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 faithful. The virtue of justice requires that you should be faithful to your friend.

3. But is it at all proper and desirable to entertain a friendship of this nature? There are not wanting those who assert that one ought not to cherish any particular friendship, or special affection and liking for any one in particular; that in this way the heart is too much engrossed, and the mind too much distracted. But I say that as long as you remain in the midst of an evil world, surrounded by its dangers, temptations, and attractions, it will be useful and profitable for you to maintain and cherish a true and real friendship.

Young people who are in the wide and dangerous world find themselves in a position similar to that of those who climb the treacherous ice-fields of lofty mountains. What steps do they take for mutual protection and rescue in case their lives should be in danger? They are roped together, in order that if one should make a false step, or if the ice should give way under his feet, the others may hold him up, and thus preserve him from death.

Your case will be the same. It will be easier for you to avoid dangers and save your soul if you are united to others in a pious friendship, which is pleasing to God and which is a source of mutual encouragement and support in the practice of virtue.

4. Certainly it is right to maintain a true friendship. We learn this from the example