Scottish-American theologian (1868-1953)
It is always a temptation, which grows stronger the longer we live, to look back instead of forward, to bemoan the past, and thus deride the present and distrust the future.
HUGH BLACK
Friendship
Sentiment does not amount to much, if it is not an inspiring force to lead to gentle and to generous deeds when there is need.
HUGH BLACK
Friendship
Trust is the first requisite for making a friend. How can we be anything but alone, if our attitude to men is one of armed neutrality, if we are suspicious, and assertive, and querulous, and over-cautious in our advances?
HUGH BLACK
Friendship
Another common way of choosing friends, and one which also meets with its own fitting reward, is the selfish method of valuing men according to their usefulness to us. To add to their credit, or reputation, some are willing to include anybody in their list of intimates. For business purposes even, men will sometimes run risks, by endangering the peace of their home and the highest interests of those they love; they are ready to introduce into their family circle men whom they distrust morally, because they think they can make some gain out of the connection.
HUGH BLACK
Friendship
Death is the great argument for immortality. We cannot believe that the living, loving soul has ceased to be. We cannot believe that all those treasures of mind and heart are squandered in empty air. We will not believe it. When once we understand the meaning of the spiritual, we see the absolute certainty of eternal life; we need no arguments for the persistence of being.
HUGH BLACK
Friendship
After all, in spite of the vulgar materialism of our day, we do feel that the spiritual side of life is the most important, and brings the only true joy. And friendship in its essence is spiritual. It is the free, spontaneous outflow of the heart, and is a gift from the great Giver.
HUGH BLACK
Friendship
Disease and sorrow exist, but health is the normal, and joy is the natural, and it is a privilege to live.
HUGH BLACK
Happiness
Sympathy is not a quality merely needed in adversity. It is needed as much when the sun shines.
HUGH BLACK
Friendship
To appear for a little time and then vanish away, is the outward biography of all men, a circle of smoke that breaks, a bubble on the stream that bursts, a spark put out by a breath.
HUGH BLACK
Friendship
We do not ask to forget; we do not want the so-called consolations which time brings. Such an insult to the past, as forgetfulness would be, means that we have not risen to the possibilities of communion of spirit afforded us in the present.
HUGH BLACK
Friendship
We must have been struck with the brilliancy of our own conversation and the profundity of our own thoughts, when we shared them with one, with whom we were in sympathy at the time. The brilliancy was not ours; it was the reflex action which was the result of the communion.
HUGH BLACK
Friendship
And if trust is the first requisite for making a friend, faithfulness is the first requisite for keeping him.
HUGH BLACK
Friendship
The practice of sympathy may mean the cultivation of similar tastes, though that will almost naturally follow from the fellowship. But to cultivate similar tastes does not imply either absorption of one of the partners, or the identity of both. Rather, part of the charm of the intercourse lies in the difference, which exists in the midst of agreement.
HUGH BLACK
Friendship
A man is known by the company he keeps. This is an infallible test; for his thoughts, and desires, and ambitions, and loves are revealed here. He gravitates naturally to his congenial sphere. And it affects character; for it is the atmosphere he breathes. It enters his blood and makes the circuit of his veins.
HUGH BLACK
Friendship
The joy that comes from a true communion of heart with another is perhaps one of the purest and greatest in the world, but its function is not exhausted by merely giving pleasure. Though we may not be conscious of it, there is a deeper purpose in it, an education in the highest arts of living. We may be enticed by the pleasure it affords, but its greatest good is got by the way. Even intellectually it means the opening of a door into the mystery of life. Only love understands after all. It gives insight. We cannot truly know anything without sympathy, without getting out of self and entering into others.
HUGH BLACK
Friendship
All forms of disunion are of the devil.
HUGH BLACK
Christ's Service in Love
The sweetest and most stable pleasures also are never selfish. They are derived from fellowship, from common tastes, and mutual sympathy.
HUGH BLACK
Friendship
All connections based on selfishness, either on personal pleasure or on usefulness, are accidental. They are easily dissolved, because, when the pleasure or the utility ceases, the bond ceases.
HUGH BLACK
Friendship
If you have ever made a point of questioning both sides impartially, seeking to see the point of view of both, you must have been struck with the distrust amounting almost to fear of both contracting parties.
HUGH BLACK
Christ's Service in Love
To denounce happiness as selfish, for example, is because it is defined merely in terms of pleasure, and pleasure is defined merely in terms of sense. It is true that pleasure is built on sense and that happiness is built on pleasure, as the acorn is rooted in the soil and the oak grows from the acorn. But you cannot explain the oak by calling attention to the process, still less is the oak degraded by the connection; and happiness is neither explained nor degraded because of its natural history being traced back to sense.
HUGH BLACK
Happiness