Chapter 8.—That the Friendship of
Good Men Cannot Be Securely Rested In, So Long as the Dangers of
This Life Force Us to Be Anxious.
In our present wretched condition
we frequently mistake a friend for an enemy, and an enemy for a
friend. And if we escape this pitiable blindness, is not the
unfeigned confidence and mutual love of true and good friends our
one solace in human society, filled as it is with misunderstandings
and calamities? And yet the more friends we have, and the more
widely they are scattered, the more numerous are our fears that
some portion of the vast masses of the disasters of life may light
upon them. For we are not only anxious lest they suffer from
famine, war, disease, captivity, or the inconceivable horrors of
slavery, but we are also affected with the much more painful dread
that their friendship may be changed into perfidy, malice, and
injustice. And when these contingencies actually occur,—as they
do the more frequently the more friends we have, and the more
widely they are scattered,—and when they come to our knowledge, who but the man who has experienced it can tell with what pangs the heart is torn? We would, in fact, prefer to hear that they
were
dead, although we could not without anguish hear of even this. For if their life has solaced us with the charms of friendship, can it be that their death should affect us with no sadness? He who will have none of this sadness must, if possible, have no friendly intercourse. Let him interdict or extinguish friendly affection; let him burst with ruthless insensibility the bonds of every human relationship; or let him contrive so to use them that no sweetness shall distil into his spirit. But if this is utterly impossible, how shall we contrive to feel no bitterness in the death of those whose life has been sweet to us? Hence arises that grief which affects the tender heart like a wound or a bruise, and which is healed by the application of kindly consolation. For though the cure is affected all the more easily and rapidly the better condition the soul is in, we must not on this account suppose that there is nothing at all to heal. Although, then, our present life is afflicted, sometimes in a milder, sometimes in a more painful degree, by the death of those very dear to us, and especially of useful public men, yet we would prefer to hear that such men were dead rather than to hear or perceive that they had fallen from the faith, or from virtue,—in other words, that they were spiritually dead. Of this vast material for misery the earth is full, and therefore it is written, “Is not human life upon earth a trial?” And with the same reference the Lord says, “Woe to the world because of offenses!” and again, “Because iniquity abounded, the love of many shall wax cold.” And hence we enjoy some gratification when our good friends die; for though their death leaves us in sorrow, we have the consolatory assurance that they are beyond the ills by which in this life even the best of men are broken down or corrupted, or are in danger of both results.