The Cadiz Sentinel

Fidelity.

Desert not your friend in danger and distress. Too many there are in the world whose attachment to those they call friends is confined to the day of prosperity. As long as that continues, they are, or appear to be, affectionate and cordial. But as soon as their friend is under a cloud, they begin to withdraw and separate their interests from his. In friendship of this sort, the heart has assuredly never had much concern. For the great test of true friendship is constancy in the hour of danger—adherence in the season of distress. When your friend is calumniated, then is the time openly and boldly to espouse his cause. When his situation is changed, or misfortunes are fast gathering around him, then is the time of affording prompt and zealous aid. When sickness or infirmity occasions him to be neglected by others, that is the opportunity which every real friend will seize of redoubling all the affectionate attention which love suggests. These are the important duties, the sacred claims of friendship, religion and virtue enforce on every worthy mind. To show yourself warm in this manner in the cause of your friend, commands esteem, even in those who have personal interests in opposing him. This honorable zeal of friendship has, in every age, attracted the veneration of mankind. It has consecrated to the latest posterity the names of those who have given up their fortunes and have exposed their lives in behalf of the friends whom they loved; while ignominy and disgrace have ever been the portion of those who deserted their friends in the hour of distress.