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The Basis of Friendship
From Timeless Grace Gems
J.R. Miller
From Timeless Grace Gems
J.R. Miller
God has made us social beings needing sympathy and affection. A man living on a solitary island in the midst of the sea, cut off from all human companionship, seeing no face, feeling no warm hand-grasp, hearing no word from human tongue, without sympathy, without help, torn out of the great web of human life and love, and cast away — would be miserable indeed. A man might have all the riches of the world, and live in a palace filled with all the comforts and luxuries of civilization — but if he had no friends he would be very poor.
It is the part of wisdom, then, to seek to have friends, and to form close and tender friendships in the days of youth and prosperity. And the word of God tells us that "he who has friends, must show himself friendly."
First, he must be worthy of friends. Even Cicero taught that true, genuine friendship can exist only between the good and virtuous.
Wicked men may combine together in some sort of compact, which they may call friendship, but it is not worthy of that sacred and holy name. It is based only on self-interest; or its bond is sin. No false heart is capable of friendship. A true friend is one who "loves at all times." So a selfish man cannot have friends. Selfishness is a deadly Upas tree in a heart, blighting all the beautiful flowers which God has planted there.
There are a great many people who want friends to help them. They want influence, assistance, gain, favor, advertisement. They want friends as the king wants steps up to his throne, to walk upon up to greatness and power. They want friends as the river wants springs and rills, to pour water into its channels. They want friends as the auctioneer wants a bell-ringer, as the quack-medicine man wants customers. Selfish men want friends to further their own purposes, to enlarge their own prosperity, to add to their own fame, to help them over the hard places. And when a man can no longer be of any use to them, they do not want to be cumbered with his friendship.
Selfishness is, therefore, death to friendship. Only truth and truth will wed. Friendship must be mutual. Love may exist on one side, but friendship requires two hearts reciprocally attached. It is the knitting together of souls. As when two trees, standing and growing side by side, put out their roots and branches, until the roots and branches of both are woven, tangled, and matted together, branch clasping branch, and root binding root — so in friendship each heart's tendrils of affection lay hold on the other, and weave themselves into a holy web of love, binding both hearts together. Mutual unselfishness and reciprocal self-sacrifice — is the true basis of friendship.
Two people who both must have their own way all the time, cannot be friends. Where one always has his own way, and the other always yields — there is, on the one side tyranny, on the other side slavish subjection; but there is no friendship. Friendship implies mutual unselfishness. Each forgets self and lives for the other. Each thinks of the other's comfort, forgetting his own.
And such a friendship binds two hearts together indissolubly. "The twain shall be one flesh" is not a mere figure of speech, as a picture of true marriage. It is just what God meant should be actually realized in every marriage. But it means more than living together in the same house, more than a partnership, more than forbearance and toleration, more than authority and subjection. It means an actual union of hearts, a growing together of lives, until one pulse throbs in both, and one spirit animates the purposes and thoughts of both. The one life gives itself to the other; they meet on the altar; the fire of God falls upon them; and they are "no more twain, but now one."
And nothing can ever separate them. They were not true friendships, not genuine marriages — which are now destroyed. They were only external. The bond was not friendship. When two hearts are truly united, they cannot be torn asunder. Mountains and oceans may be between them. But mountain-walls cannot divide hearts, and seas cannot drown love.
Time wears out many a beautiful robe. The threads of many a web decay and turn to ashes through the lapse of years. But the threads of friendship's web are silver and golden. They are as bright after scores of years as ever.
Then even death has no power to destroy friendship. True marriage, true union of hearts, is absolutely inseparable. They neither marry, nor are given in marriage, in Heaven; and yet death is not a divorce court. When hearts are joined together on earth, their love sanctified by the divine love, their union sealed by the blood of Christ — they shall walk on together in white forever. Meeting again on the other side, they shall be like two friends, separated for a time, but brought together again. They will have a great many questions to ask, and a great many things to tell each other. And they will take up the threads of life and love they dropped when the one was taken and the other left, and will go on weaving the beautiful garment forever.