The Making of Friendship by David Grayson

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Oct 17, 1912

The Making of Friendship

By David Grayson

FRIENDSHIP, it seems to me, is like happiness. She flies pursuit; she is shy, and wild, and timid, and will be best wooed by indirection. Quite unexpectedly, sometimes, as we pass in the open road, she puts her hand in ours, like a child. Friendship is neither a formality nor a mode; it is rather a life.

It is not the substance of what we say to one another that makes us friends, nor yet the manner of saying it, nor is it what you do or I do, nor is it what I give you, or you give me, nor is it because we chance to belong to the same church, or society, or party that makes us friendly. Nor is it because we entertain the same views or respond to the same emotions. All these things may serve to bring us nearer together, but no one of them can of itself kindle the divine fire of friendship. A friend is one with whom we are fond of being when no business is afoot nor any entertainment contemplated. A man may well be silent with a friend. “I do not need to ask the wounded person how he feels,” said the poet, “I myself became the wounded person.”—David Grayson.