Article June 7, 1947 ISSUE

Friendship

MAY EDWARDS

Friendship in its highest sense is a quality inherent in God's spiritual nature. Man, His image and likeness, reflects this spiritual quality. It is his inheritance, a priceless gift that can never be lost or reversed. It unfolds to the human consciousness in proportion to one's spirituality.

A dictionary defines friendship as "a deep, quiet, enduring affection." And in Proverbs we read (Prov. 17:17), "A friend loveth at all times." What is it we love in our friends? Is it not the Godlike qualities of unselfishness, gentleness, kindness, loyalty, understanding? The motive of true friendship is to comfort, encourage, and bless. Friendship makes no personal demands, because it understands and trusts the operation of the law of brotherly love.

The human sense of friendship often falls below this standard. The friends of today, alas, may become the enemies of tomorrow. The present state of world affairs seems to bear witness to this fact. Yet our divinely inspired Leader, Mary Baker Eddy, points out (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 122). "Divine Love knows no hate; for hate, or the hater, is nothing: God never made it, and He made all that was made." Why is it then one occasionally hears of a promising and beautiful friendship wrecked through some vagary of the human mind? Friction and inharmony arise from the false claim that life is resident in matter instead of in God. This claim is made by false material sense, which, through evil suggestions and lying arguments, would hide man's harmonious relation to his Maker and to his fellow man. The Christian Scientist will not be mesmerized by its trickery, for he understands the insubstantial nature of its claims.

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