a I B RA FLY OF THE U N I VLRS ITY or ILLINOIS \ Return this book on or before the Latest Date stamped below. A charge is made on all overdue books. University of Illinois Library OCT 29 B RIGHT LIVING SERIES handsome new, up-to-date series of ^ ^ booklets unique in style and treat- ment Handsomely decorated bindings, illuminated cathedral glass decoration, dainty trellis-work effect, etc. The Kingship of Self Control The Majesty of Calmness William George Jordan Right Living as a Fine Art Newell Dwight Hillis The Master of Science of Right Living Newell Dwight Hillis The Gentle Art of Making Happy G. H. Morrison The Dream of Youth Hugh Black The Friendly Life William George Jordan Henry F. Cope THE FRIENDLY LIFE HENRY F. COPE " Altd here's a hand my trusty friend And gie's a hand thine; We'll sing a song of kindness yet For auld lang syne,^^ Fleming H. Revell Company New York Copyright, 1909, by FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY New York: 158 Fifth Avenue Chicago: 80 Wabash Avenue Toronto: 25 Richmond Street, W. London: 21 Paternoster Square Edinburgh: 100 Princes Street CONTENTS T I. T T? Life and Friendship 7 11. The Art of Being a Friend . • 13 III. Service and Friendship . • 19 IV. The Help of the Helpless 25 V. Hospitality and Friendship . 29 VI. Sharing the Common Life .34 VII. Friendship as a Climate 40 VIII, Faith and Friendship 46 IX. A Path to the Infinite . 52 X. The Immortality of Friendship 58 5 The Friendly Life LIFE AND FRIENDSHIP RIENDSHIPS are the great facts of all full lives. Friendship is the final measure of all our living. It is just folks we all are hungry for and it is just our own selves that the world wants us to give to itself. There comes a time when the gold loses its glint, when all that we have garnered when the hands and gleaned with our hands slips through hoJdi'r ^^^"^^ our listless fingers and we fall back heed- less of the goods in our hands to those held in our hearts ; how dark then are the days and futile seems all the life if in those treasuries within no riches or resources of friendship are to be found. 7 t its own 8 The Friendly Life It is the touch of other hands that makes real all our hands can hold ; we possess nothing until we share it. It is the light of other eyes that illumines our fairest pictures; we see nothing alone. The shared crust is always sweetest. Happi- every^day helpful- nesses that make ^iess cauuot sce thc cgoist, and there is no every day heav= ^"ly such a thing as individual enjoyment. Friendship is the alchemy that changes the humble possessions and even the drear things of daily toil and living into that wealth and worth and glory for which gold and jewels can stand only as feeble symbols and figures of speech. Yet friendliness is sublime in its very simplicity. There is no need of graduate courses in the art of the friendly life. Life itself is the school where the wise learn the worth of other lives and so char- acter loses the dross of self. The full life is the one that has learned to live itself out into other lives. He is Life and Friendship 9 educated who has learned to read his life in the light of that sublime intent " I am come that they might have life and that they might have it more abundantly." He lives for the enriching of life ; he gives life to all by giving himself in simple friendship. And when I come to the end of the curriculum I would ask no other award or degrees than that many should say " That was a good friend/' and some might so saying think of Him who was the friend of sinners. The greatest danger of our day is that its insistent strife shall eat away our hearts, that the struggle for sustenance shall crush all sympathy, that we shall adopt the business creed of success at any price, that love of riches shall blind us to simple human rights of love. The law of every man for himself inevitably means the devil in us all. Insensibility The aim of all living is living for all Hearts of gold do not take gold to heart lo The Friendly Life to suffering is too great a price to pay for any kind of success. It will be a dark day for us if this age of steel turns our hearts to its own element. We can afford to lose many things that we usually regard as essential ; reverses may rob us of our fine furniture, our vast ^ financial resources, our artistic treasures. Ordinary kindli- ness makes extra- Yet we cau go ou Hviug and life Still have ordinary happi- ness a wonderful fullness if we do not lose our friends, if we have held fast through all fortune's tides to affection for our neigh- bours, to common, every-day contact with people and have kept our lives open and accessible to other lives. No greater loss can come to us than that any sort of suc- cess should paralyze those sympathetic nerves that old-fashioned friendliness sent out to the folks about us. True, we have organized charity. And what could be colder, unwarmed by friend- ship ? Nothing can ever compensate for Life and Friendship ii the old neighbourly interest in one another, the grief over the friend's losses, the ten- der inquiry for his welfare, the littie kindly act of help. If we are building up walls of separation between ourselves and our fellows we are constructing our own sepul- chres. We had better be buried the day we cease to ask, with real solicitude, " And how are all the folks?" It is well to dot our cities with institu- tions of benevolence ; but better far is it to cultivate in every citizen the heart of A little warm J 1 ii 1 . cheer does more tender regard, the eyes that see in every than a lot of coid face the story of struggles and needs, cares and burdens, just like our own. People are hungry for sympathy. Your hand can never help until you give them your heart. Friendship is no fad. Sympathy is more than^ sentiment. It loathes the im- postor as much as it loves the impotent. It helps one by ?t g-ift and another by 12 The Friendly Life throwing him on his own resources. In every instance it is the seeing of another's life through the eyes with which we look on our own, and the consequent doing for another life what we would like to have done for our own. The privileges of friendship are open to all ; none is too poor to pity. It is not Our hands are a matter of glviug money, but of giving aiways^empty ti^ thc sclf. It Is uot thc luxury