By James Stalker
I.
IT has been advanced as an objection to the New Testament that it never recommends friendship, and, while supplying rules for the behaviour to one another of husbands and wives, parents and children brothers and sisters, gives none for the intercourse of friend with friend. *
Various reasons have been suggested to account for this singular omission. But, before entering upon these, it would be well to make sure that the omission itself is a reality. Is it true that the New Testament omits all reference to friendship?
I venture, on the contrary, to affirm that the New Testament is the classical place for the study of this subject. The highest of all examples of friendship is to be found in Jesus; and His behaviour in this beautiful relationship is the very mirror in which all true friendship must see and measure itself.
It is objected, indeed, that this instance is inadmissible, because Jesus sustained to those who may be called His friends the higher relationship of Saviour; and between those standing on such different levels, it is contended, real friendship was impossible.
But He Himself called the Twelve His friends: "Henceforth I call you not servants, but friends." From among the Twelve He made special companions of three-Peter, James and John; and of these three John was specially the disciple whom Jesus loved. We are told that "Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus;" and this notice surely implies that He stood in an attitude of peculiar friendliness towards the members of the family of Bethany. Merely as the Saviour, He is hardly to be thought of as loving one of those He has saved more than another; He loves them all alike.
But in the cases just quoted He showed preferences for some of His followers over others; and this seems to prove that within the wider and higher relationship between Saviour and saved there was scope for the strictly human tie of friendship.
II.
Among those who have written on the subject of friendship it has been discussed whether the best friend is he who loves most or he who bestows the greatest benefits.
Much may be said on both sides; for, on the one hand, there is an infinite solace in the sincere affection of even the humblest friend, however unable he may be to render any material service; and, on the other hand, in the perplexities and misfortunes of life, which comes to all, it is an unspeakable advantage to have one with a sound judgment and a helpful hand, who will interest himself in our affairs as if they were his own, because he is our friend. Yet I venture to think that neither of these is the pearl of friendship; there is something in it more valuable than either.
Let any one who has drunk deeply of this well-spring of happiness look back and ask what has been the sweetest ingredient in it: let him recall the friend of his heart, whose image is associated with the choicest hours of his experience; and then let him say what is the secret and the soul of his satisfaction. If your friendship has been of a high order, the soul of it is simply the worth of him you are allowed to call your friend. He is genuine to the core; you know him through and through, and nowhere is there any twist or doubleness or guile. It may be a false and disappointing world, but you have known at least one heart that has never deceived you; and, amidst much that may have happened to lower your estimate of mankind, the image of your friend has enabled you always to believe in human nature. Surely this is the incomparable gain of friendship-fellowship with a simple, pure and lofty soul.
If it is, what must have been the charm of the friendship of Jesus! If even the comparatively common and imperfect specimens of human nature we have known can make impressions so delightful, what must it have been to see closely that heart which was always beating with the purest love to God and man, that mind which was a copious and ever-springing fountain of such thoughts as have been preserved to us in the Gospels, that character in which the minutest investigation has never detected a single spot or wrinkle! As we read the records of the great and good, we cannot help sometimes wishing it had been our lot to follow Plato in his garden, or to hear the table-talk of Luther, or to sit with Bunyan in the sunshine of the streets of Bedford, or to listen to Coleridge bodying forth the golden clouds of his philosophy. But what would any such privilege have been in comparison with that of Mary, ** who sat at Jesus' feet and heard His words; or that of John, who leant on His bosom and listened to the beating of His heart?
III.
If that which has just been mentioned is the prime excellence of friendship, love holds in it the second place.
Friendship is not the mere claim which one man may make on another because he was born in the same village or sat on the same bench at school; it is not the acquaintance of neighbours who have learned to like one another by- daily gossiping from door to door, but would, if separated, forget one another in a month; it is not the tryst of roysterers, or the chance acquaintance of fellow-travellers, or the association of the members of a political party.*** In real friendship there is always the knitting of soul to, the exchange of heart for heart. In the classical instance of friendship in the Old Testament, it's inception is exquisitely described: "And it came to pass, when he had made an end of speaking unto Saul, that Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul." A union like this is formed not to be broken, and, if it is broken, it can only be with the tearing of the flesh and the loss of much blood.
