The Birmingham age-herald., 1903-12-20

about them by some one else" o my brother. you are wrong. A friend, true friend, should be able to come to a brother as a loving mother could to her wayWard child and tell him of the moral mistakes he is making. This does not mean, as some people suppose, that the true mission of friendship is to gather up all the mean and contemptable say ings which have been spoken about one and then retell them to his brother. No bouquet of fragrant beauties can be col lected from among the stinging nettles and the poisonous ivies growing knee deep in the stenchful swamps. l once had one of those so-called friends who thought tho chief mission of his life was to fling at me all the criticisms and hyp- ercriticisms he ever heard spoken against me and my work He kept me in hot wa ter all the time Until I stopped asso- ciating with him he made me doubt whether I did have any one who ever loved me or my family.
 A Mission of Love.
 But though the mission of true friend ship consists not in peddling evil re- ports it does have a mission in lovingly and tenderly correcting the wrongdoings of our dear ones. Johann Goethe, the most famous poet and dramatist of Ger man literature, once expressed this beau tiful thought: When weare young we think we shall biuld palaces for the gods but at last we are glad if we have dug away some of the rubbish at our feet" An, that statement Is truei When We are young we have an ambition to re- form the whole universe, but when we grow older we have narrowed down the hope of our life to this simple desire We hope that we may live right our selves. We hope that we may be able to remove from our friends paths some of the impediments over which we our selves have stumbled. We hope to do the same as Forbes Mitchell did during the awful siege of Lucknow After he was nearly blown to pieces by a powder magazine concealed within the residency by the sepoys he immediately warned his English friends lest they might heed lessly run into the same danger. And, my brother, mark this: If you are not gratefully willing to be corrected in a moral fault by a true friend then you are not fit to have any Christian man for a close associate
 The true friend is one who reioices with us in our successes as well as sympa- thizes with us in our failures. "Oh." you say, that is universal sef-evident de- sire. There is no danger of any friend not rejoicing with us when we succeed in life. The only danger is that these friends will turn their backs upon us when we are defeated" Steady. brother, steady. I am surprised at your answer I am amazed first, that you are such a poor analyzer of human character and, secondly, that you have not found out the erro of your belief by personal ex- perience
 The Demon of Envy.
 Ready are you to grant that enemies rejoice at our overthrow and are sorry at our triumphs. But in one sense many of our aequaintances are aetuated by the same motvess When tripped up in the race of life many of our friends are ready to say: Poor fellowl Is it not too bad that my friend So-and-So failed in business? Is it not too bad that John lost all the money he inherited from his fla ther?' But they often pathize with us in the self complacent way which, translated in the ordinary language of life, means: Tt is too bad but if John had only been as smart as I am he would never have lost his money. Now he is just as poor as the rest of us, and he can no longer live in a fine house or have his daughter taking music lessons CT his son go to college" But let a man make a success; let him strike a big profit in a real estate investment; let him have a s50O0 income when we have only $10O0, and it will take a mighty on- slaught of Christian grace in our hearts to throttle the demon of envy gnawlng within our breasts Jonathan was a true friend of David. He loved the poet statesman, the shepherd boy warrior, in spite of the fact that David and not he, the natural heir, was to sit upon Saul S throne. Many a poor man ceases to