Democratic Sentinel, Volume 11, Number 12, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 April 1887 — The Use of Friends. [ARTICLE]

The Use of Friends.

A sage or a cynic who sought a subject for an essay might do worse than to consider the uses of friends, and the proper part which friendship should play in a rightly ordered human life. Every man has about him people of whom he is accustomed to think, more or less exactly, as friends, but so weak is human nature, that it seldom occurs to us to reflect whether we do anything to deserve from those persons a return of that noble title. It is of course merely saying over the often repeated charge that humanity is selfish to declare that men are far more apt to regard their fr ends as so many resources to be used to the best advantage, and fortunately for the credit of the race there is no lack of proof that real affection, genuine friendship, is by no means a lost art, or even a rare one. There is something especially vicious and debasing in the idea of using friends in the sense of getting what we can out of them. The man who had not rather serve those of whom he is fond than to be served by them, is unworthy of friendship, because lie is incapable of it. When the clergyman on the witness stand in New York declared that he always expected to make his friends useful, he unconsciously gave a more fatal picture of his ignoble nature than could have been drawn in the most vivid word painting of the opposing side. No cross-questioning, however adroit, could have elicited a confession more damaging to his character. When the astute lawyer arguing the case alluded to him as “the clerical gentleman who makes his friends useful” he appealed straight to the truest instincts of the jurors, and the stroke told most effectively. The French have a bitter proverb to the effect that in love there is one who loves and one who consents to be loved, but certainly friendship, if it exists at, all, must be mutual; and even could one so far lower his standard as to regard in merely a utilitarian light one of whom he is fond, he could not without absolute self-degradation take advantage of another’s fondness for himself. If a man is known by the company he keeps, still more surely is he known by his attitude toward those nearest his affections, and it may be laid down as an infallible rule that it is well to utterly avoid companionship or community of interest with that man whose boast or practice it is “to make use of his friends.” —Boston Courier. The AccnseJ Was Dismissed. Judge—This colored gentleman says you called him a bow-legged gorilla. Accused—l don’t remember having done so; but now that I take'a good look at him, ‘ I think that probablv I did. Judge to (colored gentleman)—Perhaps the accused didn’t mean you when he spoke of a bow-legged gorilla. Colored gentleman—Yes, he did mean me, boss. When a gennerman talks about a bow-legged gerriller he am bound ter mean me. He can’t mean noboddy else.— Texas Siftings.