I cannot, however, agree with those who maintain that true friendship, like wedded love, can have but one object at a time. One of the finest spirits of our century, a thinker conversant with all the heights and depths of man's relationships with man, **** has argued strongly in favour of this position, and he silences all objectors by replying that, if you think you have more friends than one, this only proves that you have not yet found the true one. But this is to misinterpret the nature of this affection, and force on it a rule belonging to quite a different passion. At all events, the example of Christ appears to support this view, and to prove that in friendship there may be different degrees, and that the heart is capable of enjoying several friendships at the same time.
IV.
The love of friends is an active passion, and delights in rendering services and bestowing benefits.
So sensible of this were the ancients that, in discussing the duties of friendship, what they asked was, not how much one friend ought to do for another, but where the limit was at which he ought to stop. They took it for granted that he would do, suffer and give all he could for his friend's sake; and they only prescribed to him to restrain himself at the point where his zeal might clash with some still higher obligation to his family, his country or his God. In accordance with this they represented friendship in art as a young man bareheaded and rudely attired, to signify activity and aptness for service. Upon the fringe of his garment was written Death and Life, as signifying that in life and death friendship is the same. On his forehead was inscribed Summer and Winter, meaning that in prosperity or adversity friendship knows no change except in the variety of its services. The left shoulder and the arm were naked down to the heart, to which the finger of the right hand pointed at the words Far and Near, which expressed that true friendship is not impaired by time or dissolved by distance. *****
Of this feature in the friendships of Jesus it would be easy to give examples; but none could be more striking than His behaviour at the death and re- surrection of Lazarus. Every step of His on this occasion is characteristic. His abiding two days still in the place where He was, after receiving the news of His friend's death, in order to make the gift He was about to bestow more valuable; His venturing into Judaea in spite of the dangers He was exposed to and the fears of the Twelve; His fanning into flame of Martha's weak faith; His secret sending for Mary, that she might not miss the great spectacle; His sympathy with the emotions of the scene, so intense that He wept and the spectators exclaimed, " Behold, how He loved him; " His preparation of the sisters, by His prayer, for the shock of seeing their brother emerging from the sepulchre in his graveclothes; and then the benefaction of his resurrection - all these are traits of a love that was delicate as a woman's heart, strong as death and bountiful as heaven.
But friendship can sometimes show its strength as much by the readiness with which it accepts benefits as by the freedom with which it gives them. It proves by this its confidence in the love on the other side. Jesus gave such a proof of the depth of His friendship for St. John when, hanging on the cross. He asked the beloved disciple to adopt Mary as his own mother. Never was there a more delicate expression given to friendship. Jesus did not ask him if he would; He took his devotion for granted; and this trust was the greatest honour that could have been conferred on the disciple.
V.
It is a well-known characteristic of friendship that friends enjoy being in each other's company and hearing each other talk, and that they admit one another to the knowledge of secrets which they would not reveal to the world at large.
It is the commonest saying about two very intimate friends, that if you arc seeking the one, you will do best to resort to the abode of the other. In each other's company they are at peace; speech between them is hardly necessary, for they have a subtler way of divining thought and feeling, and it is a precious privilege of friends to be silent in each other's company without awkwardness. Yet, when the gates of speech are opened, there is an outpouring of the mind's wealth such as takes place in no other circumstances. For nothing needs to be concealed. The shy thought, which scarcely ventured to show its face even to its own creator, is tempted out; the hardy opinion utters itself without fear; confidence is responded to with confidence; like two coals, burning feebly apart, which, when flung together, make a merry blaze, so mind and mind burn as they touch, and emit splendours which nothing but this contact could evoke. He is ignorant of one of the most glorious prerogatives of manhood who does not carry, treasured in his mind, the recollection of such golden hours of the feast of reason and the flow of soul.