of the idle ; the path of service is its best expression. Interest, consideration, fellow feeling are things we all can give. Friendship does not need to wait for great enterprises ; it suggests the next, simplest, kindly thing to do. The little deeds of love make the largest record in the land where love is fully understood. Love is the one thing that lifts the world, and most of all is he lifted who learns to love the least of his fellows. our given II THE ART OF BEING A FRIEND folks HERE are some people who make brave profes- sions of intense love for all the human race with whom it is nevertheless exceedingly difficult for individual repre- you are wasting sentatives of the race to live. It is always pfnhig° for ^^nge^ an easier matter to be filled with a lofty ^^^rnl/Z til sentiment of universal fraternity than it is to exhibit even ordinary patience with the man who stands beside you. That love for man which is the best evidence of one's love for the Most High may be a much simpler and a much rarer quality than we sometimes think. It is by no means certain that it is all summed up and expressed in foreign and home missionary offerings or even in re- form and charity organizations or that it 13 14 The Friendly Life is the exclusive property of those who write and sing about the brotherhood of man. It is really an easy matter to learn to love the ideal and fictitious man, the creature of the poet's imagination. He makes no assauhs on your nerves, olfac- tory or others, and when you get tired of him you can just shut your mind to him ; he will not shiver on your mental door- step nor vex your philosophic soul with querulous intimations on bread and hand- outs. Some of the most pugnaciously selfish people in this world seem to take perfect It takes more delight in drcams of the federation of the than soft solder to cement souls to- natious of the world, when all the peoples gether shall love one another, all the flags be furled and the cannon be converted into flower pots. But that universal fraternity would be quite a diflferent matter to them if it became practical and affected the in- The Art of Being a Friend 15 terest on government bonds or the price of furs and feathers. Some of the most disagreeable people in the world, candidates for heavenly individual islands, are prodigious reser- voirs of emotional verse and phrase on brotherhood and the love of our fellow Cheerful sinners may work less beings. But the fellow-being sentiment ^^^"^ ^^^^ t^e sour saints was not made to embrace their servants and neighbours who would be quite happy if one possessed of such angelic ideals would take an angelic habitation permanently. Then you will find some ordinary peo- ple, rough, perhaps, on the exterior, and even sometimes seemingly untroubled by high ideals, about whom their fellow be- ings gather like iron filings to a magnet, to whom they cling in times of trouble like limpets to a rock. They may have heard quite nothing of poetry on brother- hood ; they are simply brothers, that's all i6 The Friendly Life There are others who seem, as we say, to have a faculty for getting along with all kinds of folk ; they make friends and they hold them. They are found amongst all kinds of people and in all walks of life, but they are the cement of society every- where. They are not often brilliant and they are seldom burdened by theories of social improvement, but they are just brothers, making us all a family. Now, there is nothing mysterious about this power that some have to win friends The secret of and to bind us all together. It simply force with men is faith in men mcaus that they have learned to look for the essential things in people ; they like us for our own sakes ; they set their hearts on the souls of men, the real self in pach of us. They get along with the hobo be- cause they see through his rags and with the king because they do not see his re- galia. The trouble with many of us is that The Art of Being a Friend 17 when we talk about brotherhood we mean we would take all men into our family if they would acquire our tastes and habits. When we look at the other man we are thinking how unlike he is to what we are and therefore to what he' ought to be. We miss the man himself because we cannot see through his con- ditions and clothes. While we are seeking to save religion from evaporation in sentiment shall we not seek to save fraternity from the same fate ? Brotherhood means many a hard Many a man has 1 1 . frr-t ^^^^^ the real lesson, means domg many a difficult riches of ufe by ,1 . . 1 . . -n ^ looking into the thmg, means paymg a big price. But it faces of the poor means finding a great reward, it means the discovery of humanity. It means learning to live with other people and so finding the greatest wealth in the world, that which lies in human hearts and minds. A man learns to love books by reading i8 The Friendly Life and songs by singing, but the greatest of all loves, the love of humanity, of lives, To open your . , j • . i i. . heart to your IS learnea just by living with people, by brother is the best j. i • . • . r t i . . way to lift your taRing time to hna out what is m them. Father y°"^ by stopping long enough in our mad business of making a living to realize that the best things of life lie in the love and life of others. Ill SERVICE AND FRIENDSHIP VERY normal man has a sense of obligation to life, a consciousness of being called to service. At its highest this becomes the ideal desire for the salvation of the world. ^^^""^ • people and you But the salvation of the world is simply the "^"^ "^^^ *° ^ worry about get- salvation of the people in the world. If people into heaven natural objects are defiled we have defiled them ; if society is deranged it is people, persons who have deranged it. The new heaven will not come by letting down golden streets ; it must come by lifting up the people to golden ideals. The need of the world is not laws, nor logic, but life and life through lives. If you would lift it you must give a life, must pour out life. Without the shedding 19 20 The Friendly Life of blood there is no putting away of the things that debase and hinder ; there is no salvation for humanity without the put- ting of our blood and bone and sinew into its service. Life is the only power that can make