n to use the word in its finer
meaning. Here, a friend is one who loves you for your sake only and
steadfastly loves without regard to any return, even a return-love. The
English have a saying that you may fill a church with your acquaintances,
and not fill the pulpit seats with your friends. If you may have in your
life one or two real friends you are very wealthy. If you will think for a
moment of the very best friend you ever knew anybody to have. Then
remember this: God is a friend. Only He is ever so much better a friend
than the best friend you ever knew of. And the plan He has thought out for
your life is such a one as that word would suggest.
The fourth word, I almost hesitate to use, yet I am sure I need not here.
The hesitancy is because the word and its relationship are spoken of
lightly, frivolously, so much, even in good circles. I mean that rare fine
word _lover_. Where two have met, and acquaintance has deepened into
friendship, and that in turn into the holiest emotion, the highest
friendship. What would he not do for her! She becomes the new human centre
of his life. In a good sense he worships the ground she treads upon. And
she--she will leave wealth for poverty if only so she may be with him in
the coming days. She will leave home and friends, and go to the ends of
the earth if his service calls him there. You think of the finest lover,
man or woman, you ever knew anybody to have. Then remember this, and let
me say it in soft, reverent tones, God is a lover--shall I say in yet more
reverent voice, a sweetheart-lover. Only He is so much finer a lover than
the finest lover you ever knew of. And His will, His plan for your life
and mine--it hushes my heart to say it--is a lover's plan for his only
loved one.
The fifth word is this fourth word a degree finer spun, a stage farther
on, and higher up, the word _husband_. This is the word on the man side
for the most hallowed relationship of earth. This is the lover
relationship in its perfection stage. With men husband is not always a
finer word than lover. The more's the pity. How man does cheapen God's
plan of things; leaves out the kernel, and keeps only an empty shell
sometimes. In God's thought a husband is a lover _plus_. He is all that
the finest lover is, and more; more tender, more eager, more thoughtful.
Two lives are joined, and begin living one life. Two wills, yet one. Two
persons, yet one purpose. Duality in unity. Will you call to mind for
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