union is not
that both parties are alike in mind, but that they are akin in soul.
Mere intellect only divides men further than the ordinary natural and
artificial distinctions that already exist. There are endless
instances of this disuniting influence to be seen, in the contempt of
learning for ignorance, the derisive attitude which knowledge assumes
toward simplicity, the metropolitan disdain for provincial Galilee, the
_rabies theologica_ which is ever ready to declare that this people
that knoweth not the law is accursed. It is love, not logic, which can
unite men. Love is the one solvent to break down all barriers, and
love has other grounds for its existence than merely intellectual ones.
So that although similarity of taste is another bond and is perhaps
necessary for the perfect friendship, it is not its foundation; and if
the foundation be not undermined, there is no reason why difference of
mental power should wreck the structure.

However it happen that friends are separated, it is always sad; for the
loss of a friendship is the loss of an ideal. Sadder than the pathos
of unmated hearts is the pathos of severed souls. It is always a pain
to find a friend look on us with cold stranger's eyes, and to know
ourselves dead of hopes of future intimacy. It is a pain even when we
have nothing to blame ourselves with, much more so when we feel that
ours is the fault. It would not seem to matter very much, if it were
not such a loss to both; for friendship is one of the appointed means
of saving the life from worldliness and selfishness. It is the
greatest education in the world; for it is education of the whole man,
of the affections as well as the intellect. Nothing of worldly success
can make up for the want of it. And true friendship is also a moral
preservative. It teaches something of the joy of service, and the
beauty of sacrifice. We cannot live an utterly useless life, if we
have to think for, and act for, another. It keeps love in the heart,
and keeps God in the life.

The greatest and most irretrievable wreck of friendship is the result
of a moral breakdown in one of the associates. Worse than the
separation of the grave is the desolation of the heart by
faithlessness. More impassable than the gulf of distance with the
estranging sea, more separating than the gulf of death, is the great
gulf fixed between souls through deceit and shame. It is as the sin of
Judas. Said a sorrowful Psalmist