life. The new life of society can come It is always eas- ouly by vital proccsscs. Our own lives, ier to talk of giv- ing your life to the thcsc dccp, iuucr selves, are steadily shap- world than it is to give some one ten iug othcr livcs, while we owc our lives as minutes ^^^^ Hfe-forccs from friends, from those who come nearest to us. The life of ideals comes to us all by the vitalizing, inspiring power of the ideals and hopes of the lives of our friends. It is folly to send your faith to others by the circuitous route of the pulpit when you have the short direct service to them through friendship. The best thing you can give the world is the true and friendly life. It adds more to the world's wealth than any other Service and Friendship 21 thing. What we are is our actual eternal contribution to society. Every right life lived near to other lives means that humanity has so much more vitality and spiritual health with which to live. A man needs men more than he needs spirits. You can no more satisfy the human heart with departed souls than Love is every- 1 . , , . 1 day life-giving you can appease hunger with kitchen odours. People want people to love. No matter how perfect philosophically may be your plan of uplifting the masses by ideals you will always find that they prefer to take their ideals on two legs and with the light of life in their eyes. They * would rather associate with the most mediocre men than with the most highly cultured mummies, and you will find them getting more out of common people on the street than out of the most fascinating forms in the art gallery. The living of a true life is in itself the 22 The Friendly Life giving of that life to the world ; it is the outgoing of all good qualities in ourselves and their impartation to others. This contact and infusion with character we cannot escape. They who live lay down their lives for their fellows as well and as truly as they who die. It often seems that the laying down of life is a particularly attractive theme to Ten cents* worth pcoplc who havc uo Hvcs worth laying of help will make more religion than down. 1 hev like to talk of the cross and argument'^°'^ ° the shamc and the shedding of blood, and they succeed in satisfying their impulse for doing these things by simply describ- ing them. But other simple folks who shrink from phrases so pregnant with meaning are just laying down their lives in kindly, thoughtful helpfulness. They are never too weary to carry a plate of cookies next door, never two burdened to lift another^s load, never too busy to write a cheery note, never too much occupied to Service and Friendship 23 be hospitable to the child's story of his woes or the man's cry of need. Living for others usually has nothing spectacular about it, no consciousness of doing great things. Love never knows how great is its work, nor how much it , ^-^vingyouriove ^ ' lengthens and gives. Simple friendship in lowly ways ^^^p®"®^* may often be the highest expression of this sacrificial life. When, in days of need, my mother sent me to a neighbour with a bowl of soup, I learned more relig- ion than in any sermon and felt expres- sionally its beauty more than in any son- net on sympathy. Most of all men need the grip of the hand of a fellow and the nearness of a life on which they can draw. To be true friend to any man is to give him the richest gift you have. To walk in com- radeship with our fellows, being true al- ways to the best in ourselves, is to help them best to that which is great and true. 24 The Friendly Life To walk ourselves in friendship with things infinite and holy is to find eternal life. You can lift people only as you live with them. The faith that is now yours can Friendship is bccome theirs only as they have faith in faith's channel you, as friendship binds them to you, compels them to walk your way and soon opens their eyes to see the visions that have heartened you. Faith is not taught ; it is caught and friendship is its finest cultural medium. IV THE HELP OF THE HELPLESS OU remember the man at the pool of Bethesda? We would call him a failure ; others were ever stepping before him. In his loneliness he was not alone ; others came for their own healing, but none for his help. Multitudes of advisers wished him well ; priests would prove the curative properties of the water ; others would throw him a few coppers or some food, but who would take up his poor wasted frame in arms of strength and bear him down to the pool at the right time? There was a great vacancy in Jerusa- lem ; there was need of one who would help the helpless. This was the vacancy that Jesus both filled there and has led us to fill everywhere. He proved His right 25 26 The Friendly Life to be called the Son of God by His rec- ognition of the claims of His brothers on Him, by the reaction of His life to the touch of the life of all the divine family. We talk about the claims that Jesus has upon humanity ; there will be no trouble Faith in God is on that scorc if we can but understand nothing without . i i • i i . , fellowship with the claims that humanity has upon Jesus, "'^'^ He was the great humanitarian. He re- veals His divinity through His humanity. His full humanity by His helpful friend- ship. Men towards men are more brutal than are the brutes. Seeking their feed boxes and hayracks, they care not on whom they trample. Our factories, our streets, all our complex life, is like that scene at Bethesda — it is a good and hope- ful, energizing place for the strong, a sad, hard one for the weak. But into the scenes of selfish strife there comes another presence, that of the lover of men, the one The Help of the Helpless 27 filled with a passion for people, who does not despise the failure, who forgets that the beggar is dirty and decrepit, unwhole- some and repulsive, who remembers only that he is a man and in need ; who for- erets that He miQ:ht barofain with him and "^^^n God sym- ^ 00 pathizes He does sell His strength, who sees only the oppor- more than sigh tunity to serve. He is the great helper. His heart goes out to the helpless. He is the world's great teacher of humanity. He is the high priest at the eternal altar of sacrifice. By His pity and help for that one He turns the squalid pool into a glorious temple. He shows us how best to worship. The test of