Part 57

"... For instance, it often happens that friends need remonstrance and even reproof. When these are administered in a kindly spirit they ought to be taken in good part. But somehow or other there is truth in what my friend Terence says in his Andria: 'Compliance gets us friends, plain speaking hate.'

"Plain speaking is a cause of trouble, if the result of it is resentment, which is poison to friendship; but compliance is really the cause of much more trouble, because by indulging his faults it lets a friend plunge into headlong ruin. But the man who is most to blame is he who resents plain speaking and allows flattery to egg him on to his ruin.... If we remonstrate, it should be without bitterness; if we reprove, there should be no word of insult.... But if a man's ears are so closed to plain speaking that he cannot bear to hear the truth from a friend, we may give him up in despair. This remark of Cato's, as so many of his did, shews great acuteness: 'There are people who owe more to bitter enemies than to apparently pleasant friends: the former often speak the truth, the latter never.' Besides, it is a strange paradox that the recipients of advice should feel no annoyance where they ought to feel it, and yet feel so much where they ought not. They are not at all vexed at having committed a fault, but very angry at being reproved for it."

CICERO.

"Men of character like to hear of their faults; the other class do not."

EMERSON.

"Before giving advice we must have secured its acceptance, or rather, have made it desired."

Amiel's Journal.

Friendship

AUGUST 12

"The friendship of Jesus was not checked or foiled by the discovery of faults or blemishes in those whom He had taken into His life. Even in our ordinary human relations we do not know what we are engaging to do when we become the friend of another. 'For better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health,' runs the marriage covenant. The covenant in all true friendship is the same. We pledge our friend faithfulness, with all that faithfulness includes. We know not what demands upon us this sacred compact may make in years to come. Misfortune may befall our friend, and he may require our aid in many ways. Instead of being a help he may become a burden. But friendship must not fail, whatever its cost may be. When we become the friend of another, we do not know what faults and follies in him closer acquaintance may disclose to our eyes. But here, again, ideal friendship must not fail."

Personal Friendships of Jesus, J. R. MILLER.

"For he that wrongs his friend Wrongs himself more, and ever bears about A silent court of justice in his breast, Himself the judge and jury, and himself The prisoner at the bar, ever condemned."

TENNYSON.

Friendship

AUGUST 13

"Treat your friends for what you know them to be. Regard no surfaces. Consider not what they did, but what they intended."

THOREAU.

"What makes us so changeable in our friendships, is our difficulty to discern the qualities of the soul, and the ease with which we detect those of the intellect."

"Judge not thy friend until thou standest in his place."

RABBI HILLEL.

"Criticism often takes from the tree caterpillars and blossoms together."

Friendship

AUGUST 14

"There are two elements that go to the composition of friendship, each so sovereign that I can detect no superiority in either, no reason why either should be first named. One is Truth ... the other is Tenderness."

EMERSON.

"The essence of friendship is entireness, a total magnanimity and trust.... A friend is a person with whom I may be sincere. Before him I may think aloud."

EMERSON.

"People do not sufficiently remember that in every relation of life, as in the closest one of all, they ought to take one another 'for better for worse.' That, granting the tie of friendship, gratitude, esteem, be strong enough to have existed at all, it ought, either actively or passively, to exist for ever. And seeing we can at best know our neighbour, companion, or friend as little, as alas! we often find he knoweth of us, it behoveth us to trust him with the most patient fidelity, the tenderest forbearance; granting unto all his words and actions that we do not understand, the utmost limit of faith that common sense and Christian justice will allow. Nay, these failing, is there not left Christian charity? which being past believing and hoping, still endureth all things."