none of its sacredness and value, the establishment of a code of rules
for it ignores on the one hand the spontaneity of this relation, and on
the other hand, its entire amenableness to the laws and principles that
should restrict and govern all human intercourse and conduct.

Shaftesbury, in his 'Characteristics,' in his exquisite vein of irony
sneers at Christianity for taking no cognizance of friendship either in
its precepts or in its promises. Jeremy Taylor, however, speaks of this
feature of Christianity as among the manifest tokens of its divine
origin, and Soame Jenyns takes the same ground in a treatise expressly
designed to meet the objections and cavils of Shaftesbury and other
deistical writers of his time. These authors are all in the right and
all in the wrong, as to the matter of fact. There is no reason why
Christianity should prescribe friendship which is a privilege, not a
duty, or should essay to regulate it, for its only ethical rule of
strict obligation is the negative rule which would lay out for it a
track that shall never interfere with any positive duty selfward,
manward or Godward. But in the life of the Founder of Christianity, who
teaches, most of all, by example, friendship has its apogee,--its
supreme pre-eminence and honor. He treats his apostles and speaks of and
to them, not as mere disciples but as intimate and dearly beloved
friends, among these there are three with whom he stands in peculiarly
near relations, and one of the three was singled out by him in dying for
the most sacred charge that he left on the earth, while at the same time
that disciple shows in his Gospel that he had obtained an inside view so
to speak, of his Master's spiritual life and of the profounder sense of
his teachings which is distinguished by contrast rather than by
comparison from the more superficial narratives of the other
evangelists.