any religion, of any gospel, of any scheme of social amelioration is here: Does it really help men? Most of all, does it help those who are most needy? Is it the ministration of the strong to the weak ? How much of our success is but sin in His eyes ? How much 28 The Friendly Life that we call religion is but a pressing about the pool so that the really needy are crowded back and forgotten ? And many a hidden life is receiving heaven's highest commendation because it is try- ing to do what He did then ; it is simply The best way to seeking to help some one ; it is trying^ to lose your own ox ' ^ e> troubles is to lift be cycs to the blind or feet to the lame. up another's This is the proof of friendship, the love of the unlovely, the befriending those who can make no return. The heavenly hfe is helpful to those who are helpless. Some day.it will hear one saying : Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of the least of these My brethren ye did it unto Me.'' Here is a way of greatness that all may tread. Its simplicity equals its sub- limity. It is highest when it is least conscious of itself. It gives itself most completely when it lets out its own hunger for other lives. V HOSPITALITY AND FRIENDSHIP HEN you read that story of Mary and Martha did you never feel a good deal of sympathy for the sister who worked so hard to entertain their guest ? It seems strange that the good Friend should seem almost to rebuke her tender, thoughtful hospitality. But the good Teacher was not con- demning the hospitality of Martha ; He was commending the larger, deeper hos- ^^^^^'^^^^ pitality of Mary. To Him, as to us all, passion is there is but one thing absolutely neces- sary. That is not food and dainties ; it is not furniture and luxuries — ^it is the open heart of friendship. There was greater 29 30 The Friendly Life refreshing in the friendship of the one who sat at His feet than in all the food that the tables might bear. Do we not all need often to hear His saying — we who are careful and cumbered about many things, about food and tables, Nothing is given ^bout clothcs and houscs— that we are ill we give our- elves likely to miss that good and imperishable treasure of friends and human fellowship ? And when we would entertain our friends might we not well think less of the things we would set before them than of those riches of personality, our own selves, which we can give them ? The great need of every life, that for which our hearts are hungry, is not food and drink, it is not even books or thinking, is not silver or gold — it is just folks, people to know one another, to read open hearts, to taste the fruits of friendship. The one thing needful, that which gives happiness, peace and permanent prosperity, is just Hospitality and Friendship 31 this openness of heart, this heartfulness to others that wins and makes friends. The hospitable home is the one where people have time to know you. Where there is always a place by the hearthside and an ear to listen, where the lovelight glows from face to face. We soon forget what we have had or eaten in the homes we have visited ; but we never lose what our friends have given us of themselves. The house that has the great treasure may be one where there is no plate to be stolen but where hearts are rich through habits of soul communion. The weary The close heart man lifts himself with renewed vigour as housf ^^^^ he looks along the road to where love waits, where eyes will look deep into his ; the woman knows not the toil and drudg- ery of the day's work for the thought of the fellowship with those she loves. Many are making Martha's mistake, missing the riches of friendships in the 32 The Friendly Life machinery and ministrations of hospi- taUty ; we are so anxious to entertain our friends that we drive them away ; we are so anxious to feed them that we starve their hearts. Whatever else people want, this they want most of all and first of all, just to know people, just to have the open way into our real lives. No matter how much work a man may do he will do nothing worthy if he is too He who has busy to make friends. The value of our f^ern'rirthem iuvcstmeut ixi the world depends largely only to lose them Planner in which our own self is drawn out and enriched through the touch of other lives. No man can be great by himself alone ; all greatness is a gath- ering in to ourselves of other beings. He who chooses to find friends has that better part. The snare of our modern living is that we are so busy here and there doing many things, most of them perhaps good things in themselves but Hospitality and Friendship 33 bad when they stand before the better and higher things ; we are so full of business that we miss Hfe's real blessings. He who chooses friendship chooses that which he can never lose. No man can take from you the memory of your friend ; none can rob you of the enrichine of mind ^ ^"^"""^ ^ ' with whom you the enlarging of heart and sympathy that "^^^ "^^""p persist- came as you lay with him by the camp- fire under the far-off stars or sat by the hearthside in the home. Friends become inseparable soul possessions. So, if you would show true hospitality to any, let your first concern be that his heart is fed. He who comes to your home wants you more than he wants your bread and butter, your dainties and guest delicacies. There is a feast wherever friendship freely flows ; there is emptiness and hunger, no matter how the board may be laden, where hearts are closed to one another, VI SHARING THE COMMON LIFE HATEVER we have, we have through the aid of others ; all that we have, we have for the aid of others. Of our own un- aided strength we could gain or make nothing. Holding aught that we have Living is paying £ exclusivelv, it becomes as to the future the debts we owe the j^Qthiug to US. Cooperatiou in production and sharing in use and enjoyment are the twin secrets of rightly adjusted harmonious living. Forgetting either of these simple prin- ciples we come either to inner misery or to outer failure. We never can get along with life unless we will take it on its own terms ; invariably these are mutual serv- ice and sacrifice. Every tree in the 34 Sharing the Common Life 35 forest gives its life to . all others and gains its life from all other life. Individualism is impossible