When we are young most of us have a very superficial, yet embracing concept of friendship. Our school contemporaries tend to be regarded en masse as friends provided we have a mutual respect and liking one for another. Friendship assumes a deeper part of our life when we are in personal difficulty and need to rely on the support of our friends for our deliverance. This at once diminishes the number of friends who are reliable and true to us. In other words, when life is easy we are surrounded by a large group of well-wishers, but when the journey is more rugged most of them simply drop off. They appear to have more important things to do with their lives than come to our assistance. It is at this time that we realize how equally superficial our relationships are with many whom we call our friends. Therefore the essential quality of a true friendship is its capacity to support the friend even to our own disadvantage.

This disadvantage may simply involve setting aside time to be with our friend, but sometimes it may also require lending money or giving our support by acts of self-denial on behalf of the person in difficulty. All this is excellent but if it is to be real and not merely an illusory passion, the relationship must assume permanence. Therefore a friendship has as its emotional basis a warm affection for another person to whom we feel an attachment, liking or fondness. There seems to be something in the "emotional chemistry" of two people that draws them together; this need not have anything to do with their political affiliation or even sex; it is by no means impossible for a man and a woman to have this platonic friendship, which has no erotic quality at all. Personally, I do not believe that any relationship is entirely free of a sexual character, but it is only when there is a strongly physical element attached to it that it moves beyond intimate friendship to conjugal love. This is obviously closely related to friendship and yet poles apart from it at the same time. This is the interesting part of human personality, that people may be drawn together physically while remaining cold on a deeper emotional level. The three evangelical virtues of faith, hope and love often do not recognize this harsher desiring aspect of love, and so the word is often degraded, but if it retains its charitable nature it does indeed form the climax of the three virtues.

Friends are joined together in intimacy and mutual benevolence independently of sexual or family love, but of course the real family ought to be a group of intimate friends. Anyone who has dealt with family problems, which seem to be the rule rather than the exception nowadays, knows that the family may be a little monster as easily as a group of loving friends. It is, in my opinion, for this reason that family life is so important in the development of the great majority of people, and its end is usually, though by no means always, reproduction. As one who is a natural celibate, I have the advantage of viewing the whole scene with a detached benevolence through which I can see so many aspects of a disturbed family relationship. When people start to disagree violently with each other it is evident that their friendship is still at only an early stage of development. I am not implying by this that real friends never have disagreements, but simply that enduring friendships do not materialize overnight. If our friends had to agree with us on every point at issue, we would be surrounded only by sycophants. The value of any true relationship, whether in marriage or apart from marriage, is that we grow through inevitable disagreement to a deeper awareness of the person we really are with the support of those who may disagree quite strongly with us on matters that, if we saw things properly, would turn out to be trivial idiosyncrasies. In my own life there are some people who laud me to the skies whom I have learnt to regard with low esteem - whereas others who do not mind cutting me down to my true size remain my valued friends. Self-esteem comes as a result of doing one's work as well as one can and also being as concerned about others as is possible. It should not be the result of the opinions of other people, even if these opinions are completely justified. A true friend will never leave one in the lurch, while at the same time having their own particular life to lead, which is quite independent of one's own. A friend who disappoints one by failing to lend a helping hand during a time of adversity is clearly not a friend at all, and in this discovery, if one is wise, one should begin to see the inadequacy of one's own friendship also. In this life, it is a general rule that we get what we deserve, though the going may be very hard, and if we try to find scapegoats for our own unhappiness, we should start by looking very closely within ourselves.

I often wonder how many friends Jesus had. There were few, if any, in high places, and even the twelve apostles showed their painful weakness when they could have been of most assistance to him. The role of Judas Iscariot has never ceased to fascinate me; he is the obvious villain of the story, but without his rather obscure betrayal and the result of it, the Christian religion, as we know it, would never have emerged. These are thoughts that do not fit in well with comfortable orthodoxy, but only those who have suffered long could even bear to face their import.

