David: Five Sermons

Then in our friendship, as in everything else in the world, we shall find the great law come true, that he that loseth his life shall save it.  He who does not think of himself and his own interest will be the very man who will really help himself, and further his own interest the most.  For the friend whom we have chosen for his own worth, will be the one who will be worth most to us.  The friend whom we have loved and admired for his own sake, will be the one who will do most to raise our character, to teach us, to refine us, to help us in time of doubt and trouble.  The higher-minded man our friend is, the higher-minded will he make us.  For it is written, ‘As iron sharpeneth iron, so a man sharpeneth the face of his friend.’

Nothing can be more foolish, or more lowering to our own character, than to choose our friends among those who can only flatter us, and run after us, who look up to us as oracles, and fetch and carry at our bidding, while they do our souls and characters no good, but merely feed our self-conceit, and lower us down to their own level.  But it is wise, and ennobling to our own character, to choose our friends among those who are nearer to God than we are, more experienced in life, and more strong and settled in character.  Wise it is to have a friend of whom we are at first somewhat afraid; before whom we dare not say or do a foolish thing, whose just anger or contempt would be to us a thing terrible.  Better it is that friendship should begin with a little wholesome fear, till time and mutual experience of each other’s characters shall have brought about the perfect love which casts out fear.  Better to say with David, ‘He that telleth lies shall not stay in my sight; I will not know a wicked person.  Yea, let the righteous rather smite me friendly and reprove me.  All my delight is in the saints that are in the earth, and in such as excel in virtue.’

And let no man fancy that by so doing he lowers himself, and puts himself in a mean place.  There is no man so strong-minded but what he may find a stronger-minded man than himself to give him counsel; no man is so noble-hearted but what he may find a nobler-hearted man than himself to keep him up to what is true and just and honourable, when he is tempted to play the coward, and be false to God’s Spirit within him.  No man is so pure-minded but what he may find a purer-minded person than himself to help him in the battle against the world, the flesh, and the devil.

My friends, do not think it a mean thing to look up to those who are superior to yourselves.  On the contrary, you will find in practice that it is only the meanest hearts, the shallowest and the basest, who feel no admiration, but only envy for those who are better than themselves; who delight in finding fault with them, and blackening their character, and showing that they are not, after all, so much superior to other people; while it is the noblest-hearted, the very men who are most worthy to be admired themselves, who, like Jonathan, feel most the pleasure, the joy, and the strength of reverence; of having some one whom they can look up to and admire; some one in whose company they can forget themselves, their own interest, their own pleasure, their own honour and glory, and cry, Him I must hear; him I must follow; to him I must cling, whatever may betide.  Blessed and ennobling is the feeling which gathers round a wise teacher or a great statesman all the most earnest, high-minded, and pious youths of his generation; the feeling which makes soldiers follow the general whom they trust, they know not why or whither, through danger, and hunger, and fatigue, and death itself; the feeling which, in its highest perfection, made the Apostles forsake all and follow Christ, saying, ‘Lord, to whom shall we go?  Thou hast the words of eternal life’—which made them ready to work and to die for him whom the world called the son of the carpenter, but whom they, through the Spirit of God bearing witness with their own pure and noble spirits, knew to be the Son of the Living God.

Ay, a blessed thing it is for any man or woman to have a friend; one human soul whom we can trust utterly; who knows the best and the worst of us, and who loves us, in spite of all our faults; who will speak the honest truth to us, while the world flatters us to our face, and laughs at us behind our back; who will give us counsel and reproof in the day of prosperity and self-conceit; but who, again, will comfort and encourage us in the day of difficulty and sorrow, when the world leaves us alone to fight our own battle as we can.

If we have had the good fortune to win such a friend, let us do anything rather than lose him.  We must give and forgive; live and let live.  If our friend have faults, we must bear with them.  We must hope all things, believe all things, endure all things, rather than lose that most precious of all earthly possessions—a trusty friend.

And a friend, once won, need never be lost, if we will only be trusty and true ourselves.  Friends may part—not merely in body, but in spirit, for a while.  In the bustle of business and the accidents of life they may lose sight of each other for years; and more—they may begin to differ in their success in life, in their opinions, in their habits, and there may be, for a time, coldness and estrangement between them; but not for ever, if each will be but trusty and true.

For then, according to the beautiful figure of the poet, they will be like two ships who set sail at morning from the same port, and ere nightfall lose sight of each other, and go each on its own course, and at its own pace, for many days, through many storms and seas; and yet meet again, and find themselves lying side by side in the same haven, when their long voyage is past.

And if not, my friends; if they never meet; if one shall founder and sink upon the seas, or even change his course, and fly shamefully home again: still, is there not a Friend of friends who cannot change, but is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever?

What says the noble hymn:—

‘When gathering clouds around I view,And days are dark and friends are few,On him I lean, who, not in vain,Experienced every human pain:He sees my griefs, allays my fears,And counts and treasures up my tears.’

Passing the love of woman was his love, indeed; and of him Jonathan was but such a type, as the light in the dewdrop is the type of the sun in heaven.

He himself said—and what he said, that he fulfilled—‘Greater love hath no man than this—that a man lay down his life for his friends.’

In treachery and desertion; in widowhood and childlessness; in the hour of death, and in the day of judgment, when each soul must stand alone before its God, one Friend remains, and that the best of all.

1

From a charter quoted by Ingulf—and very probably a spurious one.