Produced by Al Haines
Personal Friendships
of Jesus
One friend in that path shall be,
To secure my steps from wrong;
One to count night day for me,
Patient through the watches long,
Serving most with none to see.
BROWNING.
New York
THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO.
BY THOMAS Y. CROWELL & COMPANY.
George MacDonald said in an address, "The longer I live, the more I amassured that the business of life is to understand the Lord Christ."If this be true, whatever sheds even a little light on the character orlife of Christ is worth while.
Nothing reveals a man's heart better than his friendships. The kind offriend he is, tells the kind of man he is. The personal friendships ofJesus reveal many tender and beautiful things in his character. Theyshow us also what is possible for us in divine friendship; for theheart of Jesus is the same yesterday, and to-day, and forever.
These chapters are only suggestive, not exhaustive. If they make theway into close personal friendship with Jesus any plainer for those whohunger for such blessed intimacy, that will be reward enough.
All I could never be,
All men ignored in me,
This I was worth to God.
BROWNING.
But lead me, Man divine,
Where'er Thou will'st, only that I may find
At the long journey's end Thy image there,
And grow more like to it. For art not Thou
The human shadow of the infinite Love
That made and fills the endless universe?
The very Word of Him, the unseen, unknown,
Eternal Good that rules the summer flower
And all the worlds that people starry space.
RICHARD WATSON GILDER.
O God, O kinsman loved, but not enough,
O man with eyes majestic after death,
Whose feet have toiled along our pathways rough,
Whose lips drawn human breath;
By that one likeness which is ours and thine,
By that one nature which doth hold us kin,
By that high heaven where sinless thou dost shine,
To draw us sinner