Adversity does indeed seem to be the common lot of all people who make their mark in the world (and indeed, I believe nearly all of us in fact). It is how we bear this adversity that determines not only the success of our lives, but also what we bequeath to those that follow us. The real villains of history have so often been highly "religious" people or scheming, successful politicians, who have been able to pervert the ways of the common people; in the twentieth century we have seen far too many examples of this to call for more detailed comment. The success of a frankly evil system like Nazism and the much more plausible but equally obnoxious excesses of some Communistic states are probably the most terrible examples of this trend. Those that follow begin to learn a vital fact that we all get the government that we deserve.

It had been said that for evil to succeed all that is required is that good people do nothing. A friend does not come into this category; when they see their friend in danger they respond immediately, and even to the detriment of their own prosperity will come and protect that person. In other words, friendship acts and is not merely a state of goodwill towards other people. Self-sacrifice, which we have considered on a number of occasions, is an essential element of friendship; it may not necessarily always be a radical offering of one's life, but a true friend would immediately show themselves ready for the summons. One of the smaller Christian denominations, the Quakers, is described as the Society of Friends and they often greet each other as "friend". Certainly, their overall reputation has been exceptional and they have led the way in many social reforms, the most notable of which was the abolition of slavery.

When one considers family life, one vital element is often neglected. This is friendship between the various members of the group. Whether a marriage ultimately succeeds or not depends on the degree of friendship between husband and wife; gone, thank God, are the days when the man was automatically the ruler of the household and his wife and children merely servants to his wishes. On the other hand, there is a school of thought, by no means to be disregarded, that is critical of a society in which discipline is a word to be scorned, if not absolutely shunned. This view reminds us that there is a hierarchical structure to the community which is natural to most people, but provided that structure is cemented by bonds of friendship, it will emerge entire and better formed than if everyone is completely free to go their own way. Happiness is contingent on the friendship, but people do not need to sacrifice their own identity in order to achieve it. Therefore, discipline is also an essential part of happiness, but that discipline has to involve the person themself and this can be extremely difficult. Like all the other virtues, it does not develop overnight, but is the result of deep self-knowledge with many pains in its evolution.

Humanity is seldom able to strike the middle way between extremes; the authoritarian way of extreme discipline, and here I am thinking particularly of governments, is in due course replaced by a liberal establishment in which every aberration is regarded as acceptable. This in turn is followed by a reversal of attitudes to extreme discipline with its own inhibitory effect. Humanity will truly have come of age when it learns that the great gift of freedom comes into its own only when it is closely guarded by the reverence of alert people who care not only for each other but also for a higher truth, which is one way in which God may be understood. It is sad to reflect that God in this nature is not always recognized, even by people who pride themselves on their particular religious affiliation, because they all claim to be possessors of the real truth. It is only through personal growth in the midst of persistent adversity that we may transcend the boundaries of individual desire to a state of selfless concern for the world at large. Then alone do we enter the portals of happiness. When we are nothing and have nothing further to lose, we are able to contain the whole universe and even know the nature of God who is above all else perfect love.

The converse of friendship, at least in a social context, is loneliness. This is a distinctly depressing state of feeling solitary and companionless, and the isolation can indeed be hard to bear. There are two basic factors that predispose to loneliness, the character of the person themself and the society in which they live. Some people have a naturally gregarious tendency and make friends with almost everyone they see. On the surface this would appear to be very fortunate, but like everything else, it too has its darker side. The contacts whom the gregarious type of person calls friends may be very superficial indeed so that neither party remembers the other for any great length of time. The great fear inherent in the gregarious person is the barely conceivable situation of being completely alone. This is not admirable, because as one learns in the course of one's life, there are not a few situations at the other extreme when one has to rely entirely on one's own power of survival. The worst examples have been seen in our own century when people have been isolated on religious or racial grounds. One might believe that they would have the support at least of fellow sufferers, but in fact suffering of this intensity tends to drive the individual inwards so that they become less rather than more communicative, even with those of their own kind. It all depends, for there are some Holocaust victims who were loved by their whole community before their own inevitable extermination. In the milder forms of loneliness the person is either extremely introverted by nature, or else is isolated from the main community by being "foreign". It can be extremely difficult for such a naturally reserved individual to enter into the larger community until some innately kinder person takes them under their wing and introduces them to other people. This is one of the traumatic experiences of emigration, but in the end it is not to be avoided. If one survives, as is usually the case, one grows in strength, sympathy and understanding of other people and can become a far finer world citizen as a result. Therefore loneliness is not the opposite of friendship but rather that of friendliness. We all, I believe, are bound to experience both of these qualities in our lives.

