Rensselaer Union, Volume 9, Number 38, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 June 1877 — FRIENDSHIP AMONG MEN. [ARTICLE]

FRIENDSHIP AMONG MEN.

[Extract from a Recent Sermon by Prof. Swing, of Chicago.] Behold the man—a friend of publicans and sinners.— Matt, xi., 19. This text opens to view a proof of Christ’s divineness and the way of His success. To a world which had been overrun with cruelty, He came, offering a wide sympathy. To such an extreme aid He carry this sympathy that He was looked upon as a most reckless dispenser of regards—" He was a friend of publicans and sinners.” * * * * Latterly the world has’discoursed much about love. The platform and the garret have agitated this theme. Indeed, ever since the days of Sappho, and Cleopatra, and King David, and even Rebecca and Ruth.there has been no scarcityof discourse about that more romantic form of sentiment. Of that other affection which should bind man to man, and which should modify and soften society into civilization, little is said from year toyear, and almost from generation to generation. Doubtless, in that quality of personal esteem called friendship, there can be found as much proof of civilization as in any other quality of the soul. A low form of humanity can betray a powerful passion, but it is only a high form of human nature that can reach and maintain a strong and consistent friendship. It must spring from intellectual as well .as emotional companionship; it must come with a most delicate perception of the right of others, and must always be attended by a moderate estimate of self; and hence the grace called by this sacred name awaits the dawn of a high civilization. Borne of those early instincts which pertain to savage life, and which may be grouped under the general head of selfishness, must lie stamped out like a fire, or beaten to death like serpents, before this higher virtue can be grown; Weeds come first in the field, the useful grains after the battle with bramble and wild grass has been fought. So in the soul the lower impulses come easiest, the higher after a long battle has been fought. The love of which some of the modern socialists have written can be found in perfection among the Sioux Indians, but a friendship which sticks closer than a brother and which “grapples with hooks of steel,” appears only when the mind has thrown off its brute shell and has spread divine wings. It is safe to say that it will become a more conspicuous part as society itself shall advance. Cicero says: “Friendship is possible only among the good.” Evidently he means that the souls that would possess it must have risen above selfishness, and have become capable of calmness of action and judgment.. If this be true, then the world’s friendship will follow the world’s virtue, and like a gorgeous and sweetly-perfumed flower, will bloom only in a tropical clime. Of all the virtues, friendship has the widest and the most lasting domain. AU mortals need it, and death will not end it. Charity, and toleration and sympathy will terminate it in the tomb, but friendship will always follow the soul, be its home anywhere and its life ever so long. An apology for such a theme may be found easily in the age around us, for, while, doubtless, this virtue plays a greater part in human affairs than it played in old centuries, yet its progress is still too feeble and too slow, and is more the incident of civilization than the result of any effort or thought on the part of the present gener at ion. Our friendship is more the result of accident than of any comprehension of the dignity of that shape of life. Instead of being the open champions of its cause, many, as far as they are conscious of it, are rather ashamed of it, as though it were something like the tender passion of the novels. Not only do our times need lessons in common honesty, but lessons in friendship; for, while honesty may mover somewhat the heart, friendship will arouse to a real heroism. Honesty will help a man to pay his debts; but a divine friendship for his fellow-man will make the payment of the last dollar a thing infinitely glorious to be done. In this age of suspending firms and suspending banks, each man that suspends generally feels that he will pay back'the

