Throughout the centuries of its human expression, friendship has not changed in its essential meaning. True friendship, that impelling bond such as existed in Bible times between Jonathan and David, and between Ruth and Naomi, is based on the love to which Jesus referred when he said to his disciples, "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends."
In his discourse on the subject of "Friendship," Ralph Waldo Emerson treats of the universal desire for human friendship. He remarks that "every man passes his life in the search after friendship," and also states that "friendship demands a religious treatment."
Turning, then, to Christian Science, the great religion of Love, we find that Mary Baker Eddy, its Discoverer and Founder, in her writings refers to the beauty and eternality of friendship. In a letter to a branch church she lifts thought to the true origin of friendship in these words (The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 204): "It is only by looking heavenward that mutual friendships such as ours can begin and never end. Over sea and over land, Christian Science unites its true followers in one Principle, divine Love, that sacred ave and essence of Soul which makes them one in Christ."
