FRIENDSHIP.

Otago Witness, Issue 2856, 9 December 1908, Page 72

FRIENDSHIP.

"Friendship is love with understanding."-'-German proverb. Next, for your pleasure ana profit,- comrades and 1 readers of mine, I make you free of the following lovely little 'Impression cent to me for my personal pleasure by one of -the comrades you all love best— Boy friend : — i THE LORD'S PRAYER IN- LUPIN". Out of the dusty road— up the sandhill* to a, seat among the lupdn. It i» Sunday morning, * pen picture of which would tail, inasmuch as words depict definite colour, ! whereas the morning about us is a, universe . of indefinite shades. The sun breaking I through the grey mist, the air, the breath lof the golden, flowers, the roll of the wave», I and in the midst of it all the heart palpitating with nameless delight. One reason why people do nat go to church is because God made the world so lovely— made it sc easy and- delightful to worship in out-of-Uie-way corners of Eden, where the angel of the flaming sword stands not in the way, where harmony is perfect, and melody everlasting. They come here—* tired, world-weary company, maybe— to forgive, even as with the sweet breezes on their faces they feel that they are forgiven. They com* to pray for daily bread, of which it is written, Him that eateth of this bread shall n-ever hunger." Here they commune — unwittingly, may be, but none the lees certain— -with the Father of all things good and beautiful — the scent and flower of the lupin, tihe grey sand dtine<i stretching from headland to headland, with the sea, between them, the sapphire' sea, that echoes back the power and the glory for ever and eVer. The greatest sermon ever preached was delivered in the fields. Perhaps it was the shortest one, too; it is certainly the most melodious,- soul-finding collection of words ever ptrung on the golden chords of thought: "Consider the lilies, how they grow, they toil not, neither do theyt spin ; and yet I say unto you that Solomon f in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these." In this world of curs the lily has many sisters, that toil not, nor spin, and 1 yet are clothed in ' glory. The lupin is one of them. What moisture is there in grey sand? What comfort in salt, cutting wind that seems for ever to be sweeping across the hills? Yet, with its roots deep in the sapless drift, the lupin raises its offering of golden, fccent-laden blossom on high, a tribute of prayer — potent, though voiceless — to the Father of beauty, who=e name, in tbe glory of His creation, is hallowed for ->ver m ° re ' BOY FRIEjS'D. And then, most "eonvanient" for one or two queries I have recently had, comes a delightful exposition on a much misapprehended word Tins, too, is sent to me by a very loyal, though somewhat erratic, friend', "BaJigster Mcc" ; and, like "The Lord's Prayer in Lupin," is offered to EmmeJine without fee or reward— as Kipling hath >'t, "just for the love of the doing." Who would not be Emmeline, rich, indeed, and happy in