THE Life that now is, but of that which
| is to come"
THE THREE PRINCIPLES.
| Three principles are with you so relat-
ed, that you have linked yourselves into
| hepfulness by their means-Friendship
Love and Truth. These are the links of
your life chain, properly used, this three
linked chain is the connection of the hu-
man life car to the engine of God power.
| Briefly consider these separate links.
What is Friendship? IAN attachment
to person proceeding from intimate ac-
quaintance and a reciprocation of kind
offices, favor, personal kindness" 1t is
in this direction that the wise man of
old says: "A friend loveth at all times"
While into this every definition the Lord
Jesus Christ Weaves His own thought as
He calls His disciples Friends, putting
them abOye all slave, serf or servant con-
dition. The Apostle John records it: "Ye
are my friends If ye do whatsoever |
command you-Henceforth Call you
not servants, but 1 have called you
friends" Friendship Is both known and
unknown in quantity and quality. We
can measure it partially and know it alb
| stractedly.
We can take this act and that to COM
prehend It, and sometimes without any
great mental effort compass its entire cir
Gle, but again there is an intense intensity
so intensified that we cannot know ITS
hegth, depth, breadth or length. Abra-
ham and Lot, David and Jonathan, Da-
mon and Pythias reveal its surface only
| friendship, rare as the true repentance OF
a presumably dying man, is an unknown
quality never to be truly understood until
we know what 1t means in the fnl
Christ friendship Yet you are to make
: friendship known to the horizon of youl
possibility whatever 1t means to you In
the highest sense YOU must cause II tC
| mean to others. Whatever of its princi,
] ples you can elucidata by word and deed
by the very nature of its requirements
you are hound SO to do, and the link OF
, Friendship shall be so strong and shape
ly that your workmanship here displayed
win be a constant admiration, not to your
society alone, but to those without.
: The next link coupling into Friendship
| is the link OF Love. If you can say, 1--WE
be brethren" II is because into your
Friendship links your Love, But Love
: is a different condition and creates a diff
, ferent relation than friendship Friend
+ ship leads to love-sometmes Friendship
, may be argumenttive, with ability to rea
son. Love discards arguments and de
nies reason-sometimes, Love is impetu
Gus, friendship calculating. Love Is fire
: fierce and estructlve-sometmes Friend
ship the controlled element of heat anC