Wheeling Sunday register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1882-1934, 1899-12-10

desire Il to see the friend happy. Its
pride, its joy, its life Is conferred within
the interests of the friend. 1t knows
no restlessness, no doubling. But Il
at times it should chance to doubt, it
Will be found to lie only in the fear
of its own. unworthiness.
True friendship is the hottest, and
most un5elfish of affections" As sac
red, as hallowed, as is mothers love,
it does not excel that of true friend
ship; because, Nature has schooled the
mother to love; it is as natural that a
mother love her offspring as death fol-
lows life; it is creation in which the
mother had no choice; and yet, for all
that, none the less staunch and true.
Plato, Cicero and Aristotle, possibly
pay the highest tribute to true friend
ship that has ever, or ever will be paid.
1t is not out of place TO quote from
Shakespeare, who, il can be observed
in many of his works, honored such
lofty relations; Shakespeare would
rather be forgotten than to cause a
moments pain to friend.
mo longer mourn for me when am dead,
Than you shall hear the surly sullen bell
1--WE WARNING 10 The WOFIu mat L ALL lleu
From this vile world, with yilest worms to
dwell.
Nay, if you read these lines, remember not
The hand that writ them; for I love you so
That in your sweet thought would be for
If thinking on me caused you pain
History and biography are replete
with instances of friendships such as
this; but it does not become necessary
to go back to times remote, nor to
search the lives of men that lived in
the past, to be convinced that such af-
lection exists; it is demonstrated day
after day in our routine life: in the
counting room, in the workshop, in the
avenues of commercial life in general,
there can be found this most hallowed
of affection. 1t may be true that So
cial customs, reservedness, augmented
by some gulf that social standing
forms, impedes from its giving express
sion; but nevertheless it is there, and
thus it is that the cultivation of the
higher type of true friendship is moth
cred in this swiftly moving age; but
often, if not more frequently it goes
on and on, happy in the privilege of its
affection, yet saddened in the meekness
of its being lived alone. Truly, there
was, there is no affection so hallowed,
so sacred as that of true friendship. =
True Friendship courts no evil
thought, no deceit, no guilt. 1t is
frank in its craving of forgiveness, if
it has CHANGED to wound. 1t carries
the thought to things above the earth,
and pictures no reward either heaven
" or of earth, without the object of
its affection sharding in it. No achiev-
ment, no applause is appreciated with
out the coincidence eff that friend.
And, so one might go on depicting the
virtues of such ties until the end of
life, for constituting life itself as it
does, they could not until then become
exhausted
But, from the very depths of such at
tadhment, there springs its single sor-
row---its susceptibility TO feeling
wounded when no wound was intended.
1t is not that it doubts, nor that it
would suffer indignities to be cast up
on the one it cherishes; but it never
theless is prone to be pricked by the
most trivial slight or thrust; it is not
a condition to be desired, and It's a pi-
ty that it alone mars the holy bond of
declaration of the power and depths Of
its affection, since, were such senti-
ment of commoner character, trivial
matters would cease to be given heed;
We need no higher proof of the friend
snip of our friend, than to know of
our power for wounding it.
True friendship knows no selfish de-
mands it would share the remaining
farthing, give up home, and sacrifice
even life itself if need be, to save that
of its friend. lit knows nothing, but to
give, extend, to aid, to live for the well
fare and the progress of its object Of
affection.
1t should be shielded from the harsh
wintry blasts of pride and false vani-
ties, for, from the very tenderness of
its love, it may, perhaps become as
frozen, as crushed as the tenderest
flower exposed to wintry winds.