be easily renewed. Quarrels
between friends are the bitterest and the most lasting. Broken
friendship may be soldered, but never made sound.

Alas! they had been friends in youth,
But whispering tongues can poison truth.
* * * *
They parted, ne'er to meet again,
But never either found another
To free the hollow heart from paining.
They stood aloof, the scars remaining,
Like cliffs which had been rent asunder;
A dreary sea now flows between.
COLERIDGE.

Shakespeare gives this rule for friendship in his own wonderful way.
It could not be better stated--

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.

II. We should refuse friendship with those whose standard of right is
below our own.--Anything in a man or woman that indicates low moral
tone, or want of principle, should debar them at once from our
friendship. It is not easy to say in so many words what want of
principle is, but we all know what is meant by it. It corresponds to a
constitutional defect in the physical system. A person may have
ailments, but that is different from a weak and broken constitution.
So a person may have faults and failings, but a want of principle is
more serious. It is a radical defect which should prevent friendship.
A small thing often shows us whether a person wants principle. The
single claw of a bird of prey tells us its nature. According to the
familiar saying, "We don't need to eat a leg of mutton to know whether
it is tainted; a mouthful is sufficient." So a single expression may
tell us whether there is a want of moral principle. A word showing us
that a person thinks lightly of honesty, of purity in man, of virtue in
woman, should be sufficient to make us keep him at a distance. We may
be civil to him, try to do him good, and lead him to better things, but
he is not one to make our friend. Cowper the poet says:

I would not enter on my list of friends,
Though graced with polished manners and fine sense,
Yet wanting sensibility, the man
Who needlessly sets foot upon a worm.

We may think it a small thing to set the foot upon a worm, but to do so
needlessly and wantonly indicates a hard and cruel nature, and a man
with such a nature is not a safe friend.

III. There should be equality in friendship.--Equality of s