Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1903-12-28

y
presence. rt least. you must make no
slurring remarks against one whom |
look upon as my best of all friends"
4 true earthly friend must. in the |
first place. be n true friend to his Heav-
emily Friend. as was Isaac Newton. He |
so impressed every one with whom he |
came In contact with his noble loyalty |
n his Divine Master that when his |
friend. the great philosopher, Gottfried |
Leibnitz. was dying he cried out again |
and again in his last sickness. 20 thou
God OF Isaac Newton. have mercy upon
me- And yet. strange to say, there are
scores of us who seem to think that
our true friends can be true to us while
being untrue to their better selves. If
they drink with us because we get
drunk and gamble with us because we
gamble and sinfully fritter away their
lives because we, as spendthrifts, are
sduandering ours. we call them friends
true friends. AS Lord Melbourne. the
British prime minister. once brutally
expressed this sentiment: II do not call
a man friend who merely stands by
me when | am right. But | want
friend who is willing to stand by me
and uphold me in political life even
when he knows that | am wrong"
The True and the False.
| A true friend in the Biblical sense is
! never untrue TO his God or TO his better
self. well" says some one, how am
| to know whether a friend is first true
! to God before he is true to me-" oh,
my brother, you need never have put
that question to me. You know intu-
itively those among your associates
who are always true to God without
my telling you. A prominent eastern
newspaper man who for years was de-
tailed as the Albany correspondent of
q great New York daily told me that
every year the lobbyists divided the
New York legislators into three distinct
classes. First. there were those who.
like Caesars wife, were above suspi-
cion. They were honest through and
through No man would dare approach
them with the idea of offering them a
bride They would not dare to APP
proach them with a dishonorable pro-
pOsal any more than they would dare to
ask the president of the United States
to appoint a minister plenipotentiary to
England for the consideration of a
$4,000 check or they would dare ask
King Edward to create William Wal.
dorf Astor a member of the house OF
lords for a bride of S1.000,00O. The
second class at Albany were the
doubtful legislators" They might be
bribed if the money offered was big
enough and they thought they would
not be found out The third class were
the men who were there to sell thei
, votes to the highest bidders, no matter
, who those bribers might be or how
much the Ubiquitous railroad corpora
, ton might desire to defraud the com
, mon people, whose interests those leg
: islators had taken a solemn oath t
/, protect. Likewise in everyday lif
|, each man comes in contact with thre
n distinct classes of associates. First
= there are those men and women who
q like Caesars wife, are above suspicion
= They are true men: true to themselve
a and true to their God. You would n
more dare tell vile story before theI
than you would dare tell such filth
i. story to your Christian mother. Mex
there are the doubtful friends" The
:, might or might not be open to wron
proposition. Then there is the thir
class of men-thOse whom you know
= be what they ought not to be and VIII
make boast of their sins.
- Choose Associates Carefully.
- Practical advice for this classifc
- ton: From the bad men turn awe
~ your face with firm resolve. You ca
h not associate with scoundrels witho1
y you yourself becoming a party to the
40 infamies With the doubtful class"
70 associates be very chary of your frien
. ship. Never allow any one to enter Il
40 inner chambers of your heart until
90 has proved his virtue and nobility b
10 yond all doubt
The man who halls you Tom or Jack
~ And proves by thumps upon your bac
His sense of your great merit,
D. That man must be a friend indeed,
in A treasured friend you must believe,
nt To pardon or to bear ii.
,st The third class of your acquaintanc
N represents Gods nOblemen. These c.
er be numbered among the blessed fe
CO who are spiritually trying TO make t
at most out of their lives. These SEE
IN these trust. these bind to you by
nd unbreakable ties OF affection. The
re. cherish all through life. up to the bri
i of the grave. These are the kind
ire Biblical friends to whom the apos
on John sent his gospel salutatiOn. I
RS. true friend corrects his brothers fau
,ds as well as cOmmends his virtues.
Gle warns him of a moral danger, as
ou would warn his friend of a physi
ms danger if on a winters day he saw b
ho- skating too near an airhOle in the
or if while boating upon the river
saw him rowing too near the dang
:, Gus dam or if he saw him bathing
"a, near the sea puss." toward which
=, treacherouS undertOw was trying