And then there is the “Christian or ideal friendship.” What others regard as the service of the sick she may recognise as also the service of God; what others do out of compassion for their maimed fellow-creatures she may do also for the love of Christ. Feeling that God has made her what she is, she may seek to carry on her work in the Hospital as a fellow-worker with God. Remembering that Christ died for her, she may be ready to lay down her life for her patients. “They walked together in the house of God as friends”--that is, they served God together in doing good to His sick. For if ever a place may be called the “house of God,” it is a Hospital, if it be what it should be. And in old times it _was_ called the “house” or the “hotel” of God. The greatest and oldest Central Hospital of Paris, where is the Mother-house of the principal Order of Nursing Sisters, is to this day called the Hôtel Dieu, the “House of God.” There may be some amongst us who, like St. Paul, are capable of feeling a natural interest in the spiritual welfare of our fellow-probationers--or, if you like the expression better, in the improvement of their characters--that they may become more such as God intended them to be in this Hospital and Home. For “Christian friendship is not merely the friendship of equals, but of unequals”--the love of the weak and of those who can make no return, like the love of God towards the unthankful and the evil. It is not a friendship of one or two but of many. It proceeds upon a different rule: “Love your enemies.” It is founded upon that charity “which is not easily offended, which beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.” Such a friendship we may be hardly able to reconcile either with our own character or with common prudence. Yet this is the “Christian ideal in the Gospel.” And here and there may be found some one who has been inspired to carry out the ideal in practice. “To live in isolation is to be weak and unhappy--perhaps to be idle and selfish.” There is something not quite right in a woman who shuts up her heart from other women. This may seem to be telling you what you already know, and bidding you do what you are already doing. Well, then, shall we put the matter another way? Make such friendships as you will look back upon with pleasure in later life, and be loyal and true to your friends, not going from one to another. The friends thou hast, and their adoption tried, Grapple them to thy soul with hooks of steel; But do not dull thy palm with entertainment Of each new-hatched, unfledged comrade. And do not expect more of them than friends can give, or weary them with demands for sympathy; and do not let the womanliness of friendship be impaired by any silliness or sentimentalism; or allow hearty and genial good-will to degenerate into vulgarity and noise.