another "so far forth as the person loved exists,” and not "so far forth as he is useful or pleasant.”

Yet no man could be drawn away from himself in devoted love for another unless, for some reason and in some light, that other were looked up to as worthy of a reverent regard. Unselfishness looks upward as well as outward, and an unselfish love is sure to have a reverent upward look in the contemplation of its object. This is a recognized truth of the ages. When Wan Chang came to Mencius, a Chinese sage contemporary with Plato and Aristotle, asking the question, “What feeling of the mind is expressed in the gifts of friendship?" Mencius replied, "The feeling of reverence." Our Emerson, echoing - many a thought of the Oriental philosophers, declares: "Friendship demands a religious treatment;

rever

ence is a great part of it." Austin Phelps, ever keen in his spiritual perceptions, points out the fact that "the purest and most lasting human friendships are permeated with an element of reverence."

Sir John Taylor Cole

life-long friend, Keble,

ridge, speaking of his love for his says that this "love was always sanctified as it were by reverence,-reverence that did not make the love less tender, and love that did but add intensity to the reverence." And so it is, in a measure, in every true friendship.

Various reasons may operate to give this feeling of reverence for one who is loved because he is what he is, as seen by him who loves him; but the effect of the reasons is practically the same in all cases. A man may be reverenced for the lofty ideal he holds before the one who loves him; or for the loftier ideal toward which he is

manifestly striving; or for the undeveloped possibilities which are seen in him, or for him, by him who is his friend. He may be looked up to for what he is, or for what he desires to be, or for what he might become; whatever the cause may be, the effect is much the same in the mind of the up-looker.

And here is a reason why we can never be jealous of one to whom we are a friend, although we are prone to be jealous for him. We love him and we look up to him for his own sake, and not for our sake; for what there is in him, or for what there is for him, and not for what he is toward us or in our behalf. We are glad when he shows himself at his best; and we are never troubled that his best outshines our best, even though we should be troubled if he failed to shine as he might, while we surpassed him. Thus La Bruyère suggests, discriminatingly, that “in friendship we see only those faults which may be prejudicial to our friends; while in love we discern no faults but those by which we ourselves suffer."

This being so, it is evident that the faintest reluctance on our part to see the one to whom we claim to be a friend transcend or eclipse us in our sphere of influence or action, is so far a proof that our claim of friendship is a false one. 'Friendship immediately banishes envy under all its disguises," says a fellow-worker of Addison in the Spectator. "A man who can once doubt whether he should rejoice in his friend's being happier than himself, may depend upon it that he is an utter stranger to this virtue."

If Jonathan had envied David when he saw that David was to have the throne which Jonathan was yielding

without the credit of yielding, it would have evidenced a lack of surpassing friendship for David in the heart of Jonathan. But because Jonathan loved David as his own soul, loved him with a self-forgetful friendship, envy of David could find no place in the royal and loyal heart of Jonathan.

It was because John the Baptist was the friend of Jesus that John, at the very summit of his personal renown and of his commanding popular influence, could say, without a twinge of envious feeling, concerning him of whom he was the friend: "In the midst of you standeth one whom ye know not, even he that cometh after me, the latchet of whose shoe I am not worthy to unloose." And when, a little later, it was suggested to John that he was being transcended by Jesus, his glad answer was: "He that hath the bride is the bridegroom: but the friend of the bridegroom, which standeth and heareth him, rejoiceth greatly because of the bridegroom's voice. This my joy therefore is fulfilled. He must increase, but I must decrease."

Nor is this unenvious recognition of a friend's eclipsing power an attainment of characters in the Bible story only. It inheres in the very conception of the truest friendship everywhere. "I must feel pride in my friend's accomplishments as if they were mine, and a property in his virtues," says Emerson for us all. "I feel as warmly, when he is praised, as the lover when he hears applause of his engaged maiden."

Thus it is that Tennyson testifies of his unenvious pride in Arthur Hallam's recognized supremacy in the sphere of their common labors:

"On thee the loyal-hearted hung,

The proud was half disarmed of pride,
Nor cared the serpent at thy side
To flicker with his double tongue.

"The stern were mild when thou wert by,
The flippant put himself to school
And heard thee, and the brazen fool
Was softened, and he knew not why.

"While I, thy nearest, sat apart,

And felt thy triumph was as mine;

And loved them more that they were thine,
The graceful tact, the Christian art;

"Nor mine the sweetness or the skill,
But mine the love that will not tire,
And, born of love, the vague desire
That spurs an imitative will."

Because friendship always includes a reverent admiration of a friend's ideal,-the ideal seen in the friend, seen by the friend, or seen for the friend,-therefore it follows that every added indication of that ideal's realizing is added cause for rejoicing on the part of him who loves his friend as the embodiment of that ideal. Unless, indeed, the loved one had been looked up to for his own sake, as that ideal's embodiment, he could not have been loved as he is by him who claims to be his friend; hence envy is forestalled by the very friendship's existence; for envy is a selfish regret that another is in advance of us, while friendship is an unselfish affection for another because he is in advance of us-or ought to be, as we see it.

Nor, again, is distrust of a friend compatible with true

friendship, any more than is envy.

Distrust of another is the result of a watchful interest in one's own welfare; it is, in fact, a fear that one is to be a loser from his relations to another; but friendship being in its very nature a forgetfulness of self in love for another, it carries with it supremacy of interest in the loved one and his welfare. How can a man be afraid for himself when he has forgotten himself? "There is no fear in love: but perfect love casteth out fear," says the loved and loving friend of Jesus. "He that feareth is not made perfect in love." He who distrusts is not yet a true friend.

In pagan wisdom, as well as in inspired Christianity, the duty of trusting a friend unfailingly has found full recognition. Among the maxims of Publius Syrus we read: "The one bond of friendship is confidence;" "So trust your friend that there be not place for enmity;" "He who fears his friend gives reason why his friend should fear him," "He who fears his friend knows not the meaning of the name."

It is not that love for a friend will blind one to that friend's lack of attainments and capabilities, or to the possibility of his coming short of his ideal. But it is that friendship's love will make it impossible to question the fact that the friend is always himself, or to have any such fear of his action as comes from the selfish considering of possible consequences to the loving one through his being the other's friend unswervingly. Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him," is ever the loving cry of a child of God whose love for his Father is for what that Father is in himself, rather than for what that Father is to his loving child. "Perfect love "—that