The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1900-07-17

Those few who come into u lives
as helpers, those who, when once
they are our friends, and therefore
part of our very selves as long as
we live, are to be held with a grip
of iron. Stevenson says that such
friends are to be ours without ca
pitulatiOn-that is, we should never
surrender them to any cause. If
they make mistakes we are to for
give them if they disappOint we
must remember they are human if
we offend them, far better to seek
them and apologize, than lose one
we have trusted. When once you
have convinced yourself that the
friend you have chosen is worthy,
trustworthy, useful, a nature trying
to elevate inself by adherence to
what is noble and pure, do not let
any chance misfortune separate you.
Above all, choose your friends among
those who fear and love God and,
therefore, are continually aspiring
TO be wholly true and good. A man
or woman who has only his or her
own sense of right and wrong to
Judge by, has no standard by which
to measure himself or herself or you.
What is truth and fidelity to one, is
mere "good policy" in another, and
there is no law by which it can be
said "You have fallen short of the
duties and service of a friend"
Oh, dear girls, there is such a de-
Eghtful quality in friendship, that it
often happens that your friends give
you more comfort than your lover.
There is no "give and take" in true
friendship; it asks little and only
waits opportunity to share trouble
or joy.
There are very often intense init
macies between young women which
become terribly selfish and exacting.
An actual jealousy is reused if one
of these pairs of united lives seeks
pleasure in any direction not shared
by the other, and the coming of a
lover to either girl is a grief to the
other. Like all purely selfish things,
these alliances Ire sure to bring pain
and make shipwreck some time.
Whenever self puts itself forward,
there is a danger signal! And this
sort of devotion is not really health
full 1t overshadows home-affectiOns,
and robs the family life of interest,
and gives pain to others without
fail.
The peculiar quality of friendship
Is a thing you cannot make plain in
words. ~Forfnstance there are many
afectiOnate mothers and daughters
who + not friends that is, they do
not talk together of their private
hopes and fears they do not share
their little ambitions, their secret
little desires to improve themselves
and their lives. The daughter does
not confde her first hope of love
that arises in her young heart and
speak of the charm she finds in a
certain mans society. Blessed, in
deed, is the girl whose mother is her
most intimate confidential friendl
There T even husbands and wives
who pass their lives in kindly com
partnership and are even very hap
py together, after their fashion
they are harmonious and affectionate
andfrank about all the family affairs,
but they do not confde to each other
those personal thoughts by which
they could be chief friends also. It
is when a young girl finds in her
lover one to whom she is led to
speak out all her inner personal ex-
periences and desires, and finds that
his aims are her aims, and his aspi-
rations can help her to rise, that She