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Article FRIENDSHIP AND BROTHERHOOD. ← Page 2 of 3 →
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Friendship And Brotherhood.
every noble impluse , every motive can be traced to love of self . The " grand passion , " 0 f which every poet of every country has Avritten , and Avritten his best , to extol ancl ethejoalize , hiding the one black spot Avith many words , diverting the attention from Avhat it really is to the grand castle in the ah' wherein dwells tbe might be , is of all human loves the least worthy , for it has its origin in the selfish passions which appeal to the lower nature of man as an animal . Man freed from tbe flesh has no need of the " grand passion , " Ijiit whether in the flesh or in the spirit his higher nature can never dispense Avith that love which we call friendship—the sweet intellectual sympathy , the intercommunion of . oiurfinial souls .
But friendship , like everything else in this age of progress , has lost much of the vigour , because much of the self-abnegation which characterized this virtue Avhen science hacl not attained those glorious dimensions which turns all things , but progress in materialism , into ridicule . The modern progressionist would reduce friendship to a science . If this cannot be done , then he bids you shelve the " sweet instrument , " that it may keep its sound to itself ancl in a case too , lest some stray breeze call it into feeble play . The great ancl
noble friendship between man and man , Avhich , like sunrays , have served to relieve the dull and bloody canvass of man ' s history , "become fewer ancl fewer as the progress of the age teaches us the art of a greater selfishness ancl invites us to laugh Avhere once we Avept , ancl never to weep at all . There seems to be left no room in a man ' s heart UOAV , no vacant spot ¦ wherein he can bide Ms friend ' s faults . ; he cannot bear Ms friend ' s infirmities , so , in another sense , he bares them to all the Avorld .
Li his terse , epigrammatical way , Shakspoare comes to the very pith of his subject'by the question , " What need we have any Mends if we should never have need of them ? " He cloes not hnply , as the progressionist Avould doubtless argue , that Ave must make use of our friends and be careful our friends make no use of us , but he means that it is the need , tho necessity , the adversity that calls for the display of friendsliip ; that if Ave have no need , then , indeed , would friendship be a mere fashion , a toy misnamed after tbe honoured dead . The one grand need , however , which must ever be a powerful reason why man , more
gregarious than any other animal , cannot exist Avith any degree of happiness without some kind of friendship , is Ms craving , Avhether in joy or grief , for sympathy . Man only finds the sympathy he desires in Ms brother man ; a woman ' s sympathy , though often given when Avitbheld by man , is but a poor ancl chilling substitute ; not purposely so , but naturally , for the very fact that Avoman was designed to supply man with the wants of his lower nature , precludes her from ever entering into the sacred precmcts of his inner soul . Friendshi p is tbe Mgbest form of human love , ancl is therefore only given to the highest of
tho human race— "to men ancl angels only given . " After the affection as betAveen one man and another must come the love , the feeling of brotherhood that should link all men in the imion of a united family . " We were bom to do benefits ; " this should be the axiom to supplant the grossly selfish , unchristian phrase so prevalent in this age of progress , of "Every man for himself and God for us all . " If every man be but for himself , be sure God will be for none . And I have marked of late that even this quasi-Christian termination of " God for us all , " that comes in bke a " God have mercy on your soul" after a sentence of capital punishment , is often omitted , and "Every man for himself" is passed
hom mouth to mouth , is enacted clay by clay and , may be , to the satisfaction of the progressionist , is passing into a perfect science in its completeness of perfect selfishness . The idea of brotherhood Avhich must of necessity embrace the Shaksperian axiom , " We are born to do benefits , " seems to be confined to bodies or cliques of men , ancl pre-eminently , Perhaps , to Freemasonry , and does not extend as it should to all classes of men in a Christian country . Our national sense of brotherhood , Avhich should be a broad-minded cosmopolitan charit
y Avhich knoAVS of no religious prejudice , no political bias , no prejudgment because ° i caste or race or colour , has degenerated into a narroAv Samaritanism tainted with the spirit of the Levite—a Samaritanism that savours of the feeble charity of Exeter Hall , that would aid and then pass on the other side—a Samaritanism that can never grasp the sense ° 1 true brotherhood conveyed in the words of our Poet , " It is not enough to help the feeble % but to support Mm aftenvards . " The temper of true brotherhood is to overcome illaeeds by good returns , to leave the world a little better than Ave found it , to have a high
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Friendship And Brotherhood.
