A panhandler stopped me on the street and said: ???Groove, tomorrow is Easter, and I haven???t got an egg in the house.??? Such vagrants as we have in our town usually call me by my first name. So I bought him an egg. The other day at a downtown corner a especially seedy fellow caught my eye. ???Can you let me have a dime for a cup of coffee???? he almost whispered.

???Brother,??? I said, ???You don???t want a cup of coffee. You want a drink.??? I smiled right into his unhappy eyes. Contrary to popular practice, a smile brings out the truth much faster than a stern look.

???Yes,??? he said, ???I sure do.??? Hazlitt, the 19th-century British essayist, wrote: ???One cannot expect people to be other than they are.??? That idea has guided me on the greatest adventures of friendship. With these vagrants, I tried to put myself in the place of each one, and acted as I hoped some understanding person might have acted toward me. You do not choose your friend from the dreary ranks of beggars; neither do I, but it seems to me these simple instance are illustrative of the pervasive spirit of friendship.

For to be a friend you have to care about people, what they think, what they feel, what they suffer. If you don???t like people, you may still be cordial to acquaintance, but friendship is no go. You must try to understand people, their hopes and fears and aspirations. At least a remnant of the dignity of the human being shines somehow through the rags of the tramp who craves a drink and the one who needs an egg for Easter.

Friendship stumbles most often on the rock of inconvenience. Most of us have an abundance of good impulses which we either forget or find it convenient to translate into actuality. In my experience I have found most men kind-hearted. They are usually willing to do generous things, if they can do them without much personal inconvenience. They are thoughtful of the sorrow and the needs of others ??? if they have time and the occasion is not too difficult.

Take the story of the Good Samaritan, on the road that led from Jerusalem down to Jericho. There were many who traveled on it. Among them was one who was deep in trouble and lay helpless at the roadside. Two prominent citizens hurried by ??? good, average men, probably, generous in impulse, accustomed to going to church on a Sunday morning. Perhaps they were members of the Jericho Lions or Kiwanis or Rotary Club.

But this day on the Je