FRIENDS.

FRIENDSHIP.

FRIENDS-Moral Uses of.

The noblest part of a friend is an honest boldness in the notifying of errors. He that tells me of a fault, aiming at my good, I must think him wise and faithful; wise, in spying that which I see not; faithful, in a plain admonishment, not tainted with flattery.

Feltham.

We learn our virtues from the bosom friends who love us; our faults from the enemy who hates us. We cannot easily discover our real

He is a mirror, on which the warmth of our breath impedes the clear. ness of the reflection. Richter.

FRIENDSHIP-Fairness of.

Is aught so fair

In all the dewy landscape of the spring?
In the bright eye of Hesper in the morn,
In nature's fairest forms is aught so fair
As virtuous friendship?
Akenside.

FRIENDSHIP.

FRIENDSHIP-False,

False friendship, like the ivy, decays and ruins the walls it embraces; but true friendship gives new life and animation to the object it supports. Burton.

FRIENDSHIP-Occasions of.

There is such a natural principle of attrac tion in man towards man, that having trod the same tract of land, having breathed in the same climate, barely having been born in the same artificial district or division, becomes the occasion of contracting acquaintances and familiarities many years after: for any thing may serve the purpose. Thus, relations merely nominal, are sought and invented, not by governors, but by the lowest of the people, which are found sufficient to hold mankind together in little fraternities and copartnerships; weak ties, indeed, and what may afford fund enough for ridicule, if they are absurdly

FRIENDSHIP.

considered as the real principles of that union; but they are, in truth, merely the occasions, as anything may be, of any thing to which our nature carries us on, according to its own previous bent and bias; which occasion, therefore, would be nothing at all, were there not this prior bias or disposition of nature.

Butler.

FRIENDSHIP-Objects of. Friendship requires actions.

FRIENDSHIP-How to Obtain.

Get not your friends by bare compliments, but by giving them sensible tokens of your love. It is well worth while to learn how to win the heart of a man the right way. Force is of no use to make or preserve a friend, who is an animal that is never caught nor tamed, but by kindness and pleasure. Excite them by your civilities, and show them that you desire nothing more than their satisfaction; oblige, with all your soul, that friend who has made you a present of his own. Socrates.

FRIENDSHIP-Over-zeal in.

He that doth a base thing in zeal for his friend, burns the golden thread that ties their hearts together. Jeremy Taylor.

FRIENDSHIP-Power of.

Hard is the doubt, and difficult to deem,
When all three kinds of love together meet,
And to dispart the heart with power extreme,
Whether shall weigh the balance down: to wit,
The dear affection unto kindred sweet,
Or raging fire of love to woman-kind,
Or zeal of friends, combined by virtues meet;
But of them all, the band of virtuous mind,
Methinks, the gentle heart shall most assured
bind.
Spenser.

FRIENDSHIP-not to be Purchased. Purchase not friends by gifts: when thou ceasest to give, such will cease to love. Fuller.

FRIENDSHIP.

FRIENDSHIP-Qualities of.

Friendship hath the skill and observation cf the best physician, the diligence and vigilance of the best nurse, and the tenderness and patience of the best mother. Lord Clarendon.

FRIENDSHIP-Reminiscences of.

I had a friend that loved me; I was his soul: he lived not but in me. We were so closed within each other's breast, The rivets were not found that joined us first, That do not reach us yet: we were so mix'd, As meeting streams; but to ourselves were lost.

FRIENDSHIP-Solace of.

Friendship, mysterious cement of the soul,
Sweetener of life, and solder of society,
I owe thee much: thou hast deserved of me
Far, far beyond what I can ever pay. Blair.

FRIENDSHIP-Strengthening of.

Friendship is the shadow of the evening, which strengthens with the setting sun of life. La Fontaine.

FRIENDSHIP-Sympathy of.

