A real friend is scarce and rare. There are many who will eat, and drink, and laugh with us in the sunshine of prosperity. There are few who will stand by us in the days of darkness,--few who will love us when we are sick, helpless, and poor,--few, above all, who will care for our souls. Does any reader of this paper want a real friend? I write to recommend one to your notice this day. I know of One "who sticketh closer than a brother." (Prov. xviii. 24.) I know of One who is ready to be your friend for time and for eternity, if you will receive Him. Hear me, while I try to tell you something about Him. The friend I want you to know is Jesus Christ. Happy is that family in which Christ has the foremost place! Happy is that person whose chief friend is Christ! I. Do we want _a friend in need_? Such a friend is the Lord Jesus Christ. Man is the neediest creature on God's earth, because he is a sinner. There is no need so great as that of sinners: poverty, hunger, thirst, cold, sickness, all are nothing in comparison. Sinners need pardon, and they are utterly unable to provide it for themselves; they need deliverance from a guilty conscience and the fear of death, and they have no power of their own to obtain it. This need the Lord Jesus Christ came into the world to relieve. "He came into the world to save sinners." (1 Tim. i. 15.) We are all by nature poor dying creatures. From the king on his throne to the pauper in the workhouse, we are all sick of a mortal disease of soul. Whether we know it or not, whether we feel it or not, we are all dying daily. The plague of sin is in our blood. We cannot cure ourselves: we are hourly getting worse and worse. All this the Lord Jesus undertook to remedy. He came into the world "to bring in health and cure;" He came to deliver us "from the second death;" He came "to abolish death, and bring life and immortality to light through the Gospel." (Jer. xxxiii. 6; Rev. ii. 11; 2 Tim. i. 10.) We are all by nature imprisoned debtors. We owed our God ten thousand talents, and had nothing to pay. We were wretched bankrupts, without hope of discharging ourselves. We could never have freed ourselves from our load of liabilities, and were daily getting more deeply involved. All this the Lord Jesus saw, and undertook to remedy. He engaged to "ransom and redeem us;" He came to "proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound;" "He came to redeem us from the curse of the law." (Hos. xiii. 14; Isai. lxi. 1; Gal. iii. 13.)