| The Every Day of Life |
Chapter 17 |
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It costs to be a friend. “For better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health,” runs the marriage engagement, and true marriage is a type of all the true friendships.
When we take a person into our life as a friend we do not know what it may cost us to be faithful to our trust. Misfortune may befall our friend, and they may need our help on ways that will lay a heavy burden upon us. It may be in their business or in their secular affairs that they shall suffer.
Timely aid may enable them to overcome their difficulties and attain to prosperous circumstances. It is in our power to render them the assistance that they need, without which they must succumb to failure. It will cost us personal inconvenience and trouble to do this. But they are our friends. We have taken them into our life, thus becoming partners in all their affairs. Can we withhold from them the help which they need and which we can give, without breaking the holy covenant of friendship and failing in our sacred obligations to them?
Or it may be the misfortune of sickness, broken health that falls upon our friend. They are no longer able to be helpful to us, as they were in the days when the compact of friendship was first formed. Then they could contribute their part in the mutual ministering, giving as well as receiving. Then friendship for them brought us no care, no anxiety; exacted from us no self-denial, no sacrifice; laid on us no load, no burden. On the other hand, it was full of helpfulness. It brought strength to our heart by its loving cheer. It was a benediction to our life, in its warm inspirations, in its sweet comfort, in its satisfying affection. It stood beside us in all our times of trial, with full sympathy, putting its shoulder under our burdens, aiding us by its counsel, its encouragement. It brought its countless benefits and gains. But now in its feebleness and broken-ness it can give us no longer this strong helpfulness and uplifting. Instead, it has become a burden. We must carry the loads alone, which their friendship so generously shared previously. They need our help, and can give in return only a weight of care.
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