37. It gives a very great impetus to mutual love if one shows love in return to those who love us and proves that one does not love them less than oneself is loved, especially if one shows it by the proofs that a faithful friendship gives. What is so likely to win favour as gratitude? What more natural than to love one who loves us? What so implanted and so impressed on men’s feelings as the wish to let another, by whom we want to be loved, know that we love him? Well does the wise man say: “Lose thy money for thy brother and thy friend.” Ecclus. xxix. 10. And again: “I will not be ashamed to defend a friend, neither will I hide myself from him.” Ecclus. xxii. 31. If, indeed, the words in Ecclesiasticus testify that the medicine of life and immortality is in a friend; Ecclus. vi. 16. yet none has ever doubted that it is in love that our best defence lies. As the Apostle says: “It beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things; love never faileth.” 1 Cor. xiii. 7, 8.