Jesus expressly chose the Twelve "that they might be with Him." For three years they were His constant companions; and often He would take them away into uninhabited spots or on distant journeys for the express purpose of enjoying with them more uninterrupted intercourse. In the Gospel of St. John we have notes of these conversations, and from the wide contrast between the sayings of Jesus in this Gospel and those reported in the Synoptists, which rather represent His addresses to the people at large, we may perceive how fully in these interviews He opened to the Twelve His secret mind. And the kind of impressions which they received from these confidences may be learned from the saying of the two with whom He conversed on the way to Emmaus: "Did not our heart burn within us as He talked with us by the way, and as He opened to us the Scriptures? "
The minds of the most favoured apostles especially carried in subsequent years the priceless memory of many great hours like this, when, with hearts lost in wonder, they gazed into the vast and mystic realm of the thoughts of Christ. And they were vouchsafed a few hours even greater, when He took them away with Him to pray; as He did, for instance, when they beheld His glory in the Holy Mount, or when He invited them to watch with Him in Gethsemane. Never surely was He so unmistakably the human friend as when, on the latter occasion, He threw Himself on their sympathy, entreating them to be near Him in His agony.
These scenes excite our wonder that any should have been admitted so far into His secret life. Were not these hours of prayer especially too sacred for any mortal eyes to see? That His friends were admitted to them proves that it is a prerogative of friendship to be admitted far into the secrets of religious experience.
It is a truncated and most imperfect friendship when the gateway of this region is closed; for it means that the one friend is excluded from the most important province of the other's life. Hence it may be affirmed that friendship in its highest sense can exist only between Christians; ****** and even they only taste the bloom on this cup when they have arrived at the stage of free and frequent converse on those themes which were native to the mouth of Christ.
VI.
Friendship, like everything else, is tested by results. If you wish to know the value of any friendship, you must ask what it has done for you and what it has made you.
The friendship of Jesus could stand this test. Look at the Twelve! Consider what they were before they knew Him, and think what His influence made them and what position they occupy now! They were humble men, some of them, perhaps, with unusual natural gifts, but rude and undeveloped everyone. Without Him they would never have been anything. They would have lived and died in the obscurity of their peasant occupations and been laid in unmarked graves by the blue waters of the Sea of Galilee. They would never have been heard of twenty miles from home, and would all have been forgotten in less than a century. But His intercourse and conversation raised them to a place among the best and wisest of the sons of men; and they now sit on thrones, ruling the modern world with their ideas and example.
Our friendships, too, must submit to this test. There are friendships so-called, which are like millstones dragging down those who are tied to them into degradation and shame. But true friendship purifies and exalts. A friend may be a second conscience. The consciousness of what he expects from us may be a spur to high endeavour. The mere memory that he exists, though it be at a distance, may stifle unworthy thoughts and prevent unworthy actions. Even when the fear of facing our own conscience might not be strong enough to restrain us from evil, the knowledge that our conduct will have to encounter his judgment will make the commission of what is base intolerable.
Among the privileges of friendship one of the most valuable is the right of being told our faults by our friend. There are ridiculous traits of character in every man, which all eyes see except his, own; and there are dangers to character, which the eye of a friend can discern long before they are visible to ourselves. It requires some tact to administer such reproof, and it requires some grace to take it gratefully; but " faithful are the wounds of a friend," and there are few gifts of friendship more highly to be prized than words of wise correction. *******
Whilst, however, we estimate the value of the friendships we enjoy by their influence on us, it is no less important to remember that our own conduct in this relationship has to stand the same test. Is it good for my friend that I am his friend In the maturity of his fully formed judgment will he still prize the connection? At the judgment seat and in eternity will he look back on it with approval? A man will hesitate to answer these questions; but surely there is no object worthier of intense desire and earnest prayer than that our friendship may never be detrimental to him we love-that it may never pull him down, but help to raise and sustain him. Would it not be a prize better than any earthly distinction, if in the distant years, when we are old and grey-headed, or perhaps beneath the sod, there were one or two who could say, His influence was a redeeming element in my life; he made me believe in goodness and think highly of human nature; and I thank God I ever knew him?
