newton's friendship, a good friendship

A few happy lines on friendship from John Newton's biography, John Newton: From Disgrace to Amazing Grace, that I am currently reading:

"I love you; I love your company because I believe the Lord speaks through you to my heart, and therefore I wish to see you as often as I can," wrote Newton to his friend Willian Bull. Bull later characterized their friendship in equally affectionate terms, writing to Newton, "Sometime I think nobody loves me, and it makes me very low. But I know you do, and I am sure Jonathan did not love David more than I do you."

At the heart of the intimate friendship between Newton and Bull lay prayer, Bible reading, and theological discussion. It was also a caring relationship, for Bull could become depressed and melancholic in the depth of winter. Newton was skillful at jollying his friend out of these moods with teases, laughter, and long sessions of convivial pipe smoking. The flavor of these encounters was captured in some lines of doggerel written by Newton in anticipation of visiting Bull:

A theosophic pipe with brother B
Beneath the shadow of his favorite tree
And then how happy I! how cheerful he!