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Friendship: Introduction

By Hugh Black


      FRIENDSHIP

      By HUGH BLACK

      With an Introductory Note by

      W. ROBERTSON NICOLL, D.D.

      1898

      To MY FRIEND

      HECTOR MUNRO FERGUSON

      AND TO MANY OTHER FRIENDS WHO HAVE MADE LIFE RICH

      Equidem, ex omnibus rebus, quas mihi aut Fortuna aut Natura tribuit, nihil habeo quod cum amicitia Scipionis possum, comparare.
      - CICERO.

            Intreat me not to leave thee,
            And to return from following after thee:
            For whither thou guest, I will go;
            And where thou lodgest, I will lodge;
            Thy people shall be my people,
            And thy God my God:
            Where thou diest, will I die,
            And there will I be buried:
            The Lord do so to me, and more also,
            If aught but death part thee and me.

            - BOOK OF RUTH.

      APPRECIATION

      BY SIR WM. ROBERTSON NICOLL, D.D.

      Mr. Hugh Black's wise and charming little book on Friendship is full of good things winningly expressed, and, though very simply written, is the result of real thought and experience. Mr. Black's is the art that conceals art. For young men, especially, this volume will be a golden possession, and it can hardly fail to affect their after lives. Mr. Black says well that the subject of friendship is less thought of among us now than it was in the old world. Marriage has come to mean infinitely more. Communion with God in Christ has become to multitudes the primal fact of life. Nevertheless the need for friendship remains.--"British Weekly."

      Friendship is to be valued for what there is in it, not for what can be gotten out of it. When two people appreciate each other because each has found the other convenient to have around, they are not friends, they are simply acquaintances with a business understanding. To seek friendship for its utility is as futile as to seek the end of a rainbow for its bag of gold. A true friend is always useful in the highest sense; but we should beware of thinking of our friends as brother members of a mutual-benefit association, with its periodical demands and threats of suspension for non-payment of dues.
       - TRUMBULL.

Back to Hugh Black index.

See Also:
   Introduction
   Chapter 1 - The Miracle of Friendship
   Chapter 2 - The Culture of Friendship
   Chapter 3 - The Fruits of Friendship
   Chapter 4 - The Choice of Friendship
   Chapter 5 - The Eclipse of Friendship
   Chapter 6 - The Wreck of Friendship
   Chapter 7 - The Renewing of Friendship
   Chapter 8 - The Limits of Friendship
   Chapter 9 - The Higher Friendship

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