Another quality that appears to be closely akin to friendship is popularity. This is a faculty of being liked and admired by people generally. What on the surface appears to be very closely linked to friendship is in fact distinctly different from it. The types of people who are particularly popular in our mass-communication age are media performers, politicians (of the correct persuasion, of course), charismatic religious leaders and sportsmen and women. Most of the "fans" of these people have never met them as individuals - if they had, it is by no means improbable that they would soon have become very disenchanted - but their image remains in the mind, as these people represent special qualities that the masses particularly admire and would like to emulate. The main difference between friendship and popularity is surely that while true friendship remains and matures through experience, popularity attains its peak very rapidly but after a relatively short period of dominance it may descend dramatically into nothing, or even a negative quality, when the object of admiration is seen, like the rest of us, to have feet of clay. It is not for nothing that Jesus said "Alas for you when all speak well of you; that is how their fathers treated the false prophets" (Luke 6:26). In other words, the great mass of people are very fickle, and if any of us have even a few real friends we should consider ourselves extremely fortunate. We all, I hope, have a stream of pleasant acquaintances whom we know quite well and meet from time to time, but without the degree of intimacy included in a true friendship. There would not be the intensity of warmth or the degree of trust found in a real friend.

Allied to this view of popularity is the way that many people treat someone who is particularly useful in their own lives at a particular time. When all is going well, there is a "hail-fellow-well-met" attitude, but as soon as the individual appears to lose their usefulness, they are quite spontaneously dropped. They are friends as long as they can be of use to the other person. This is a more deliberate way of illustrating the same quality, how few of us could bear the depth of character revealed by a really searching relationship that called upon the exposure of the full extent of our inner resources. People who tend to name-drop usually have little conception of the meaning of genuine friendship.

The quality of friendship is intimately connected with our character. Friendly qualities include trustworthiness, consideration for others and generosity of heart. A person who is a friend should be more than merely a personal support; they should have a warmth of feeling for the greater world. Intimate friendships are, of course, of vital importance, particularly when the question of love and marriage are concerned. But friendship is always incomplete when it is limited to individuals. Supposing I, for instance, were to fall out with somebody for what I regard as a very good reason; should a true friend follow my course and support me also? I personally would hope not. Friends though we may be, we also have our own personal lives to lead, and just as it would be wrong for me to hope that you would concur with my political or artistic views, so it would be equally wrong of me to want you to tailor your coat according to my cloth. Unity should be the order of all relationships, but once uniformity becomes paramount, the individuality of the person is compromised. All this is obvious enough to a person well schooled in life and to those spiritually sensitive also; of course each person's approach to God is determined by their own character. The end is common but the means of approaching it are inevitably unique. If we attempt to change our approach according to the demands of other people, the results are always false and in the end our objective is not the highest good so much as pleasing other people by demonstrating that we are made in their mould. This is the basis of dictatorship; anyone involved in family counselling recognizes its nature only too clearly, and the dictatorial one is always completely unaware of the havoc they are causing. It is not for nothing that our way of relating to other people demonstrates most closely our own character, and what we see is seldom completely complimentary. If I were to consider friendship in the more mature context, I would see that as one grows in experience so one can genuinely include a variety of different people in its context. The very variation in character of our numerous friends indicates how well we ourselves have developed, and that we are less restricted by personal and social prejudices so that we can accept people as individuals in their own right and no longer enforce pre-conditions on our relationships. These always develop in ways that we do not expect; this is what makes life so interesting and at the same time so frustrating. But if we can weather the storm, we are coming very close to experiencing true happiness.

