guard the good name of your friend against any unkind, untrue slander or criticism? You will, if you remember the Golden Rule. Do you let no chance pass to help your friends bear sudden sorrow or misfortune? One of a certain group of young men lost his fiancee by a virulent case of scarlet fever. By mutual agreement, the entire club of about a dozen wrote short notes of honest, awkwardly expressed, boyish sympathy, and most of them reached him the same mail. Nothing could have been a greater help to the heartbroken fellow than to feel the solid support of his friends who were honestly sharing his sorrow. Such friendship is everlastingly worth while.

Are your friendships serving their purpose?-Line them up in imagination, one after another your personal friends, the boys and girls and older folks who mean the most to you of all the world. Yes, take a sheet of paper, or little notebook, and make a list of them. Then think of them one at a time. Are you keeping these friendships in repair? Are you doing your part to keep them warm, vital, useful, helpful? What have you been worth to this friend and that, in helping to build up his character? Has your influence with each of them been wholesome and strong? Are they better off because your life has touched theirs?

Why has your friendship with that quiet, inconspicuous fellow almost lapsed, so that you nearly forgot to list him with the others? You had been overlooking him lately, hadn't you? And since his father died and he had to quit school and go to work in the factory, you have hardly seen him. Have you said a single friendly, sympathetic word to him since his misfortune? Perhaps he is sensitive about your neglect. Be sure to see him before the week is out; walk with him to or from his work, and invite him

without fail to the next "doings of the bunch"! A friendship saved from lapsing is better than a new friend gained.

Test your friendships by the Golden Rule. Have you treated each of these friends as you would wish them to treat you? Have you been more anxious to treat them right than to have them treat you right? If you find that any one of these friendships on your list has not been mutually helpful, both for you and your friend, then something is surely wrong. But if these strong friendships, the truest riches of your life, have meant nobler character, both for your friends and yourself, truer happiness and growing usefulness, then your friendships are serving their true purpose in God's plan for your life.

POINTS FOR DISCUSSION

1. Have you ever known a person who had no friends? Who was to blame? What sort of a person was he? Why are lonely folks apt to grow queer and freakish? What is likely to happen to people when they feel that no one cares?

2. Honestly now, on what basis do you usually choose your friends? How much do selfish motives enter in? What do you think of the sort of friend we call a "sponge"? How do you like to have your friends "work" you? Do you think it is easier in your group for a boy or girl with a Ford to make friends than one with simply a bicycle?

3. What can we learn from Jesus' example about choosing

our friends? Just why do you think he chose the kind of young men he selected for his twelve disciples? Describe them. How did his friendship help them? How did they help him?

4. Is mutual admiration a safe basis for lasting friendship? Do you think mutual help is a better basis? Which is

apt to be more permanent? Why? How has this worked out in your own experience?

5. Why do you believe in being loyal to your friends? Just

what do you think this includes? Why should you protect your friend's good name? "A friend in need is a friend indeed"-have you ever proved this proverb? Tell us about it.

FOR FURTHER STUDY AND HONOR WORK

6. Study again the story of Jesus and Zacchæus (Luke 19) and explain why Jesus invited himself to be the publican's guest that day. Show how mutual help was the purpose of that friendship and its evident result.

7. Are your friendships serving their purpose? Follow out the specific suggestions under the above question on the last page. Then write out your results briefly and report.

8. How does the Golden Rule work out in friendship? Think this through carefully and write your conclusions. Then try it out this coming week as often as you can. In what definite ways can you treat your friends a little better than you have been treating them, and thus make your friendships more helpful to them?

CHAPTER XXXI

THE SACREDNESS OF INTIMATE FRIENDSHIPS

As we reach the end of our study of Jesus' ideals of living, the question naturally arises, What difference has this study made in our thinking and our life? If it has simply sprayed us with ideas, it has been of little value. But if we have really caught some fresh viewpoints and broader visions which have challenged us to nobler living, then it has been worth all our effort. The real test is in our character, our usual mode of being and doing.

Is your chum your second self? Our study of friendship has made very evident the fact that character is influenced by friendship more than by anything else. We are very largely what our friends have made us. We have been quite apt to imitate the ideals they have illustrated in their lives. Our intimate friends are the kind of folks we like; that is one reason we chose them as our friends. They demonstrate to us the way we ourselves would like to live. They make real to us, in a way we can see and admire, our own best ideals.

Is your chum a kind of second self? Is she a sort of mirror in which you may see your own reflection and know yourself better, defects and all? Remember Burns' wish,

"Oh wad some power the giftie gie us

To see oursel's as others see us!"

The answer to this fervent wish is an intimate friendship:

As in the water, face answers to face,

So in the heart, man answers to man.

-Proverbs 27: 19.

You and your chum are apt to walk, talk, dress, and act alike, you are together so much. Through this subtle imitation it often comes to pass that you can almost see yourself when you look at her! Do not let your chum be simply your echo; and do not be her rubber-stamp. You should both be yourselves and not lose your individuality in your friendship. Yet your very intimacy gives each of you a special responsibility for the other's welfare.

Friendship is the next thing to heaven.-There is something sacred about this intimacy with our closest chums. It brings you right to the heart of life, and gives you the most precious things life offers. Mrs. Browning once asked Kingsley: "What is the secret of your life? Tell me, that I may make mine beautiful too." His only answer was, "I had a friend." Most of us believe that heaven may begin here and now in this world, in the quality of our present living. If so, it is true friendship that makes our heaven, and teaches us how to be citizens of heaven in the future. If happiness in service is the heavenly life, love is the cause of both; and love, of course, is the fundamental motive in our closest friendships. Would heaven interest you at all if your friends were not there? Separation from chums is one of the worst self-denials now; but when we can be with our friends it is the nearest thing to heaven. Intimate friendship, then, is sacred, because it touches the deepest springs of our inner life, influences for good or ill our permanent character, furnishes our truest, holiest happiness, and brings us our finest chance for helpful service.