What scant, feeble portraits of God some men have! What can an Eskimo, whose highest conception of summer is a stunted bush, know of tropical orchards, of luscious peach, pear and plum? If the student has seen only the broken fragments of Phidias, what can he know of the Parthenon as it once stood in the zenith of its perfection, in the splendor of its beauty? But if man's reason can cull out all the lustrous facts of nature and history, and if his imagination has strength and skill to bring them all together, then how beautiful will be the face and name of God! That name will fill his soul with music. That thought will set his heart vibrating with tumultuous joy. If all the air were filled with invisible bells, and angels were the ringers, and music fell in waves as sweet as melted amethyst and pearl, we should have that which would answer to the sweetness that by day and night rains down upon the hearts of those who approach God--not through the eye nor ear, not through argument nor judgment, but through the heart, through the imagination, as they endure, beholding Him who is invisible. THE ENTHUSIASM OF FRIENDSHIP "He that walketh with wise men shall be wise."--_Solomon._ "The only way to have a friend is to be one."--_Emerson._ "A talent is perfected in solitude; a character in the stream of the world."--_Göethe._ "It is certain that either wise bearing or ignorant carriage is caught as men take diseases, one of another; therefore let men take heed of their company."--_Shakespeare._ "Beyond all wealth, honor or even health, is the attachment we form to noble souls, because to become one with the good, generous and true, is to become, in a measure, good, generous and true ourselves."--_Thomas Arnold._ "Cicero said: 'Friendship can make riches splendid.' Friendship can plan many things for its wealth to execute. It can plan a good winter evening for a group, and it can plan an afternoon for a hundred children. It can roll in a Christmas log for a large hearth. It can spread happiness to the right and left. It can spend money most beautifully and make gold to shine. Civilization itself is of the heart."--_Swing._ VIII THE ENTHUSIASM OF FRIENDSHIP