The most outstanding friendship recorded in the Old Testament begins at 1 Samuel 18:1-4, after David had killed the Philistine giant Goliath directly with a single stone from his sling.

That same day, when Saul had finished talking with David, he kept him and would not let him return any more to his father's house, for he saw that Jonathan had given his heart to David and had grown to love him as himself. Jonathan and David made a solemn compact because each loved the other as dearly as himself. Jonathan stripped off the cloak and tunic he was wearing, and gave them to David, together with his sword, his bow, and his belt.

The subsequent adventures of Jonathan and David and the increasing animosity of Saul embrace the final chapters of the first book of Samuel, ending at Chapter 31. The picture is that of two very young men seen so frequently as comic-strip characters in our modern entertainments industry. Saul's animosity followed the triumphant acclaim of the women of Israel; "Saul struck down thousands, but David tens of thousands". As a result, Saul began to fear and therefore to hate David more and more and planned his destruction; there is almost certainly an aspect of paranoid psychosis in the intense antipathy of Saul. At any rate, the book ends with the defeat of the Israelite army by the Philistines in the course of which both Saul and Jonathan were killed; David escaped because he was outlawed by Saul during this period. The second book of Samuel contains the most famous dirge in the Bible: David's lament over Saul and Jonathan:

Israel, upon your heights your beauty lies slain!
How are the warriors fallen!

Do not tell it in Gath or proclaim it in the streets of Ashkelon,
in case the Philistine maidens rejoice,
and the daughters of the uncircumcised exult.
Hills of Gilboa, let no dew or rain fall on you,

Happiness that lasts
no showers on the uplands!
For there the shields of the warriors lie tarnished,
and the shield of Saul, no longer bright with oil.
The bow of Jonathan never held back
from the breast of the foeman, from the blood of the slain;
The sword of Saul never returned
empty to the scabbard.

Beloved and lovely were Saul and Jonathan;
neither in life nor in death were they parted.
They were swifter than eagles,
stronger than lions.
Daughters of Israel, weep for Saul,
who clothed you in scarlet and rich embroideries,
who spangled your attire with jewels of gold.

How are the warriors fallen on the field of battle!
Jonathan lies slain on your heights.
I grieve for you, Jonathan, my brother;
you were most dear to me;
your love for me was wonderful,
surpassing the love of women.

How are the warriors fallen,
and their armour abandoned on the battlefield!
(2 Samuel 1:19-27)

The beauty of this poem is enhanced by David's spontaneous warmth of affection towards Saul, who not so long before had planned his murder while he was still a fugitive. In fact, if one sees the tragedy in a wider light, the magnanimity of David is outstanding, and it is no wonder that he remains the prototype of a great Jewish leader.

When one comes to the New Testament, there is no comparable instance of great friendship on this level. The eleven apostles who supported Jesus (this, of course, excludes Judas Iscariot who betrayed him) were faceless individuals at the time of the Incarnation. Only at the time of the Acts of the Apostles do they grow into real people and their friendship is assumed rather than described. It seems as if they largely went on their own particular ways to proclaim the new gospel, and indeed the essential proclaimer of the faith, Saul of Tarsus, was not one of their number and only gradually grew into fellowship with them, since he started his career as a persecutor of the new religion.

It is very doubtful whether religious affinity has a great deal to do with personal friendship of the type that I have described in this chapter. Much more often religion is the breeding ground of discord and hatred, not only amongst those with contrary religious views but even more tragically among those who identify themselves with a particular religion. The usual cause of discord and hatred is doctrinal inflexibility, each group knowing that they are the possessors of the only truth. It is little surprise, therefore, that religion divides at least as often as it unites - except perhaps in a time of emergency.