The Birmingham age-herald., 1903-12-20
DIR. TALMAGE'S SERMON.


place, be a true friend to his Heavenly
 Friend. as was Isaac Newton. He so i'm pressed every one with whom he came
 in contact with his noble loyalty to his Divine Master that when his friend, the
 great philosopher, Gottfried Leibnitz, was
 dying he cried out again and again in hls
 last sickness, 70 thou God of Isaac New
 ton, have mercy upon mel 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 spend thrifts, are squanderng ours we call them friends-true friends. As Lord Mel bourne, the British prime minister, once brutally expressed this sentiment: 'I do
 not call a man a friend who merely stands by me when I am right. But I want a friend who is willing to stand by me and
 uphold me in political life even when he
 knows that I am wrong"
 The True and the False.
 A true friend in the Biblical sense is never untrue to his GoCid or to his better self. Well" says some one, "how am
 I 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 l question to me. You know intuitively | those among your associates who are al-
 ways true to God without my telling you. | A prominent eastern newspaper man who | for years was detailed as the Albany cor | respondent of a great New York daily l told me that every year the lobbyists di- | vided the New York legislators into three ! distinct classes. First there were those who, like Caesars wife, were above sus- ptcion. They were honest through and l through. No man would dare approach l them with the idea of offering them a l bribe. They would not dare to approach them with a dishonorable proposal any more than they would dare to ask the president of the United States to appoint
 a minister plenipotentiary to England for | he consideration of a. $5O00 check. or they | would dare ask King Edward to create | William Waldorf Astor a member of the l house of lords for a bribe of s1,0000O0. 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 their votes to the highest bidders,
 no matter who those bribers might be or how much the iniquitous railroad corpora tion might desire to defrau1 the common people, whose interests those legislators
 had taken a solemn oath to pIotect. Like
 wise in everyday life each man comes in contact with three distinct classes of as- sociates. First. there are those men and women who like Caesars wife, are above suspicion. They are true mem true to themselves and true to their God. You
 would no more dare tell vile story be- fore them than you would dare tell Such a filthy story to your Christian mother Next there are the "doubful friends" They might or might not be open to
 wrong proposition. Then there are the third class of men-those whom you know to be what they ought not to be and who
 make a boast of their sins
 Choose Associates Carefully. Practical advice for this classification: | From the bad men turn away your face | with firm resolve. You cannot associate with scoundres without you yourself be- coming a party to their infamies. With the doubtful class' of associates be very chary of your friendship Never allow anyone to enter the inner chambers of your heart until he has proved his virtue and nobility beyond all doubt.
 The man who halls you Tom or Jack And proves by thumps upon your back His sense of your great merit
 That man must be a friend indeed,
 A treasured friend you must believe, To pardon or to bear it.
 The third class of your acquaintances represent Gods noblemen. These can be numbered among the blessed few who are spiritually trying to make the most out of their lives These seek these trust, these bind to you by he unbreakable ties of affection. These cherish all through life, up to the brink of the grave. These are the kind of Biblical friends to whom the apostle John sent his gospel saluta- tion The true friend correets his broth CTS faults as well as commends his vir- tues He warns him of moral danger,
 as he would warn his friend of a physi-
 70 rr~fTa fnaf'a Hn4# ln 60 NY him skating too near an airhole in the
 ice, or if while boating upon the river he saw him rowing too near the dangerous
 dam. or if he saw him bathing too near the "sea puss" toward which he treaeh-
 erous undertow was trying to drag him. The Ten Commandments of Mount Sinai which God, with his finger for pen. l wrote upon leaves of stone, are filled with | thou shalt nots" Therefore one of the | great missions of true friendship is, as | Paul described 1t, to ''reprove, rebuke, | as well as to exhort, with all long suffer- 1 ing and doctrine"
 l No, mo-" says some one; T do not | agree with you at all. l believe 1t IS an | enemy whose mission is to point out | faults. The true mission of a friend is to | encourage and commend virtues. Alas, l by bitter experience I have found out the | truth of this statement. Some years ago | three of my friends and l entered into an agreement. They were at that time my
 dearest friends We decided that we would
 meet at least once a week, and for mutual benefit we would tell each other all the | criticisable things we had seen or heard about each other We entered into this | agreement purely for the purpose of cor | recting each others faults. We had just | two such proposed meetings and then broke up in a big row. We have never
 been the same to each other since. No talking to me about a friends falts! If Ill. 4l,.,,r mn l tn1