THE FRIENDSHIP OF JESUS.
By Mrs. Thompson
MUCH has been said and written of that fragrant blossom of the heart, true friendship. Although Tupper declares “that man to be a marvel, whom truth can write a friend,” yet experience bears rich, though it be rare testimony to the depth, and sweetness, and constancy, embodied in a friend. Friendship is like the lilac crocus of autumn. Its roots lie deep. It is delicate, yet lasting. Like a fine ether, it pervades the soul. Sacrifice, sincerity, love, and intuition, stand ministering at its altar, and ascend in fragrant incense. Like the rays of the glorious sun, it drinks up the miasms of distrust, and covers defects and deformities with a garment of beauty. In a beautiful intimacy we express what there is divine in our natures; and in proportion to the refinement of the soul, and its kindship to heaven, is the capacity for a perfect friendship. Who can tell what the strong, steady flame has done to brighten the dark passages wherein human hearts have walked! But if we speak thus of earthly friendship, how wondrously inviting and beautiful must be the friendship of the Lord Jesus! That name that has awaked the sweetest lyres of the ages, and been uttered in the purest aspirations of worship—the ONE NAME, which is above every name—which has fired alike for conflict, and soothed for suffering! If capacities for human friendship are according to the fineness and delicacy of the fiber of the soul, what then must be the capacity of the Infinite Heart! What range and sweep in that strong, gifted, confident soul? What delicacy, imagination, appreciation, deep insight, and perfect sympathy! This friend, when he enters the warp and woof of another life, dedicates himself to that life as completely as though no other existed. He makes his interests his own, using his divine nature to give skill, and scope, and success to the heart that feels him there. There is no mystery in the workings of this heavenly friendship—it is nowise different from your sweetest earthly intimacies, only in that it is stronger, higher, more effective, more consoling. It enters the soul with a sublime consciousness of a presence which, without dissecting and analyzing, one knows is there, making loneliness a myth. It is a friendship which, though complete in each individual need, is adapted to every sphere of human experience. All thought and action, labor, science, and art, are met and stimulated by his flexible mind. Under the influence of this mighty friendship every form of sin has been conquered; suffering and anguish have been met with martyr-like patience; poverty has been borne with courage and hope, insult with meekness, bereavement with a smile, care and toil with a song, and sacrifice with open arms. It has armed weakness with strength, despair with hope, and indolence with energy. By it noble-souled men and delicate-fibered women have suffered the loss of all things joyfully, that they might lay claim to this Friend of friends. Ah! blessed friendship! Blessed Lord Jesus!—Mrs. Thompson in Ladies' Repository.