enough away from every one to give us a true perspective. There is a
sort of familiarity that arises sometimes between friends, or even
mere acquaintances, which closes the door to true friendship or to
real acquaintance. It does not bring people near to one another, but
keeps them apart. It is as if men thought that they could be better
friends by bumping their heads together.

Our freedom comes in realizing that all the energy of life should
come primarily from a love of principles and not of persons,
excepting as persons relate to principles. If one man finds another
living on principles that are higher than his own, it means strength
and freedom for him to cling to his friend until he has learned to
understand and live on those principles himself. Then if he finds
his own power for usefulness and his own enjoyment of life increased
by his friendship, it would indeed be weak of him to refuse such
companionship from fear of being dependent. The surest and strongest
basis of freedom in friendship is a common devotion to the same
fundamental principles of life; and this insures reciprocal
usefulness as well as personal independence. We must remember that
the very worst and weakest dependence is not a dependence upon
persons, but upon a sin,--whether the sin be fear of public opinion
or some other more or less serious form of bondage.

The only true independence is in obedience to law, and if, to gain
the habit of such obedience, we need a helping hand, it is truly
independent for us to take it.

_We all came into the world alone, and we must go out of the world
alone, and yet we are exquisitely and beautifully dependent upon one
another._