And thus, too, the friendships which have begun at this School may last through life, and be a help and strength to us. For may we not regard the opportunity given for acquiring friends as one of the uses of this place? and Christian friendship, in uniting us to a friend, as uniting us at the same time to Christ and God? Christ called His disciples friends, adding the reason, “because He had told them all that He had heard of the Father,” just as women tell their whole mind to their friends.
But we all know that there are dangers and disappointments in friendships, especially in women’s friendships, as well as joys and sorrows. A woman may have an honourable desire to know those who are her superiors in education, in the School, or in Nursing. Or she may allow herself to drop into the society of those beneath her, perhaps because she is more at home with them, and is proud or shy with her superiors. We do not want to be judges of our fellow-women (for who made thee to differ from another?), but neither can we leave entirely to chance one of the greatest interests of human life.
True friendship is simple, womanly, unreserved: not weak, or silly, or fond, or noisy, or romping, or extravagant, nor yet jealous and selfish, and exacting more than woman’s nature can fairly give, for there are other ties which bind women to one another besides friendship; nor, again, intrusive into the secrets of another woman, or curious about her circumstances; rejoicing in the presence of a friend, and not forgetting her in her absence.
Two Probationers or Nurses going together have not only a twofold, but a fourfold strength, if they learn knowledge or good from one another; if they form the characters of one another; if they support one another in fulfilling the duties and bearing the troubles of a Nursing life, if their friendship thus becomes fellow-service to God in their daily work. They may sometimes rejoice together over the portion of their training which has been accomplished, and take counsel about what remains to be done. They will desire to keep one another up to the mark; not to allow idleness or eccentricity to spoil their time of training.
But some of our youthful friendships are too violent to last: they have in them something of weakness or sentimentalism; the feeling passes away, and we become ashamed of them. Or at some critical time a friend has failed to stand by us, and then it is useless to talk of “auld lang syne.” Only still let us remember that there are duties which we owe to the “extinct” friend (who perhaps on some fanciful ground has parted company from us), that we should never speak against her, or make use of our knowledge about her. For the memory of a friendship is like the memory of a dead friend, not lightly to be spoken of.
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.