t has
most of its worth in what it leads to, the priceless gift of seeing
with the heart rather than with the eyes. To love one soul for its
beauty and grace and truth is to open the way to appreciate all
beautiful and true and gracious souls, and to recognize spiritual
beauty wherever it is seen.

The possibility at least of friendship must be a faith with us. The
cynical attitude is an offence. It is possible to find in the world
true-hearted, leal, and faithful dealing between man and man. To doubt
this is to doubt the divine in life. Faith in man is essential to
faith in God. In spite of all deceptions and disillusionments, in
spite of all the sham fellowships, in spite of the flagrant cases of
self-interest and callous cruelty, we must keep clear and bright our
faith in the possibilities of our nature. The man who hardens his
heart because he has been imposed on has no real belief in virtue, and
with suitable circumstances could become the deceiver instead of the
deceived. The great miracle of friendship with its infinite wonder and
beauty may be denied to us, and yet we may believe in it. To believe
that it is possible is enough, even though in its superbest form it has
never come to us. To possess it, is to have one of the world's
sweetest gifts.

Aristotle defines friendship as one soul abiding in two bodies. There
is no explaining such a relationship, but there is no denying it. It
has not deserted the world since Aristotle's time. Some of our modern
poets have sung of it with as brave a faith as ever poet of old. What
splendid monuments to friendship we possess in Milton's _Lycidas_ and
Tennyson's _In Memoriam_! In both there is the recognition of the
spiritual power of it, as well as the joy and comfort it brought. The
grief is tempered by an awed wonder and a glad memory.

The finest feature of Rudyard Kipling's work and it is a constant
feature of it, is the comradeship between commonplace soldiers of no
high moral or spiritual attainment, and yet it is the strongest force
in their lives, and on occasion makes heroes of them. We feel that
their faithfulness to each other is almost the only point at which
their souls are reached. The threefold cord of his soldiers, vulgar in
mind and common in thought as they are, is a cord which we feel is not
easily broken, and it is their friendship and loyalty to each other
which save them from utter vulgarity.

In Walt Whitman there is the same in