normally. Mutual service and sacrifice alone are normal. The secret of living with others is living for them ; our indebtedness to them we cannot escape ; to endeavour to avoid the payment of the debt is to hide ourselves from our greatest happiness and from our largest opportunities of self-de- velopment. The life that withdraws into itself, either in independence or in greed, begins a process of perpetual shrinking. The people of the open life are always happy people. We call them generous, ^^'^ "° look. * U J. J ^ pickle large nearted, not because they are ^^en you talk of '1 • 1 1 loving your neigh- easily imposed upon by every mendicant, tour but because they have the sense of our common life ; they seem to enjoy sharing life with us ; they both give and take freely of all that we may have together of joy or of sorrow. They seem incapable It's a profitless task trying to lay- up other peo- ple's treasures in heaven 36 The Friendly Life almost of thinking in terms of individ- uality. Such a life is happy, because it is in harmony with the laws of living ; it is neither bent on putting the earth in its pocket, nor is it burdened with a sense of a mission to carry the world on its back ; it simply shares life freely. It is the type of the friendly life. These are the kind of people we like to know even though we cannot easily estimate or make inventory of the advantages of the acquaintance. After all, what we prize most highly in our friends, is not the goods, or the cash, or the influence, or any kind of direct gifts or benefit they can bring us ; it is just the privilege of sharing their lives. The riches of friendship do not depend at all on the extent of the fortunes shared ; they depend on the sincerity and depth of the lives freely opened one to another. Sharing the Common Life 37 When I am in sorrow or distress, my need is my friend himself, not his means. The latter, without the former, would be an insult; the former will always take care of the latter. When he is in need The best cure for your sorrow is the first impulse is that of sympathy, care for another's letting the self go out to him. We all need folks, the thoughts and feelings of people more than we need alms or dis- pensaries, or endowments. Perhaps there was something greater than we have yet realized in the saying of Jesus : ** Wherever two or three are gathered together in My name there am I in the midst.'' The greatest need and the great blessing of our humanity is this togetherness, this grouping of ourselves socially. Wherever men meet in the spirit of that great Teacher, sharing their lives in human fellowship, there, if any- where, the spirit divine is in the midst. The finest thing ever said of the man 38 The Friendly Life of Nazareth was that He became the friend of sinners. The best pictures show Him in fellowship with men. He became fel- low to our hard lot, touched with the feeling of all our infirmities ; He shared our crust and our cheer ; our anguish and bitterness were His. We have talked about that life of the common fellowship as though it was one of exceeding pain and sorrow, as though the whole course of sharing our common lot was entirely repugnant to the nature of that great man. But was not that life 1.0 ve never ^^^^ pcrfectlv uormal one the world knows pain when '■ ^ it meets it h^s sccu ? Would it uot, thcrcforc, be the most perfectly happy ? The life of one is found only in the life of all Sharing life is finding it. Noth- ing will soothe our own pains, increase our own pleasures, or do more for this whole world than entering into fellowship / with other lives, sharing , our own lives; Sharing the Common Life 39 coming into the fellowship in deed and truth, as well as in sentiment with the Father's great family, with these people He who seeks ^ »i '1 t the suffering whom we meet m our daily toil and never need to J » worry as to QUtieSe whether he is walking with the Saviour VII FRIENDSHIP AS A CLIMATE IFE is largely a matter of atmosphere. But atmos- phere is a much larger matter than that of the weather and, fortunately, if we but knew it more controllable. The face of a friend will make one think of summer blooms even in a blizzard. We If if you would must cudure our physical climate but shine as the stars , . , , , . begin with a little the climatc of the soul we make for our- sunshine now , 1.1 • .pr-ii» selves by the environment of friendships. We talk about the sunny South and "sunny Spain'' ; are not all lands sunny? Does not the Eskimo have his sunshine and enjoy it? Do not the shores of Newfoundland have their clear days? Are there not sunny lives in the North 40 Friendship as a Climate 41 and shadowy ones in the South ? The truth is we are seeking for joys in circum- stances that are found only in character. We talk of happy and favoured lots ; are not all lots happy and all lives rich in favours? Those burdened ones, those who wage steadily the bitter fight with poverty, do they not talk of happy hours and have moments when the cup of joy is brimming full ? No life, at all normal or natural, is so constituted or circum- stanced that happiness is impossible to it. Are there then no differences ? Are all men equally happy and blest ? The dif- ferences are not where we are accustomed to look for them. This man is favoured, sympathy opens the windows to not because he has a larger house than IS life's sunshine yours, but because he opens his heart to happiness. This man is happy with the tiny hut because he finds his joy not in things but in high thoughts. The heart makes its own climate. The 42 The Friendly Life sun shines everywhere ; some natures hide from it and some find its fleeting gleams on cloudy days rich with promise and refreshing. You can wake up gloomy and carry a November's fog through a The songin your Juuc day, if you wlU ; or you may will own heart will < i • t i sustain you longer gcuial warmth aud cheer m to January s if you share it - - dreary hours. We all know people who seem to be always cheerful, who fairly warm up our dull lives with the glow of their own. They have found the heart's clime where the days are always bright. They are making a climate of their own. And the secret of their cheer is that they seek out the hidden source of joy and strength. The outer life depends on this inner