Friendship is one of the greatest boons God can bestow on man. It is a union of our finest feelings; an uninterested binding of hearts, and a sympathy between two souls. It is an indefinable trust we repose in one another, a constant communication between two minds, and an unremitting anxiety for each other's souls. What, then, is the root, the cause, of friendship?-Sympathy. Sympathy conceives friendship; friendship, love. Love is friendship. The tree that bears love, bears also friendship. Where friendship exists between two persons, there is also, always, hope; in adversity there is always a support, a refuge, a knowledge of there still remaining some succour; and as a babe cries for its mother for nourishment, so do we in adversity run to friendship for advice, fully relying on some means by which it may release us from the troubles of the world. And in true friendship there is cultivated such a love of God, such a devotion for the Creator of the world, that the chains become adamant. Friendship having thus a righteous appreciation of the Almighty's goodness and power, and a knowledge of His injunctions to the righteous, and the reward they may expect hereafter, it spreads around, everywhere, joy and happiness, causing not only fresh unions, but, with praiseworthy Christian exertion and love, rendering them inflexible. J. Hill.

FRIENDSHIP-Tests of.

True friends visit us in prosperity only when invited, but in adversity they come without invitation. Theophrastas.

FRIENDSHIP.

FRIENDSHIP -Transiency of.

For my own part, I found such friendships, though warm enough in their commencement, surprisingly liable to extinction; and of seven or eight whom I had selected for intimates out of about three hundred, in ten years' time not one was left me. The truth is that there may be, and often is, an attachment of one boy to another that looks very like friendship, and while they are in circumstances that enable them mutually to oblige and assist each other, promises well and bids fair to be lasting-but they are no sooner separated from each other, by entering into the world at large, than other connections and new employments, in which they no longer share together, efface the remembrance of what passed in earlier days, and they become strangers to each other for ever. Add to this, the man frequently differs so much from the boy-his principles, manners, temper, and conduct, undergo so great an alteration-that we no longer recognise in him our old playfellow, but find him utterly unworthy and unfit for the place he once held in our affections. Cowper. FRIENDSHIP-in Time of Trouble.

It is in the time of trouble, when some, to whom we may have looked for consolation and encouragement, regard us with coldness, and others, perhaps, treat us with hostility, that the warmth of the friendly heart and the support of the friendly hand acquire increased value, and demand additional gratitude. Bishop Mant.

FRIENDSHIP-True.
Friendship, which, once determined, never

swerves,

Weighs ere it trusts, but weighs not ere it

serves;

And soft-eyed Pity, and Forgiveness bland,
And melting Charity, with open hand;
And artless Love, believing and believed,
And honest Confidence, which ne'er deceived;
And Mercy, stretching out, ere Want can
speak,

To wipe the tear which stains Affliction's cheek. Hannah More.

FRIENDSHIP-Union of.

Friendship is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies. Aristotle.

FRIENDSHIP-Usefulness of.

Friendship is the only thing in the world, concerning usefulness in which all mankind are agreed. Cicero.

FRIENDSHIP-Violation of.

He who maliciously takes advantage of the

From the snow five thousand summers old; On open wold and hill-top bleak,

It had gathered all the cold,

And whirled in like sleet in the wanderer's cheek:

It had carried a shiver everywhere;

From the unleaved boughs and pastures bare.
The little brook heard it, and built a roof
'Neath which he could house him, winter-proof:
All night, by the white stars' frosty gleams,
He groined his arches, and matched his beams;
Slender and clear were his crystal spars,
As the lashes of light that trim the stars;
He sculptured every summer delight,
In his halls and chambers out of sight;
Sometimes his tinkling waters slipt
Down through a frost-leaved forest crypt,
Long sparkling aisles of steel-stemmed trees
Bending to counterfeit a breeze;
Sometimes, the roof no fretwork knew,
But silvery mosses that downward grew;
Sometimes it was carved, in sharp relief,
With quaint arabesques of ice-fern leaf,
Sometimes it was simply smooth and clear
For the gladness of heav'n to shine through;
and here