There is no way in which we can have any guarantee of exerting such an influence except by keeping ourselves in contact with the great source of good influence. Christ was the friend of Peter and John and James, of Martha and Mary and Lazarus, in Palestine long ago. But He is still the friend of men; and, if we wish it, He will be ours. There are those who walk with Him and talk with Him. They meet Him in the morning when they awake; He is with them in the street and at their work; they tell Him their secrets and appeal to Him in every time of need; they know Him better than any other friend. And these are they who have found the secret of existence and keep alive the faith of mankind in the reality of the life of Christ.
* In an argument designed to prove that Christianity is unfavourable to friendship, the fact might be adduced, that the best book on the subject is from the pen of a heathen. From the classical age of English theology we have two treatises on the subject, one from the Royalist side by Jeremy Taylor, the other from the Puritan side by Richard Baxter; but neither possesses the exquisite flavour of Cicero's De Amicitia. The Lysis of Plato is interesting, as opening some of the difficulties of the subject, but it is not an important dialogue. Shakspeare also has discussed some of the difficulties in Two Noble Kinsmen and Two Gentlemen of Verona, and he has given the whole subject an exquisite embodiment in The Merchant of Venice. But the glory of English literature in this department is In Memoriam. ** The heathen held woman to be unfit for this relationship, and too many Christian thinkers have followed in their footsteps, alleging such pleas as that a woman cannot keep a secret or that she cannot give counsel in affairs of difficulty. But Jesus "loved Martha and her sister; " some of His friends were women. Thus He vindicated the right of women to this honourable position, and hundreds of the best and manliest of His servants have since experienced the solace and strength springing from the friendship of good women; and, as one of them (Jeremy Taylor) has said, " a woman can love as passionately, and converse as pleasantly, and retain a secret as faithfully, and be useful in her proper ministries; and she can die for her friend as well as any Roman knight."
***" Zu trauter Freundschaft ist es nicht genug, Dass man auf Du und Du ein Glas geleert, Auf Einer Schulbank bei einander sass, In Einern Cafe oft zusammentraf, Sich auf der Strasse hoflich unterhielt, im selben Club dieselben Lieder sang, Als Publicisten Eine Farbe trug, Auch in der Presse sich einander pries."
Bacgesen, quoted by Martensen.
****ROTHE, See his Ethik, vol. p. 67. Germany is fortunate in having such examples of friendship among its greatest men as that of Luther and Melanchthon, and that of Goethe and Schiller.
***** From Jeremy Taylor's treatise on Friendship.
****** "Ihre hochste Intensitat hat die Freundschaft als religiose Freundschaft, als Wahlanziehung der Freunde vermoge der specifischen Wahiverwandtschaft ihrer religioscn lndividualitaten. Denn wegen der wesentlich centralen Stellung der Frommigkeit im Menschen ist die religiose specifische Sympathie der Individluen wesentlich specifische Sympathie derselben nach der Totalitat ihrer sittlichen Individualitat, nach dem ganzen innersten Kern derselben."-Rothe, Christliche Ethik, vol. iv., p. 68.
******* Cicero adds something more: " Ut igitur et monere et moneri proprium est verae amicitiae, et alterum libere facere, non aspere, alterum patienter accipere, non repugnanter; sic habendum est, nullam in amicitiis pestem esse majorem, quam adulationem, blanditiam, assentationem: multis enim nominibus est hoc vitium notandum levium hominum atque fallacium, ad voluntatem loquentium omnia, nihil ad veritatem. Cum autem omnium rerum simulatio vitiosa est tollitenim judicium veri idque adulterat, turn amicitiae repugna maxime: delet enim veritatem, sine qua nomen amicitiae valere non potest. Nam cum amicitiae vis sit in eo, ut unus quasi animus fiat ex pluribus, qui id fieri poterit, si ne in uno quidem quoque unus animus erit idemque semper, sed varius, commutabilis, multiplex.? Quid enim potest esse tam flexibile tam devium, quam animus eius qui ad alterius non modo sensum ac voluntatem, sed etiam vultum atque nutum convertitur? "- De Amicitia, cap. 25.