living. The surface of a life only reveals its sources. The deeper you strike in your hold on the great things of living the higher you may grow. Joy and strength are the fruitage borne where the Friendship as a Climate 43 life's roots go deep into great confidences and aspirations, great passions, and ideals. Do we not often think of these cheery lives as possessed of some peculiar super- ficial geniality, as if they had somehow managed to avoid the seriousness of life, to ignore the import of its cares and fears? We speak of them perhaps as The farther life light hearted. But the truth may be the deep, opposite of this ; their lives are calm and "^'^^ ^ cheerful because they strike deep, they go below the surface to secret sources* The riches of life depend on its re- sources. What you have for public living depends on what you lay up for yourself in private. The atmosphere and climate of your personality are determined, not by the latitude of your residence but by your habits in seeking out strength and cheer, in reaching out after high and noble thoughts. No matter how busy the life may be 44 The Friendly Life there are hours when one is, as it were» turned in upon himself. To what do we look then, upon what do we dwell? Our own lives are Where do we speud such spirit vacations ? robbed of sweet- , ness by bitter xhc cHmate of cvcry hour is here given thoughts of others ^^^^ ^.^^^ ^^^^ seek the light ; no sunny skies can chase away our gloom if here we seek the dark- ness. This is the value of reading the Bible, it brings you into the presence and at- mosphere of great personalities, their thinking leads you to visions of the light that lies unchanging beyond our clouds and our alternating day and night. The The friendship y^j^e is the samc as in all communion of great souls i i . i • i makes rich our ^j^j^ great souls ; ucw aud high perennial own souls Springs of life are discovered. In every direction great lives are open to us. In every age and in all lands there have been those who found the essential verities that remain unchanged through Friendship as a Climate 45 all our seasons and vicissitudes. Their way to light and truth is open to us ; the way is barred only to the selfish and the insincere. Truly this is a simple message, that the heart makes its own climate ; but what a difference it would make if we would but J''''^''^.^ ""^^^ the unfading sum- cherish in our hearts all the light and mer of the heart truth and cheer we may, if we would share this inner summer tide, if we would gain the unchanging sunshine even through our varying experiences. VIII FAITH AND FRIENDSHIP ~0 be loveless is to be law- less in the heavenly king- dom. The supreme sin is that of selfishness. The best of all religion's gifts to this world is the spirit of thought, care and service for others, the cultivation of Serving man is wiUiugness to scrvc and sacrifice for those seekhig^GoT^ " who havc uo strougcr claim on us than that they are human, fellow travellers on the open way, the passion that pours it- self out on the one who is most needy. We may be selfish as a race ; but a selfish religion will never get any firm grip on the hearts of men. So long as preaching made its appeal to instincts or self-preservation alone, urging us to flee 46 Faith and Friendship 47 from punishment and to fix ourselves solid for the future, it awakened no more enthusiasm than any other life- or fire- insurance scheme. Religion has been mighty only as it has glowed with a con- No man sees less than the one summg passion to save others, to do good who always looks out for number one to all men. The life of Christ is the best commen- tary on "the law of Christ'' ; He showed how to bear the burdens of others " ; His was the life of a friend ; He spent no time about advertising His own burdens or exhibiting them as arguments for im- munity from the troubles of His neigh- bours. Sick ones, sorrowing stricken parents, hungry mob, maimed bodies and imprisoned minds crowded His own needs out of the circle of His attention. None ever sought Him only to find the Busy " sign at His door. His law of life is the living in openness of touch with men ; it keeps the gloves off the heart ; it quickens 48 The Friendly Life and strengthens the spontaneity of the hand to help. The ideal Man was, above all else, an ideal friend. Selfish-hearted enemies rec- ognized that and flung at Him the term of reproach which has since become His glory. His power over men lay not in There are a mil- pjjg proficiencv as tcacher, as lawmaker, lion ways of spell- * ing love and none ^j. leader, but in that He entered into of them confined to letters their lives and daily, in friendship's simple ways, gave His life to the lives about Him. Even the ultimate evidence of His love He chose to regard as a simple proof of friendship. Friendship accounts in no small meas- ure for the manner in which men followed the Man of Galilee. Neither persuaded by arguments nor overcome by authority they looked into His face and cried, " Tell us where you dwell Abide with us.'' Bonds of friendship brought them back when other interests attracted or when Faith and Friendship 49 doubts weakened intellectual allegiance. Long before they were conscious of any common cause that group of men became one, fused by the warmth of friendship for Him and for one another. Friendship transformed the rude, dull fishermen into ardent, tactful, successful leaders of a world-influencing force- They were changed because they loved. Living with Him ^ leads to likeness to Liking led to love and love to likeness. Him To-day men become Christly because they see in Jesus such a one as they would love to call friend, whom they would travel far to know, and forsake many things to keep. Many men are harassed over subtle definitions on the relations of the soul of man with the unseen. They fret their brains and hearts away trying to outline charts and determine soundings of the shore where the islets of our lives are lapped by the infinite ocean of the Most f 50 The Friendly Life High. But seeing souls know that forms and figures all are futile here and they are content to express the relationship in simple terms of friendship. The highest form of reUgion, on this side of it, is the soul of man seeking after ever closer friendship with