every noble impluse , every motive can be traced to love of self . The " grand passion , " 0 f which every poet of every country has Avritten , and Avritten his best , to extol ancl ethejoalize , hiding the one black spot Avith many words , diverting the attention from Avhat it really is to the grand castle in the ah' wherein dwells tbe might be , is of all human loves the least worthy , for it has its origin in the selfish passions which appeal to the lower nature of man as an animal . Man freed from tbe flesh has no need of the " grand passion , " Ijiit whether in the flesh or in the spirit his higher nature can never dispense Avith that love which we call friendship—the sweet intellectual sympathy , the intercommunion of . oiurfinial souls .
But friendship , like everything else in this age of progress , has lost much of the vigour , because much of the self-abnegation which characterized this virtue Avhen science hacl not attained those glorious dimensions which turns all things , but progress in materialism , into ridicule . The modern progressionist would reduce friendship to a science . If this cannot be done , then he bids you shelve the " sweet instrument , " that it may keep its sound to itself ancl in a case too , lest some stray breeze call it into feeble play . The great ancl
noble friendship between man and man , Avhich , like sunrays , have served to relieve the dull and bloody canvass of man ' s history , "become fewer ancl fewer as the progress of the age teaches us the art of a greater selfishness ancl invites us to laugh Avhere once we Avept , ancl never to weep at all . There seems to be left no room in a man ' s heart UOAV , no vacant spot ¦ wherein he can bide Ms friend ' s faults . ; he cannot bear Ms friend ' s infirmities , so , in another sense , he bares them to all the Avorld .
Li his terse , epigrammatical way , Shakspoare comes to the very pith of his subject'by the question , " What need we have any Mends if we should never have need of them ? " He cloes not hnply , as the progressionist Avould doubtless argue , that Ave must make use of our friends and be careful our friends make no use of us , but he means that it is the need , tho necessity , the adversity that calls for the display of friendsliip ; that if Ave have no need , then , indeed , would friendship be a mere fashion , a toy misnamed after tbe honoured dead . The one grand need , however , which must ever be a powerful reason why man , more
gregarious than any other animal , cannot exist Avith any degree of happiness without some kind of friendship , is Ms craving , Avhether in joy or grief , for sympathy . Man only finds the sympathy he desires in Ms brother man ; a woman ' s sympathy , though often given when Avitbheld by man , is but a poor ancl chilling substitute ; not purposely so , but naturally , for the very fact that Avoman was designed to supply man with the wants of his lower nature , precludes her from ever entering into the sacred precmcts of his inner soul . Friendshi p is tbe Mgbest form of human love , ancl is therefore only given to the highest of
tho human race— "to men ancl angels only given . " After the affection as betAveen one man and another must come the love , the feeling of brotherhood that should link all men in the imion of a united family . " We were bom to do benefits ; " this should be the axiom to supplant the grossly selfish , unchristian phrase so prevalent in this age of progress , of "Every man for himself and God for us all . " If every man be but for himself , be sure God will be for none . And I have marked of late that even this quasi-Christian termination of " God for us all , " that comes in bke a " God have mercy on your soul" after a sentence of capital punishment , is often omitted , and "Every man for himself" is passed
hom mouth to mouth , is enacted clay by clay and , may be , to the satisfaction of the progressionist , is passing into a perfect science in its completeness of perfect selfishness . The idea of brotherhood Avhich must of necessity embrace the Shaksperian axiom , " We are born to do benefits , " seems to be confined to bodies or cliques of men , ancl pre-eminently , Perhaps , to Freemasonry , and does not extend as it should to all classes of men in a Christian country . Our national sense of brotherhood , Avhich should be a broad-minded cosmopolitan charit
y Avhich knoAVS of no religious prejudice , no political bias , no prejudgment because ° i caste or race or colour , has degenerated into a narroAv Samaritanism tainted with the spirit of the Levite—a Samaritanism that savours of the feeble charity of Exeter Hall , that would aid and then pass on the other side—a Samaritanism that can never grasp the sense ° 1 true brotherhood conveyed in the words of our Poet , " It is not enough to help the feeble % but to support Mm aftenvards . " The temper of true brotherhood is to overcome illaeeds by good returns , to leave the world a little better than Ave found it , to have a high