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WHO IS THY FRIEND?

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Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · May 22, 1879

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 5, No. 21.

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WHO IS THY FRIEND?

By Frances Browne

WHO is thy friend? The man that shares thy pleasures In banquet hall or beauty's witching powers; He that will dance with thee to folly's measures, And make no reckoning of the squandered hours— To whom the revel and the game is all?- These are the friends that help men to their fall.
Who is thy friend? The man that shares thy pride, Thine hour of glory, or thy day of gain; Who stands in every triumph by thy side, And never finds that triumph false in vain, But shapes his doctrine as thy humor goes? These are the friends misfortune turns to foes.
Who is thy friend? The man that for his winning To power or place hath need of thine or thee; Who will not fear thy risk, or blame thy sinning, So it but speed his fortune's growing tree; Whose praise is large, whose promise larger yet? These are the friends that fail us and forget.
Who is thy friend? The man of truth and trust, In gladness near, in sorrow nearer still; To thy faults generous, to thy merits just, Thy help to every good from every ill, Whose love for the world's hate might make amends? Alas for it! this life hath such few friends.
Who is thy friend? The best, the least regarded, In faith unfailing, and in love unchanged Through all the changeful years, though ill rewarded, Give Him thy heart, so long and far estranged; And from the broken reeds of earth ascend, To seek in Heaven thine everlasting Friend. —Frances Browne.