cause whatever. And yet it is much to be doubted, whether nearly the whole of this suffering does not arise from our own unreasonable and mistaken expectations. There are none so unfortunate, but they meet with some kindness in the world; and none, I believe, so fortunate, but that they meet with much less than they might do were it not their own fault.

In the first place, we are mistaken in our expectation that friendship should be disinterested. It neither is, nor can be. It may be so in action, but never in the sentiment: there is always an equivalent to be returned. If not, it may be generosity, it may be benevolence, but friendship is not the name for it. As soon as we intermingle with our fellowcreatures, we begin to form preferences to one above another. The circumstances that decide this preference are infinitely various; but be they what they may, the movement in the first instance is purely selfish. In the advances we make, the attentions we pay, and the attempts to recommend ourselves to their affections, it is our happiness, not theirs, of which the increase is in our view. In some way or other, they pleased us before we began to love them: our friendship therefore is a purchase, not a gift; a part of the price is paid, and the rest is in expectation. If we examine the movements of our own hearts, we must be sure that this is the case; and yet we are so unreasonable as to expect our friends should be purely disinterested, and, after having secured their affections, we neglect to pay the price, and expect they should be continued to us for nothing. We grow careless of pleasing them; inconsiderate of their feelings, and heedless of the government of our own tempers towards them; and then we complain of inconstancy, if they like us not so well as when dressed out in our best for the re

ception of their favour. Yet it is in fact we that are changed, not they.

Another fruitful source of disappointment in our attachments is, that while we are much more quick in detecting the faults of others than our own, we absurdly require that every one should be faultless but ourselves. We do not say that we expect this in our friends; but we do expect it, and our conduct proves that we expect it. We begin also with believing it. The obscurity of distance; the veil that the proprieties of society cast over nature's deformity; the dazzling glitter of exterior qualities, baffle for a time our most penetrating glances, and the imperfect vision seems all that we would have it. Our inexperienced hearts, and some, indeed, that should be better taught, fondly believe it to be all it seems, and begin their attachment in full hope to find it so. What wonder, then, that the bitterest disappointment should ensue, when, on more close acquaintance, we find them full of imperfections, perhaps of most glaring faults, and we begin to express disgust, sometimes even resentment, that they are not what we took them for.

But was this their fault or ours? Did they not present themselves to us in a garb of mortal flesh; and do we not know that mortals are imperfect. soiled with sin-nay, sunk so very, very low in it, that however the outside be fair, the interior is corrupt and altogether vile? He who knows all, alone knows how corrupt; the heart itself, enlightened by his grace, is more deeply in the secret than any without can be; but if the thing we love be mortal, something of it we must perceive; and more and more of it we must perceive as we look closer; and if this is to disappoint and revolt us, and draw harsh reproaches and bitter recriminations from our lips,

there is but One on whom we can fix our hearts with safety; and He is one, alas! we show so little disposition to love, as proves that, with all our complainings and bewailings of each other's faultiness, our friends are as good as will at present suit us.

us.

Another cause of mortification is, that we expect too much from those who do truly and really love We expect that they should prefer our interests, feelings, and purposes to their own. This is not and cannot be. Truth has recorded many instances, and fiction has invented an abundance more, in which, on some great emergency, this has been the case; and in the common relationships of life, we may every day see the most lovely and endearing instances of self-negation in favour of those on whom our hearts are fixed. But these are sacrifices, they are efforts against the current; they ought never to be presumed upon, and never exacted, if it be possible to avoid it. But instead of this forbearance, the most willing hand becomes the most hardly taxed-the more kindness we receive the more we demand: the friend who professes to love us must yield every thing for us; bear every thing from us, and do every thing for us, and if it come out at length that he have interests, and purposes, and feelings of his own, we are wounded and surprised, and exclaim against the fallibility of human affections. Yes, they are fallible, and they are limited, as all things finite are; and if we did not persist in disbelieving this truth, we need not suffer these bitter disappointments. There never was but One whose love confessed no limit; and he was more than man. The more he was provoked the more he seemed to love; his kindness grew upon the injuries that repulsed it, and the greater the burdens heaped upon him, the lower bowed his sacred head to bear them. His

favour neither grows on our deservings, nor is chilled by our demerits; he gives all and takes nothing in return; and the more we demand, the more we confide, so much the more is he willing to bestow on us. But this is the portrait of no earthly friend, and unless it bear some resemblance to ourselves, we have no right to expect it should be.

And then the mutability of all sublunary things: Is it in the power of human constancy to fix them? However determined to keep them, can the pleasures of to-day be the pleasures of to-morrow, drunk on with unsated appetite? Does the waste of years, and the growth of knowledge, and the change of habits, make no change in our feelings and tastes? We part from our friend in the full glow of reciprocal affection, and think to meet again exactly as we parted. Our attachment may indeed outlive the separation, and from youth to age be substantially the same. But meantime the character of each is slowly changing, new habits are acquiring, and new judgments forming. We meet again, and are surprised to find no more the unity of spirit that once united us, the assimilation of feeling that once made our society so delightful to each other. And again in bitter disappointment we inveigh against the falseness and versatility of those who once took so much delight in us. But are they to blame? Is it not the common course of all things earthly, on which changed and changeable is irrevocably written?

And lastly, but not least productive of these painful issues, there is the false system under which we form our friendships, as we do all things else that concern us upon earth-a system of error as it regards ourselves, our situation, and our destiny. We forget that we are strangers and pilgrims upon earth,

hurried forward to a distant and far other state. Our friends may be our fond companions by the way, they may assuage our sorrows and heighten our delights, and with a transient tenderness may hold our hands and assist us in our task; but their bosoms must no more be our resting-place than any other thing on earth: they are treasures that must be parted from; they are possessions that time must steal; they are goods that must corrupt and pass away. Heaven has pronounced it so, and so it must be. And if in this, as in all other things, we persist in acting, feeling, and expecting, as if the world were our home, and the things of it our lasting heritage, instead of being, as they might, our sweetest consolation, our purest enjoyment, and highest zest of life; our friendships must become a source of mortification, chagrin, and discontent.

But are we, therefore, to say there is no such thing as friendship; or that it is not worth the seeking, morosely repel it, or suspiciously distrust it? If we do, we shall pay our folly's price in the forfeiture of that without which, however we may pretend, we never are or can be happy: preferring to go without the very greatest of all earthly good, because it is not what perhaps it may be in heaven. Rather than this, it would be wise so to moderate our expectation and adapt our conduct, as to gain of it a larger measure; or, as far as may be possible, to gather of its flowers without exposing ourselves to be wounded by the thorns it bears. This is only to be done by setting out in life with juster feelings and fairer expectations.

It is not true that friends are few and kindness rare. No one ever needed friends and deserved them, and found them not: but we do not know them when we see them, or deal with them justly