Most of us have happy memories of friends we have not seen for years and of whom we have no pictures. Our recollections of their physical features may have become hazy—and perhaps that is just as well, since by now they would probably look different and would certainly be wearing more modern clothes than when we saw them last. Nevertheless, these friends are real to us. We feel close to them in thought and can remember distinctly the good qualities we discerned in them, the companionship and happiness we shared, the lessons they taught us, and the comfort and strength we derived from just knowing they were there.
When we so cherish our friends in memory, we keep alive a clearer, fresher, more contemporary concept of them than if we thought of them as physical beings of a period long gone. As we go a step further we keep our thought of these dear people in the realm of Soul instead of sense; we find their evergreen identity and can never lose them, because Soul is immortal.
Some years after the death of one whose friendly kindness she had valued, Mrs. Eddy referred to him in a sermon, and she brought out a lesson in regard to the immortality of true friendship. She said: "When the light of one friendship after another passes from earth to heaven, we kindle in place thereof the glow of some deathless reality. Memory, faithful to goodness, holds in her secret chambers those characters of holiest sort, bravest to endure, firmest to suffer, soonest to renounce." Pulpit and Press, p. 5;
