Los Angeles herald., 1908-01-06
REV. BURDETTE breaches
ON VALUE OF FRIENDSHIP
Noted Humorist-M mister Delivers linz
presslve Sermon for Benefit Of
Those Whose Business Bars
Out Brotherhood

Rev Robert j. Burdette, pastor Of the
Temple Baptist church, preached on the
topic, TOO Busy for Friendship" taking
for his text 1 Kings 2O:4O:- LAS thy serv-
ant was busy here and there he was
gone"
zone day last week. he said. "a rich
man in Pittsburg offered million dol
lars for the life of man whose days
were numbered. He went further. He
said he would give his fortune II the
physicians could save the mans life
II do not know what the dying mans
talents were; l do not know anything
about him, only that the millionaire Of
fered that much for his life. He was
not relative; he was not brother;
he was that priceless treasure worth
more, sometimes, than brotherhood-a
friend.
IAN old cynic-many generations older
than the modern wits to whom the say
ing is variously attributed-once said:
We choose our friends; God sends US
our relatives
Like most sayings Of the cynical it
is a lie slenderly alleged with truth,
for only God can send US true friends.
We reject, sometimes, the best that
omniscience can send us; and at other
times 1t is our friends who chose US
not we, them.
Think of your best friends, your
truest your kindest and wisest. How
we test the purity and nobility of their
friendship by our patience, our selfish
ness, our indifference!
Friendship for All
"Sometimes-many times-our friends
love US, not because of ourselves. but
in spite of ourselves. Certainly that vas
and is the love of the Great Friend, who
loved us when we were most unlovely
and unlovable, and when most heartless-
ly we spurned his offers of everlasting
friendship.
There is friend that sticketh closer
than a BROTHER wrote the wiseman in
the book of Proverbs; and although 1t
is habitual with us to consider this a
reference to Jesus Christ, the man who
wrote 1t had in his thought merely an
earthly friend-simply a man-such a
friend as God may send you to 'grapple
to your soul with hooks of steel And
when God sends to any one of us such
friend, how seldom II is that we find
time in our busy, hurrying lives IF gal
lop and gulp to be courteously civil to
him!
1--WE have time in our busy, hurried
lives for every human form of frater-
nization except friendship. That re-
quires too much time. Friendship is a
| slow growth. but it the growth of the
oak. A thousand things masquerade un-
der the alias of friendship that only
dishonor the sacred name.
"The so-called friendship that bub-
| bles UP over the sparkle of a champagne
glass and is as dull and stale by the
morrow morning as the wine that in
spired it: the friendship that is born in
the needs OF political campaign; the
friendship that owes it's short life to
the pleasant environment of an after
moons outing; the friendship which. like
that of PLATE and Herod, are mere con-
federates of vice. counterfeit friendships.
and like all, ring false at the first and
lightest test.
Friendship Defined
"True friendships are something more
than the things to which we give most
time-more than business partnerships,
and sometimes more than marriage COM
pacts, which in these days are broken
so lightly. There were nearly 700 divorces
in the city of Los Angeles during the
year 1907.
Friendship, too is more than mere
'affinity'-a noble word with a noble
meaning, which has In the past year
been so smeared with shame and dis
honor that it Is linked in the thought
with open adultery, only that it has been
made something viler, more ignoble,
more cowardly and false-hearted than
professional prostitution can be.
1--WE will chase a man across the con-
tinent to sell him a mining claim or a
corner lot, but If a friend. who would
go through fire and water for us-a friend
who loves us so unsefshly that he is
brave and loyal enough to tell us our
faults, comes into the office during busi-
ness hours for the benediction Of hand
clasp and q CHEEKY word, we drum him
out of the room with our restless fingers
playing the DEVILS tattoo on the desk.
What time has busy man for friend
ship?
1--WE won't make so much money If
we cut down our time? No, but do you
remember how much money that Pitts
burg man offered for just one friend?
And it couldn't buy hlm-couldn't even
hire him for another day!
"There are some things not in heaven;
there isn't anything you can buy there;
but there are some things here and now
in this little life and in this town that
money can't buy. but which you can
purchase forever with little time"
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HITV cEEKC NATh AR0IIT