Trouble a Test of Friendship – Charles Spurgeon

SOMEBODY has thrown a handful of mud at a professed Christian: let us clear the coast, for the mud may light upon us too. So say cowards, but so say not we. No, brother, if you belong to the army of Immanuel, and our persecuted brother has done no wrong, let us stand or fall by him. Let us never desert a comrade. If the world says, “Down with him! down with him! down with him!” we will rush like the old Greek hero to the rescue, and hold our shield over the fallen one, fighting for him until he can get up again; for one of these days we may be down too, and we may want a brother soldier to cover us from the enemy. Let us pray our brethren out of their troubles and not desert them, and if that prayer should be long before it gets an answer, let us persevere in importunity, saying with David, “Yet my prayer shall be in their calamities.