Part 2 (2/2)

COLERIDGE.

Shakespeare gives this rule for friends.h.i.+p in his own wonderful way.

It could not be better stated--

The friends thou hast, and their adoption tried, Grapple them to thy soul with hooks of steel; But do not dull thy palm with entertainment Of each new-hatched, unfledged comrade.

II. We should refuse friends.h.i.+p with those whose standard of right is below our own.--Anything in a man or woman that indicates low moral tone, or want of principle, should debar them at once from our friends.h.i.+p. It is not easy to say in so many words what want of principle is, but we all know what is meant by it. It corresponds to a const.i.tutional defect in the physical system. A person may have ailments, but that is different from a weak and broken const.i.tution.

So a person may have faults and failings, but a want of principle is more serious. It is a radical defect which should prevent friends.h.i.+p.

A small thing often shows us whether a person wants principle. The single claw of a bird of prey tells us its nature. According to the familiar saying, ”We don't need to eat a leg of mutton to know whether it is tainted; a mouthful is sufficient.” So a single expression may tell us whether there is a want of moral principle. A word showing us that a person thinks lightly of honesty, of purity in man, of virtue in woman, should be sufficient to make us keep him at a distance. We may be civil to him, try to do him good, and lead him to better things, but he is not one to make our friend. Cowper the poet says:

I would not enter on my list of friends, Though graced with polished manners and fine sense, Yet wanting sensibility, the man Who needlessly sets foot upon a worm.

We may think it a small thing to set the foot upon a worm, but to do so needlessly and wantonly indicates a hard and cruel nature, and a man with such a nature is not a safe friend.

III. There should be equality in friends.h.i.+p.--Equality of station, of circ.u.mstances, of position. It does not do to lay down a hard and fast line as to this. For instance, in a ”young men's guild” men of all stations and social conditions meet on an equality. They are a brotherhood bound together by ties of a very close description. To them this rule does not apply. Among members of such an a.s.sociation, a young man may always fitly find a friend. It is friends.h.i.+ps formed outside such a circle, and in general society, that we have in view; and, in regard to such society, we are probably not far wrong in saying that we do well to choose our intimate friends from those who are neither much above us nor beneath us. If a man is poor, and chooses as a friend one who is rich, the chances are either that he becomes a toady and a mere ”hanger-on,” or that he is made to feel his inferiority. Young men in this way have been led into expenses which they could not afford, and into society that did them harm, and into debts sometimes that they could not pay. Making friends of those beneath us is often equally a mistake. We come to look upon them with patronizing affability. ”It is well enough to talk of our humble friends, but they are too often like poor relations. We accept their services, and think that a mere 'thank you,' a nod, a beck, or a smile is sufficient recompense.” [2] Either to become a toady or a patron is destructive of true friends.h.i.+p. We should be able to meet on the same platform, and join hands as brothers, having the same feelings, the same wants, the same aspirations. We should be courteous to the man above us, and civil to the man beneath us; but if we value our independence and manhood we will not try to make a friend of either.

IV. We should not make a friend of one who is without reverence for what we deem sacred and have been taught to deem sacred.--The want of ”reverence for that which is above us” is one of the most serious defects in man or woman. We should be as slow to admit one to our friends.h.i.+p who has this defect as we would be if we knew he had entered into a church and stolen the vessels of the sanctuary. We should consort only with those who honor the sacred name we bear, and treat it with reverence. We should especially beware of admitting to intimacy the sceptic and infidel. There are those who have drifted away from the faith of Christ, and to whom G.o.d and eternity are mere names. Such are deserving of our most profound pity and sorrow, and we should do all in our power to lead them back to the Father's house from which they have wandered. But we should never make them our friends. We cannot dwell in an ill-ventilated and ill-drained house without running the risk of having our own const.i.tution lowered. We cannot a.s.sociate in close companions.h.i.+p with the infidel and the sceptic without endangering our own spiritual life. Doubt is as catching as disease.

”Take my word for it,” said the great Sir Robert Peel, who was a close observer of men, ”it is not prudent, as a rule, to trust yourself to any man who tells you he does not believe in G.o.d, and in a future life after death.” We should choose our friends from those who have chosen the better part, and day by day we shall feel the benefit of their companions.h.i.+p in making us stronger and better.

These are some plain rules drawn from long experience of life which may be helpful to some. We may conclude by quoting the n.o.ble lines of Tennyson in which he draws the picture of his friend, Arthur Hallam, and the inspiration he drew from him:

Thy converse drew us with delight, The men of rathe and riper years: The feeble soul, a haunt of fears, Forgot his weakness in thy sight.

On thee the loyal-hearted hung, The proud was half disarm'd of pride, Nor cared the serpent at thy side To flicker with his double tongue.

The stern were mild when thou wert by, The flippant put himself to school And heard thee, and the brazen fool Was soften'd, and he knew not why;

While I, thy nearest, sat apart, And felt thy triumph was as mine; And loved them more, that they were thine, The graceful tact, the Christian art;

Nor mine the sweetness or the skill, But mine the love that will not tire, And, born of love, the vague desire That spurs an imitative will.

TENNYSON.

Happy are those whose friends in some degree approach the character here delineated.

[1] Stalker's _Imago Christi_.

[2] Hain Friswell, _The Gentle Life_.

CHAPTER V.

MONEY.

Money has been defined as _the measure and standard of value, and the medium of exchange_. It represents everything that may be purchased.

He who possesses money has potentially in his possession everything that can be bought with money. Money is thus power. It seems to have in itself all earthly possibilities.

There are three things which should be borne in mind in regard to money:

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