Part 9 (1/2)

It is just here that friends.h.i.+p makes most of its mistakes. It over-helps. It helps by ministering relief, by lifting away loads, by gathering hindrances out of the way, when it would help much more wisely by seeking to impart hope, strength, energy. ”Our friends,”

says Emerson, ”are those who make us do what we can.” Says another writer: ”Our real friend is not the man or woman who smooths over our difficulties, throws a cloak over our failings, stands between us and the penalties which our mistakes have brought upon us, but the man or woman who makes us understand ourselves, and helps us to better things.” Love is weak, and too often pampers and flatters. It thinks that loyalty requires it to make life easy as possible for the beloved one.

Too often our friends.h.i.+p is most short-sighted in this regard, and most hurtful to those we fervently desire to aid. We should never indulge or encourage weakness in others when we can in any way stimulate it into strength. We should never do anything for another which we can inspire him to do for himself. Much parental affection errs at this point. Life is made too easy for children. They are sheltered when it were better if they faced the storm. They are saved from toil and exertion, when toil and exertion are G.o.d's ordained means of grace for them, of which the parents rob them in their over-tenderness. There are children who are wronged by the cruelty and inhumanity of parents, and whose cries to heaven make the throne of the Eternal rock and sway; but there are children, also, who are wronged of much that is n.o.blest and best in their inheritance by the over-kindness of parents.

In every warm friends.h.i.+p, too, there is strong temptation to make the same mistake. We have to be ever on our guard against over-helping.

Our aim should always be to inspire in our friend new energy, to develop in him the n.o.blest strength, to bring out his best manhood.

Over-helping defeats these offices of friends.h.i.+p.

There is one particular point at which a special word of caution may well be spoken. We need to guard our sympathies when we would comfort and help those who are suffering or are in trouble of any kind. It may seem a severe thing to say, but illness is ofttimes made worse by the pity of friends. There is in weak natures a tendency to indulge sickness, to exaggerate its symptoms, to imagine that it is more serious than it really is, and easily to succ.u.mb to its influence. You find your friend indisposed, and you are profuse in your expressions of sympathy, encouraging or suggesting fears, urging prompt medical help.

You think you have shown kindness, but very likely you have done sore injury. You have left a depressing influence behind you. Your friend is disheartened and alarmed. You have left him weaker, not stronger.

It may seem hard-hearted to appear to be unsympathetic with invalids, and those who are slightly or even seriously sick; not to take interest in their complaints; not to say commiserating things to them; but really it is the part of true friends.h.i.+p to help sick people fight the battle with their ills. We ought, therefore, to guard against speaking any word which will discourage them, increase their fear, exaggerate their thought of their illness, or weaken them in their struggle. On the other hand, we ought to say words which will cheer and strengthen them, and make them braver for the fight. Our duty is to help them to get well.

Perhaps the very medicine they need is a glimpse of cheerful outlook.

Sick people ofttimes fall into a mood of disheartenment and self-pity which seriously r.e.t.a.r.ds their recovery. To sit down beside them then, and fall into their gloomy spirit, listening sympathetically to their discouraged words, is to do them sore unkindness. The true office of friends.h.i.+p in such cases is to drive away the discouragement, and put hope and courage into the sore heart. We must try to make our sick friend braver to endure his sufferings.

Then, even in the sacredness of sorrow, we should never forget that our mission to others is not merely to weep with them, but to help them to be victorious, to receive their sorrow as a messenger from G.o.d, and to bear themselves as G.o.d's children under it. Instead, therefore, of mere emotional condolence with our friends in their times of grief, we should seek to present to them the strong comforts of divine love, and to inspire them to the bearing of their sorrow in faith and hope and joy.

So all personal helpfulness should be wise and thoughtful. It should never tend to pamper weakness, to encourage dependence, to make people timid, to debilitate manliness and womanliness, to make parasites of those who turn to us with their burdens and needs. We must take care that our helping does not dwarf any life which we ought rather to stimulate to n.o.ble and beautiful growth. G.o.d never makes such mistakes as this. He never fails us in need, but he loves us too well and is too wise to relieve us of weights which we need to make our growth healthful and vigorous. We should learn from G.o.d, and should help as he helps, without over-helping.

CHAPTER XVI.

THE ONLY ONE.

”Before the monstrous wrong he sets him down-- One man against a stone walled city of sin.

When the red dust has cleared, the lonely soldier Stands with strange thoughts beneath the friendly stars.”

--E. R. SILL.

There are a great many people in this world--hundreds of millions, tables of population foot up. Yet in a sense each one of us is the only one. Each individual life has relations of its own in which it must stand alone, and into which no other life can come.

Companions.h.i.+ps may be close, and they may give much comfort and inspiration, but in all the inner meaning of life each individual lives apart and alone. No one can live your life for you. No one but yourself can answer your questions, meet your responsibilities, make your decisions and choices. Your relations with G.o.d no one but yourself can fulfil. No one can believe for you. A thousand friends may encircle you and pray for your soul, but until you lift up your own heart in prayer no communication is established between you and G.o.d.

No one can get your sins forgiven but yourself. No one can obey G.o.d for you. No other one can do your work for Christ, or render your account at the judgment-seat.

In the realm of experience also the same is true. Each person suffers alone, as if there were no other being in the universe. Friends may stand by us in our hours of pain or sorrow, and may sympathize with us or administer comfort or alleviation, but they enter not really into the experiences. In these we are alone. No one can meet your temptations for you, or fight your battles, or endure your trials. The tenderest friends.h.i.+p, the holiest love, cannot enter into the solitariness in which each one of us lives apart.

”Still in each heart of hearts a hidden deep Lies, never fathomed by its dearest, best.”

This aloneness of life sometimes becomes very real in consciousness.

All great souls experience it as they rise out of and above the common ma.s.s of men in their thoughts and hopes and aspirations, as the mountains rise from the level of the vale and little hills. All great leaders of men ofttimes must stand alone, as they move in advance of the ranks of their followers. The battles of truth and of progress have usually been fought by lonely souls. Elijah, for example, in a season of disheartenment and despondency, gave it as part of the exceptional burden of his life that he was the only one in the field for G.o.d. It is so in all great epochs; G.o.d calls one man to stand for him. As Robert Browning says:--

”In life exceptional, When old things terminate and new commence, A solitary great man's worth the world.