last shilling which he owes to his fellow-men. But *ll i trow perishes in thirty days, not only because he has not the assets, but often because the sentiment of friendship is so weak that It cannot furnish an impulse that can show life beyond a change of the moon. There is a fatal term in modern speech—a term which beneath the livery of a saint conceals the cloven foot of quite another character—and that phrase is “ a business transaction." When a widow or an orphan or a personal friend puts money in a bank and, after a few days or months, the bank closes, this is called “ a business transaction.” There are a hundred forms of it, but in any or all of its forms it is simply a remnant of that trait in the Sioux Indian which makes him creep up at midnight and stampede the horses and cattle of the white settler. All the land groans under these “business transactions," which by a practice of thirty years have become at last as cold-blooded as a Chinese executioner. Friends actually rob friends under the protection of the goddess called Business. As in the old Empires there were temples in which and times when offerings to the goddess of some vice became a virtue, so in our day there is a divinity called Business, by whose altar the common conscience is put aside, and that becomes a part of commerce which at some other place or time would be called robbery. Such a condition of things will continue while man looks upon his fellow as a person to be plundered rather than as a companion to be esteemed. As things now go, it is sometimes difficult to gather together a club-meeting or a weddingparty, or a church sociable, without bring, ing race to face parties who have lust dragged each other through this valley and shadow of a “ business transaction,” and are cherishing such memories of it as no music can efface. . . . Almost all the great writers who have lived have offered their tribute to this jewel (friendship) of the spirit. Blair calls friendship the “cement of society.” Richter says: “ The elevated and pure soul cannot hear the word spoken without attaching to it all the grandeur of which the heart is susceptible." Cicero wrote a long treatise upon it, and among his beautiful sentences has this one: “I can only urge you to prefer friendship to all human possessions, for there is nothing so suited to our nature, so well adapted to prosperity or adversity.” The same writer quotes as monstrous the speech of an actor in a play that, “ men should always act as though they were about to become enemies.” The motto of this high and calm attachment should be “ forevef.” In the same essay the writer says: “This is a virtue regarding whose merit all mankind agree.” Thus all the deep students of society in the Ipng past have paused and, as it were, have uncovered their heads when thev have passed by the shrine where Friendship sat looking down in perpetual benignity. As love became the basis of charity in one age, so in an age of more virtue and thought this devotion of man to man might easily become an ecjual but purer inspiration. We admire it when we see it, but we all forget to live its life. When we see a man imperiling his life for a friend, our admiration becomes unbounded, and for an hour we feel how unworthy is the ambition of Kings or Generals compared with this devotion of heart to heart. When the Spottiswood Hotel was burning at Richmond on a Christmas Day, a few years ago, an incident occurred which reminds us that there is in the soul a sentiment capable of achieving greater things than man has yet drawn from its resources. The incident is related in the address of a public man, and thus was rescued from the perishable newspaper. A Mr. Hines busied himself in seeking through the smoke and heat of the room and corridors for any lost or suffocated one. Learning that a special friend was missing, he plunged once more into the rolling black and hot cloudy and after an absence of seconds, which seem like hours, he appeared at an upper window, half carrying, half dragging the unconscious man. A shout of joy went up from the street. But he had reached the window a minute too late. The center of the building fell and dragged inward into the crater of the volcano the window and wall which were presenting to the throng such a picture of human devotion. Death perhaps' cam to carry them both to where friendship is pure and imperishable. At the burning of another hotel not long since there was a similar instance of self-sacrifice, and this display of love for a man burst forth from a heart not specially trained according to church rules or the rules of high society. Evidently there is in mankind some unmined riches, some hi idea ore, diamonds yet unseen, whose riches and light will spring up in other days. Often have you seen rude, playful sketches of that kind of boy called “The Neglected Genius.” He is roughly and poorly clad. His hair is not looked after by any mother or sister. He is barefooted. He is sitting on the humblest bench in the log school-house, and in all ways' looks as though no one in the world knew him or cared for him, and as though any fencecorner or hay-stack might be his home. But mark this: On his slate he has drawn the teacher’s face, and he smiles, and the better-dressed boys around smile at the sly portrait of the master. In this embodiment of neglect slumbers a mind which years not far away will call “Cole," or “ Powers," or “ Angelo.” Just thus in the midst of civilization, even of Christianity, there is sitting a form unseen almost, quite uncared for, ragged, homeless. It is barefooted and hungry. But look at this humble being closely and see what is in the heart or hear what words it is repeating to Itself, what a hymn it is chanting to its own bosom. The words are: “A brother is born for adversity,” and “There is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother.” “ 1 have not called you servants, but I have called you friends.” The soliloquy runs over the centuries, and from all the mighty souls that have lived, inspired and uninspired, picks out such golden words. This humble being who has to chant alone because the world is too cold or busy to join in the song, is called Friendship, the “ Neglected Genius” of Christianity. Beyond doubt years are coming which will crowd back many a doctripe which has puzzled the intellect or chilled the soul of mankind, and will make this least to be greatest, and this last to be first. This beautiful Cinderella, sitting in the ashes to-day while her vain sisters, which one may name Philosophy and Metaphysics, are decorating themselves for the dazzling feast, will on the morrow be found to be the real beautiful body and soul of the group, and will be led up into the palacelife of a higher civilization. What richness there is in the human heart will at last become manifest. Gold which was trampled over for thousands of years by brute and savage, at last shines forth in the coins and jewels of enlightened man; and so the virtues covered up in the soul will rise up in majesty before God will permit the drama of earth to close. He would not have planted the seeds had he

not contemplated a harvest. The seeds have long been lying in the mind. Even when old Cyrus was King, and had taken captive on the battle-flelu the Prince of Armenia, to Cyrus, who asked the Prince what sum he would give if he spared his life, he said, “All my property I” “ What will you give if I will spare your family ?” “My life!" The reply so struck the conqueror that he released at once the captive. Bt. John saw this half-concealed virtue when he said, “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends;” and Paul dreamed of it when be said that “ peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die.” Thus the seeds of this flower have long lain In the soil of earth, and doubtless before us somewhere will come a blossoming that will fill the air with perfume and the world’s autumn with fruit. And no dying for friends will be demanded. No such sacrifice follows friendship more than one day in a thousand; but tliis quality will find in the houses of business, in the streets, in the social circle, in the church, in the relations of Christians, in the sermons of the pulpit, in the columns of the religious press, in the breadth of Christian creeds, in the equality of the churches, ample field for its evolutions. It will come to mitigate the per cents, of the Shylocks, to do away with an ethics of business that shall differ from the ethics of a brotherhood; it will come to make a business transaction as pleasant as an exchange ot greetings on the street; it will come to soften criticism of each other, and to crowd into oblivion the religions of large persecutions for small distinctions; it will come to help a true idea of Christ to penetrate the inmost spirit of humanity.