the great soul that broods over all being. So thinking, religion passes from phrases to personalism. God has grown in our thinking from a giant who makes worlds to a heart that suffers with ours, a soul that seeks ours, a being who is man's friend, and who can- No man can long Satisfied uutll all humauity is em- be a bigot who tries to be a bj-accd lu thc clrclc of that friendship. brother That familiar phrase " the grace of God " loses theological angles in the sweep of its significance in His Friendship. Simple friendship is the most helpful expression of any man's religion. He is most like God who most loves man. Religion at its best is doing deeds of Faith and Friendship 51 kindness, showing friendship in plain, every-day ways. It is the laying down of life for men not by dying but by daily living for them. By thoughtfulness, Practical pity for gentle consideration, practical helpful- men is the best kind of piety ness, by doing whatever the friend of towards God sinners would do for men, it proves itself born from above. IX A PATH TO THE INFINITE RIENDSHIP may not be the last word in religion but it is certainly one of the most illuminating. The more of the divine its content seems to convey the more divine all life becomes. The more it means to us in all our living the more nearly does Looking for our ^ brothers we find j-j^^ mvsterv of Hviug aoproach solu- our Father o jtx tion, until we find the infinite face in the faces of our friends. Still are men crying, as of old, Who will show us the way to God? The heart of humanity is hungry for the in- finite reality. Therefore men flock to the cry of each new voice that proclaims, " Here is truth, here is the divine secret." Yet again and again we have to turn A Path to the Infinite 53 away disappointed ; it was not a voice ; it was but the echo of some outworn creed or superstition. Who will show us God? How can another reveal truth to us ? Each man must discover his own truth ; it cannot be borrowed ; it cannot be imparted. An- other's hand may point out some new Friendship can- not live save in glory, some shining spire of the far-off freedom city of truth, but each for ourselves we must make our own way there. But what is the way ; how may one find this city wherein dwelleth the Lord and Maker of us all ? Shall we climb up to the heavens where our childish fancy painted a gigantic being seated on the ^ clouds? Shall we find the infinite by sitting with the seers in other lands, those who peer into life's strange mys- teries ? After all is not God nearer than we know ? If we are His children may we 54 The Friendly Life not find the Father through the family ? If we have grown beyond the necessity of thinking of that infinite aflection as confined to a definite face and figure, how can we hope to better know it than He knows the through thosc iu whom affection is best setks thf good of shown and towards whom it may be most freely exercised ? Through the ages men have been seek- ing after the divine ; they are as flowers that have through many stages of de- velopment ever turned their faces towards the sun. We who cannot bear to look at the sun with naked eyes, may we not read some of his glories in the glowing You never find j^^^g j-Qg^ or daisv or poppy ? So we your Father by turning your back ^j^q ^^q^ }t wcrc, shadows of thc in- on your brother finite must find that infinite One through one another. Too, may it not be that somehow the great source of all life is expressing itself in our living ? The child is the expression A Path to the Infinite 55 of the father ; the family of the parents and its members. Is not humanity after all in its development and particularly in its social realization the expression of the divine ? These aspirations, longings, ideals ; these complex adjustments of our They seldom . transgress any manifold livmg and this growing sense law who foiiow of a Hfe that belongs to us all and binds "^^^"^^ ^"''^ ^^^^^ us all together, may not all these be but the heavenly and eternal moving in us all? Now if we would come to know any truth there is one safe and sure path for all feet, that is to do that truth. If we would know the truth as to the Lord of all being, the infinite source of life and this Father of us all, is there any better way than the free, full living of that which seems to spring from heavenly sources in our living with one another ? This is the way of the Man of Nazareth. He revealed the Father by His love for 56 The Friendly Life His children, and He invited men to know the Father through Himself, their brother. The more our lives go out in love to other lives, the more fully and clearly shall we know the divine. Christianity tells of a God who loves men, who seeks them, who goes out amongst them, winning them to the higher, fairer ways. A man is godly, not in the measure that he reaches up to the Wherever love heavcus, but lu the measure that he, too, bends in service the heart is lifted reachcs out to mcu ; he is divine in the in worship measure that he catches that glorious spirit of self-giving. He best believes in God who most believes in men. Heaven is found in humble places here ; the divine is in the faces of our fel- lows, in ways of lowly service and sufler- ing. Not in the vaulted skies shall we find the truth about the infinite, but in the faces of our fellows, in walking the ways where men and women weep, in A Path to the Infinite 57 leading little children out to fields of happy laughter, in doing for all our kind what we believe the highest would do for us all. Above all other characteristics the life of the Master was a friendly life. Men character is the sum of all life's surely thought more of His friendship than choices of their faith. In that atmosphere they found one another and so found the Father. Choosing so high friendship they found the highest life. X THE IMMORTALITY OF FRIENDSHIP RIENDS go on before, but friendships abide. The grave cuts no chasm through love and through the dark door of death runs warm and holds firm the cable of aflection. No voice may come to us ; no eyes look into ours ; years may dim the mem- The apparent ory of fcaturcs but Still withiu us is this power of death to separate is the cherishcd trcasurc of their love and firm strongest bond .if.it 11 .11 that binds the as ctemity the