ck, to have been an element of necessity. It is a
sort of predestined spiritual relationship. We speak of a man meeting
his fate, and we speak truly. When we look back we see it to be like
destiny; life converged to life, and there was no getting out of it
even if we wished it. It is not that we made a choice, but that the
choice made us. If it has come gradually, we waken to the presence of
the force which has been in our lives, and has come into them never
hasting but never resting, till now we know it to be an eternal
possession. Or, as we are going about other business, never dreaming
of the thing which occurs, the unexpected happens; on the road a light
shines on us, and life is never the same again.

In one of its aspects, faith is the recognition of the inevitableness
of providence; and when it is understood and accepted, it brings a
great consoling power into the life. We feel that we are in the hands
of a Love that orders our ways, and the knowledge means serenity and
peace. The fatality of friendship is gratefully accepted, as the
fatality of birth. To the faith which sees love in all creation, all
life becomes harmony, and all sorts of loving relationships among men
seem to be part of the natural order of the world. Indeed, such
miracles are only to be looked for, and if absent from the life of man
would make it hard to believe in the love of God.

The world thinks we idealize our friend, and tells us that love is
proverbially blind. Not so: it is only love that sees, and thus can
"win the secret of a weed's plain heart." We only see what dull eyes
never see at all. If we wonder what another man sees in his friend, it
should be the wonder of humility, not the supercilious wonder of pride.
He sees something which we are not permitted to witness. Beneath and
amongst what looks only like worthless slag, there may glitter the pure
gold of a fair character. That anybody in the world should be got to
love us, and to see in us not what colder eyes see, not even what we
are but what we may be, should of itself make us humble and gentle in
our criticism of others' friendships. Our friends see the best in us,
and by that very fact call forth the best from us.

The great difficulty in this whole subject is that the relationship of
friendship should so often be one-sided. It seems strange that there
should be so much unrequited affection in the world. It seems almost
impossible to get a completely bal