Article April 23, 1921 Issue

Friendship

ADA FLETCHER

THOUGHTS of friendship and companionship begin early to occupy the minds of children; tiny children have a great affection for their pets and little playmates. A child's companions also have a big influence on his life; hence the necessity of his being taught early how to choose the right friends and to know the truth about friendship.

Many boys and girls go through a phase of hero worship. Sometimes these heroes and heroines are characters in the books they read, sometimes personalities they come across in their daily lives. This phase should be watched by parents and teachers and the child guided aright, the noblest characteristics pointed out; in fact, he should be taught that Principle alone is worthy of his love and admiration. Later friendships of a more serious nature are formed, persons are idolized, and the highest form of happiness appears to be in having the companionship and being in the presence of a dearly loved friend. These ideals ofttimes bring disillusionment and disappointment. Mrs. Eddy tells us in "Miscellaneous Writings" (p. 9): "Whom we call friends seem to sweeten life's cup and to fill it with the nectar of the gods. We lift this cup to our lips; but it slips from our grasp, to fall in fragments before our eyes. Perchance, having tasted its tempting wine, we become intoxicated; become lethargic, dreamy objects of self-satisfaction; else, the contents of this cup of selfish human enjoyment having lost its flavor, we voluntarily set it aside as tasteless and unworthy of human aims. And wherefore our failure longer to relish this fleeting sense, with its delicious forms of friendship, wherewith mortals become educated to gratification in personal pleasure and trained in treacherous peace? Because it is the great and only danger in the path that winds upward."

This search for personal friendship and companionship, with its false sense of what constitutes happiness, many times brings with it weariness, sorrow, and bitterness, and the journey from a personal to a spiritual sense of love may be a dreary one, because the human mind persists in trying to attain things in its own way.

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"Riches and honour"
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