faith that they love us still. hving together plant the flowcrs on the mounds in the churchyard ; not because we ever think that they are lying there but because our love for them must find some expres- sion ; welling up within it must work it- self out at hands and finger-tips. Blinded by tears, watering those flowers, we weep 58 The Immortality of Friendship 59 not with sorrow that they are gone but with surfeit of emotion, more the pain of joy than of bitterness that we can thus in such a Uttle way express our love to them. There is a form of friendship altogether unaffected by the passing of the years or by the tides of fortune. It has laid hold on that which is eternal. Its bonds bind Heart strings make the music not flesh nor clay but spirit to spirit and of the ages heart to heart. Friendship defies the fading leaf, the withering cheek, the de- vouring worm ; its possessions are in per- sonality, its treasures are beyond moth and rust and intruder. This would be a dark world for the liv- ing but for our love for the dead. It comes to pass that some of us have the best part of ourselves over there and all of us are made more tender by thoughts of unseen eyes that look down on us measur- ing us with hearts freed from the bias and lusts of the world we yet are in. 6o The Friendly Life We need not worry whether we will know them again, those friends whose faces lightened ours in days gone by, for though they be changed to a seraph^s beauty we shall see not their faces but their affection. He lives yet in the dust who worries as to physical preservation He has no friends and identification. This we all know, who knows only faces who hold deep within us the friendships of those who are living in larger life, that love can never die, that affection enlarges despite the decays of time and grave and that something of the self which is the basis of friendship is immortal. This sense of the persistence of friend- ship is more than a state of feeling ; it is the first flower of immortality ; it is the eternal and divine in us answering to the eternal and divine in lives that have been loosed from our limitations. It has noth- ing to do with alleged communications from the other world. It is the deep, The Immortality of Friendship 6l abiding and strengthening sense that the web of love cannot be cut by the keen edge of death, that friendships abide through all, that love is immortal and loving the measure of our immor- tality. No wonder the immortal hope burns low when unfed by this secret supply ; no wonder men doubt the future when their Love is life hearts find no vital contact with its life, when they must depend on what the head may reason from analysis and prob- abiUties. i I am not worried as to life beyond be- cause I know there is love beyond. The only going out from life I need to fear would be going out into a world where love was not. Precise plans of eternal redemption lie beyond my reasoning but on the fact of infinite friendship I rest and know that the eternal affection will find me and teach me the larger life of the 62 The Friendly Life world where love shall have its liberty and shall be the law of all. I know not where I shall meet those friends, where father and mother and child will wait but a lovelight that beams clear here within will lead me to them and I shall know them by that light. Love will come into its own ; friendship into its fullness. The barriers will have been broken down. We shall know even as we are known for we shall love even as He loves. So what can I do better in these days than cherish this hope, magnify this life of loving, make more friends that I may have greater fullness of living there and, if the great hope of that life be this free fullness of friendship, bringing into this drear world as much of that life as I may by being good friend to as many as I may ? HENRY F. COPE Levels of Living 12mo, Decorated cloth, net $1.00 " Mr. Cope has a peculiar gift for plain thinking along with unconven- tional modes of statement and strik- ingly pat, telling phrase," — Chicago Tribune. . The Friendly Life The Right Living Series 16mo, Boards, net 35c T'be Modern Sunday School in Principle and Practice 2nd Edition. 12mo, cloth, net $1.00 Hymns You Ought to Know ( Edited by Henry F. Cope. ) Decorated, 8vo, cloth, net $1.50 A Selection of One Hundred Stand- ard Hymns with a short introductory sketch to each. A Million and a Half Sold of RALPH CONNOR'S WORKS The Doctor. ATaleoftheRockies. 235th thousand, 12mo, • " *. The best thing Ralph Connor has done since Ihe Sky Pilot' and pehaps the best that he has ever done. Here he is at his strongest and best in drawing rugged pictures of rough but true men."— A^. K. F tmes Review, The Prospector, a Xale of the crowds Nest Pass. 155th Thousand, 12mo, - - - 1-50. "A novel so intense that one grinds his teeth less his sinew should snap ere the strain is released."— Chicago Tribune, Gwen. The Canyon story from " The Sky Pilot " in Art Gift Book Series, beautifully printed in two colors with many illustrations and marginal etchings. 25th thousand, 12mo, art cover, • - net .75. Glengarry School Days. Astory ofeariy days in Glengarry. 85th thousand, 12mo, Illustrated, Cloth, - 1-25. ••Gets a swing of incident and danger that keep you tearing away at the pages till the book is done."— N. Y. Mail, The Man from Glengarry, a Taie of the Ottawa. 210th thousand, 12mo, Cloth, - 1.50 "A legitimate successor to * The Sky Pilot' and *Black Rock? which secured him swift fame that leaps to the author who strikes a new and effective note,"— i ^tf Literary Digest, The Sky Pilot, a Xale of the Foothills. Illus- trated by Louis Rhead. 2 J Qth thousand, 12mo, Cloth, - - 1.25. " Ralph Connor's *Black Rock* was good, but *The Sky Pilot' is better. The matter whicTi he gives us is real life ; virile, true, tender, humorous, pathetic, spiri- tual, wholesome."— 7"^^ Outlook, Black Rock. ATaleoftheSelklrks. Introduction by George Adam Smith. Illustrated by Louis Rhead. 550th thousand, 12mo, Cloth, - - ..^'^ *' Ralph Connor has gone into the heart of the North- west Canadian mountains and has painted tor us a picture of life in the lumber and mining-camps 01 sur- passing merit,"-*S'if. Louis Globe Democrat, UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS-URBANA 3 0112 003960041