Editorial January 18, 1908 Issue

COMRADESHIP

John B. Willis

The gradations of our love for men, our sense of fellow-feeling, range all the way from an indifferent tolerance to an enthusiastic recognition of a common nature, common welfare, and common goal. To reach this last is to attain to a saving sense of brotherhood, and in the hour of danger and trial it has made possible that spirit of comradeship which has blossomed in history's finest exhibitions of unselfishness and love.

The fellowship of childhood, ere self-consciousness and caste have asserted their rule, is very beautiful, knowing as it does neither race; sex, selfishness, nor social distinction; but the comradeship which is the fruitage of a common struggle and sacrifice,—this is yet more beautiful, for it speaks of mankind's conscious recognition of the basis of true kinship. In the crucible of strenuous living, when character is finding its supreme test, the bead of gold appears, glowing with a light which is both native and divine; then comradeship witnesses to essential unity, and its exalted nature is revealed in the description which Christ Jesus has given of it in the 15th chapter of St. John. It was upon the fighting-line that the Master found his own, and to them he said, "If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you. ... Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you."

The number of those who have reached this nobler realization of unity with the Master and with men may not be large, and for the reason that the many are not ready to enter the conflict with error, and to assume the risk, to human sense, which the ascent to the heights of such relationship involves, but they who through spiritual advance have reached the battle-front, experience there the abandon of love, and know that spirit of fellowship which clasps hands with all humanity, and which revels in the opportunity to serve.

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