Chapter 11 Volume Two, Chapter Four

On the value of friendship.Many want riches more than friends, v. 1-4.But no wealth of any kind is more valuable, more enduring, or more useful than friends: enumerating the qualities of friends, § 5-7. I once heard him give a lecture on friends, which seemed to me to be very helpful, both as to making friends and as to the usefulness of friends.He said that he had heard many people say that a sincere and loyal friend is more valuable than all wealth, but most of the people he saw were very careless in making friends.He said, "I have seen them industriously contrive to buy houses, fields, slaves, cattle, sheep, and furniture; and as for friends, though they say it is the greatest blessing of man, most are not concerned with making new ones, Nor did he pay attention to how to keep the friends they had. He said that when friends and slaves were sick together, what he saw was that people always called doctors to see their slaves and tried to restore them to health, but he Their friends are indifferent; and if both perish, men grieve only for their slaves, and consider themselves a loss, and the loss of their friends is nothing. Their other possessions, nothing Also they don't take good care of them, but when their friends need care, they don't bother at all. Besides, he says he sees most people, as to their other wealth, though large , is also very familiar, but for friends, although the number is small, not only do not know how many there are, but when someone asks them, when they try to count them, they also discard those who used to be friends, and they do not give up friends. In the heart, this shows that it is ordinary. But if you compare friends with all other wealth, isn't a good friend much more valuable? What horses, what cattle, can be as useful as a really good friend What slave is so good-hearted, or loving, as a friend? What other wealth is so beneficial as a friend? For a good friend is so good to his friend, whether it It is his public duty to care for what is lacking. When a friend needs care, he always provides his own resources to help him; when a friend is threatened, he always comes to the rescue and shares the expenses, and works together. , to help persuade, and even to subdue each other by force. He encourages a friend when he is doing well, and supports him when he is about to fall. Everything a man can do with his hands, see with his eyes, and hear with his ears There is nothing his friends would not do for him that his feet can do; and it is often the case that what a man does not do for himself, or see, or hear What he did, or did not, his friends did for him. Yet, though men plant trees for their fruit, the great majority of men are ignorant of the cultivation and love of the richest treasure they have called their friends. .