True friendship is of God. True friendship is the individualized expression of God's infinite love for His reflection, man. As an expression of divine Love, true friendship is a jewel above price to be valued greatly and cherished. Our beloved Leader, Mary Baker Eddy, says (Retrospection and Introspection, p. 80), "There are no greater miracles known to earth than perfection and an unbroken friendship."
It is imperative that we base friendship on the substantiality of Spirit, proving the permanency of what Christ, Truth, unfolds in our experience. Thus we see true friendship founded on divine Principle, Love, which is loving, protecting, and inspiring its idea, man. Our liberated and exalted thought accepts the sublime revelation that all are the beloved children of God, inseparable from the Father, the truest friend of all. We are then able to rejoice in knowing that peace will be established among men in proportion to the unfoldment of true friendship.
But mankind has to be educated in true friendship. That which is immortal and substantial is always of God and is gained only through the recognition that all real creation is of the one Father-Mother God. In Science the children of God are united in one blessed bond of friendship and brotherhood. When our living is in accord with the Christ, Truth, we lose the dualism of good and evil, in regard to both friends and foes. True friendship never loses sight of the immortal, the perfect, the lasting, the substantial. As the expression of divine Principle, Love, it blesses all those who come within the radiation of its love. This radiation encompasses God's creation at all times, proving that all are within the Father's love, that no one is outside of His tender care.
True friendship becomes ours as we obey the commands referred to by Christ Jesus (Mark 12:30, 31): "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment. And the second is like, namely this. Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself."
Wherever the true appears, the counterfeit, which apes the things of God, often attempts to spring up. A counterfeit friendship, parading itself under the guise of true friendship, would stifle the object of its affections. We must guard our thought to see that no counterfeit affection finds root in our consciousness or mesmerizes us into accepting spurious love.
Personal adulation is one of the aspects of false friendship which we must reject in ourselves and deny as true of our neighbor. Adulation is often expressed in the desire for constant association with another and in the selfish absorption of another's time. Adulation sometimes amounts to deification of person and thus leads to the breaking of the First Commandment. Some of the first symptoms of this particular type of mesmerism are seen in egotistical exclusiveness, sentimentality, and often in a sullenness which wishes to possess and monopolize another.
This type of friendship becomes binding and limiting if allowed to continue; then a loss of freedom and individuality ensues. What heartaches a false attachment imposes on its victims! This type of friendship does not last; it sinks and dies under the weight of personal sense. Students of Christian Science should beware of this false attraction. Our wise Leader says in "Miscellaneous Writings" (p. 9): "Whom we call friends seem to sweeten life's cup and to fill it with the nectar of the gods. We lift this cup to our lips; but it slips from our grasp, to fall in fragments before our eyes." And farther on she adds: "And wherefore our failure longer to relish this fleeting sense, with its delicious forms of friendship, wherewith mortals become educated to gratification in personal pleasure and trained in treacherous peace? Because it is the great and only danger in the path that winds upward." True friendship does not depend for sustenance on the gratification of the five physical senses. It does not have an enervating effect upon spirituality. It releases courage, which enfolds mankind and blesses all. This friendship is truly needed in the whole world.
Spiritual support is evidence of loving our neighbor as ourselves. It does not include the personal sense which is expressed in flattery. There is a wide line of demarcation between flattery and the accolade of "well done, thou good and faithful servant" (Matt. 25:21). Flattery is generally the forerunner of greater deceit, with its motive of personal gain, and should be rejected.
As we keep thought in accord with reality, we recognize that true friendship is found in the expression of the Christ, Truth, which is going forth with its pure, undefiled rays of love, illuminating and encompassing the universe. Christ Jesus said (John 3:16, 17): "God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever be-lieveth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved." Could greater friendship be expressed than that of the Father in sending His Son to save the world, to free all mankind from the bonds of the carnal mind?
Christ Jesus proved himself to be the truest friend that men have ever known. He gave us the Lord's Prayer and the Beatitudes. He cleansed the lepers and stilled the tempest. He raised Lazarus and Jairus' daughter from death. He healed the one sick of the palsy, the blind, the dumb, and the Canaanite's daughter, who was grievously vexed with a devil. He healed the multitudes as they came to him, and he fed them. He comforted those that mourned. He did not confine his healing ministry to a certain clique or social class. He ate with publicans and sinners. Neither did he condemn the sinners. He healed them. And Christ Jesus held no animosity toward the traitor Judas. He called him "friend." He knew that Judas was his betrayer, and he foresaw what would follow, but he said, "Friend," proving that the divine friendship was unmoved by the envy and greed of the traitor.
Let us rejoice that our Leader saw clearly the meaning of true friendship, which is in accord with Christ, Truth. She obeyed the commands of Christ Jesus, who said (John 15:12, 15): "This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you.... Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you."
