much the fafter will the knot that connects them be drawn; fo much the more will their fidelity be exercised and fecured; fo much the more poignant will the mutual fentiment of friendship be; and fo much the more effectual their united efforts to vanquish every obstacle, to furmount every difficulty, and to force their way through dangers and calamities to the prize of their high calling, and to feize it with concurrent ardour. The fevereft penury, the most manifest danger, the hardest and most coftly facrifices, are at once the fuftenance and the test of their generous friendship; and the more a friend can do and rifk and facrifice and fuffer and laboriously acquire for his friend, fo much the hap pier is he in the sentiment of his friendship. And of what actions and what enterprises are not fuch friends capable! What degree of virtue, what per fection is unattainable to them! And what a value, what an inestimable value must not all this confer on friendship! What ter reftrial happiness, what outward diftinction, can be compared to it! None; it is of far greater value than wealth and honour and elevation and power and all the splendour of earthly thrones. With it, a man may be deprived of them all, and yet be happy; without it, though he had them all, his heart would never be fatisfied, nor his thirst after happiness be affuaged. -Even love must yield the palm to friendship. Senfual love is confumed and destroyed by enjoyment; and when it is not raised upon friendship, or does not change into it, it inevitably draws after it fatiety, difguft, and averfion. The joys of friendship alone neither droop nor decay, and the fruition of them never deadens defire. If friendship be lefs lively and vehement than love, it is therefore the more lafting and pure. Its objects are capable of continued advancement, of inceffant perfection; on which new beauties, new charms, new bloffoms and flowers, for ever appear. It combines not flowers which bloom to-day and are withered to-morrow; it incorporates not frail materials of duft and corruption: but its connections are of fouls, of fpirits, of immortal beings; beings for ever raising themfelves higher above the dust, for ever approaching nearer to the Father of fpirits, the original fource from whence they fprung. Love generally dies on this fide the grave: but friendship extends to the regions beyond it, into the better world to come; death only transplants it into a new fcene, where its fatisfactions will be purer and more perfect, and it will display itself in ftill nobler efforts and more glorious actions. Great as the value of friendship is, however enviable the person that enjoys it, yet is it by no means the prerogative of the darling of fortune, a benefit to which only persons of superior stations can make pretenfion. No, friendship feldom takes up her abode with the rich, ftill feldomer with the high and mighty. She prefers the cottage to the palace, the fimple manners of the private perfon contented. with his moderate circumftances, to the pomp and luxuries of the great; often does fhe rather chuse the house of forrow than the feat of feftivity. Men of the inferior claffes keep more together, are more fenfible to their natural equality, crofs and circumvent each other lefs in their views and enterprises, are lefs frequently competitors for the fame preeminence, are not fo diffipated and relaxed, nor fo often forget themselves amidst a multitude of extraneous objects and the fufferer is in want of a fympathifing being, one into whose breast he may pour out his forrows, whofe prefence and participation will comfort' and chear him, and in whofe converfation he may forget his diftreffes and his pains. Thus friendship yery frequently is a counterpoise to mifery, while the want of it deprives the most hining circumstances of the greatest part of their worth. Plain confiderations; which will not allow us to doubt that friendship is a highly covetable bleffing, that it is the choicest and best privilege of life. Happy he who poffeffes this rare advantage, who has learnt to prize it as it deferves, and is fenfible to the felicity it confers. To him it is a never-failing fpring of tranquillity and comfort, of fatisfaction and joy. To him must the path of life be far smoother, more luminous and pleasant, than to the wretch who is obliged to wander through his course, without a companion, without a friend to obferve his ways and partake of his pleasures, who must bear bear its troubles without affistance, and may often fall for want of a fupport. Wouldst thou, my chriftian brother, know the happiness of friendship from experience; then be cautious in chufing thy friend. and virtue conduct thee. Herein let wisdom Let not the outward Give graces, nor friendly looks, nor a fmiling countenance, nor flattering fpeeches, nor ftudied civilities, nor the first impreffion of complacency, nor every fimilarity in fentiment or taste, beguile thee. not carelessly thy heart to any one that applies for it, or who procures thee prefent pleafure. Place not thy confidence in any thoughtless, inconfiderate person, any convivial jester, any witling, any scorner of religion and fevere morality. Connect not thyfelf with any to whom the band of wedlock, the ties of domeftic and of focial life, and the still more awful relation that unites the creature with the Creator, are not facred. In thy choice, prefer understanding and probity to all the glare of riches and the pomp of station, candour and openness of heart to the most, polished sentiments and the moft amufing wit; prefer even the fevereft reprover to the most agreeable flatterer. Chufe for thy friend, the friend of truth, the friend of virtue, the friend of humanity, the friend of God. Rather forego a while longer the happiness of friendship, than run the leaft risk of finding wretchedness and mifery where thou foughtest for the pureft of human de lights! Wouldft Wouldst thou, farther, enjoy the happiness of friendship, and that in a rational and lasting manner? Then form no extravagant, no romantic conceptions of it. Amuse not thyself with the notion of a friend that no where existed, or who must have been a useless or a worthless member of society if he did fo exist. Be reasonable in thy demands on thy friend. Require no perfection more than human, no infallibility, of him. Forget not that he is a man, a frail circumfcribed creature, liable like thee to err and to mistake, and must and will be fo while he is a man. Forget not that he is a father, a husband, a brother, a citizen, head or member of fome larger or lefs fociety, and stands in various connections with a thoufand others. Require not therefore that he fhould always judge exactly right, give thee conftantly the beft advice, have his countenance always equally bright, his behaviour always alike agreeable and pleafing, his heart ever equally open and fenfible, or his intereft in whatever concerns thee equally active and warm. Demand not of him that he fhould live only for thee, converse with thee alone; ftill lefs, that he should wound his confcience for thy fervice, or facrifice to thee the welfare of those who look up to him for protection and support, No, the firmest tie of friendfhip is mutual exactitude and integrity in the dif charge of our duties, as well as mutual indulgence and patience. VOL. II. N Wouldft |