Now a word in regard to those who resist the better influence which we may seek to exercise over them, for instance, the so-called black sheep in families. Our chief concern should here be to prevent the resistance from infecting ourselves and provoking unethical reactions. Ethics is a system of relations. The ethical point of view consists in seeing the relation between the offending person and ourselves as it ought to be, in seeing with perfect objectivity the kind of conduct ideally required by the relation on both sides, seeing it and thereby assisting the other to see it. But we shall never succeed in doing this until we purge from our thoughts and speech every trace of private irritation. If we can point out to the one who has gone wrong how he has hurt another, and has spiritually hurt himself; if while we do this we see the fineness that is possible to him and make him realize that we see it, we shall not utterly fail. I am aware that other methods should accompany the spiritual appeal. In some cases, a temporary separation is indicated, in other cases, a prolonged change of environment, or the gradual formation of new habits of industry and application, the awakening of interest in some pursuit that leads the mind away from egocentric pre-occupation. Psychology and experience crystallized, into commonsense have valuable counsels to give. But, along with the technical aids, the spiritual influence should never be lost sight of or relegated to the second place. And finally two ideas should be mentioned which are pertinent to broken relations, as for instance to the unhappy marriage relation and to interrupted friendships: One that the break is never complete. There remain certain threads unsundered, which should be most sedulously preserved intact. They may serve as points of attachment to weave the tie anew. Again, and this is still more important, thought that the break would never have occurred if the relation had been as finely conceived as it ought to have been on my side as well as on the others. Take friendship as an example. A friendship of many years’ standing is suddenly wrecked. Why? What were the terms on which the friendship had been based? What had friendship meant to me?—A certain personal attraction, mutual aid and comfort, taking counsel together, sympathy in joy and sorrow. These are valuable elements of friendship, but they do not even touch the essential point. They do not describe the principal function which a friend has to fulfil. The friend ideally is one who stands alongside another as the spectator of his spiritual development, as one who appraises his friend’s advance toward the master end of life disinterestedly, and yet with deepest personal concern. He is the mirror in which his friend may see the stages of his spiritual progress reflected. Now I have lost my friend. Why have I lost him? Because he was never a true friend to me, and, I must add, because I was never a real friend to him.