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and the other against your brother. Of both of these you have to obtain forgiveness, by repentance first to God, then to your injured brother. If God forgives you and your brother will not, then he becomes the sinner, for God requires forgiveness from him on the condition of your repentance; and as repentance implies confession and contrition, it is not enough that you confess your sins to God, but you must confess to your brother too."

There are many who fail to comprehend fully the Christian spirit of forgiveness. They interpret the command, "If he repent, forgive him," as implying that the person offended against has nothing to do or say until the offender shall voluntarily approach and ceremoniously ask forgiveness. Suppose that Christ had stopped there. Suppose he had let the offending, falling, wicked world go its way until it chose to return and implore the divine favor. Would there ever have been reconciliation betwixt man and God? Verily not. It is just at this point that Christ's spirit of forgiveness begins. "It is for-giving-giving himself for and to the blinded and dead heart of impenitent men to make them penitent, and regain them to God." The basis of his forgiveness is in the spirit and fact of his sacrifice which antedates their penitence. "Who gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us from this present evil world.” The beauty and charm of the real spirit of forgiveness is always far back of the penitent word and specific act. It is not what we are persuaded to do by others, or the force of circumstances, but what we have in our hearts to volunteer for our adversary which gives to forgiveness a genuine Christian character. Our forgiveness must be from the heart, free, full, eager, and earnest. It must not be, what Beecher terms, a hedge-hog forgiveness, only skin deep and shot out like quills. Christ wants such a feeling in our bosom that we cannot bear to have a reasonable adversary; cannot rest from our prayers and sacrifices until we have gained our brother from his wrong and brought him into peace. All talk of love without this spirit is vain. "Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren." For the love of God we are required to do good unto all, and this is a higher motive than the poor dervise in the story knew: The favorite of a sultan threw a stone at a poor

dervise who had requested alms. The insulted dervise dared not to complain, but carefully searched for and preserved the pebble, promising himself he should find an opportunity, sooner or later, to throw it in his turn at this imperious and pitiless wretch. Some time after he was told the favorite was discharged, and, by order of the sultan, led through the streets on a camel, exposed to the insults of the populace. On hearing this the dervise ran to fetch his pebble; but after a moment's reflection, cast it into a well. "I now perceive,” said he, "that we ought never to seek revenge when our enemy is powerful, for then it is imprudent; nor when he is involved in calamity, for then it is mean and cruel.”

Forgiveness is the Christian's revenge and the only revenge allowed to him. It is the hardest punishment that can be inflicted on an enemy. The kindness to which such a spirit prompts is like burning fire to the one who has done the wrong; the Scriptures declare it to be heaping coals of fire on his head. It pains the human reason to bear the consciousness of an unrevenged injury. True forgiveness is a joy. It thrills the heart. It ennobles the mind and brings assurance of peace.

"No earthly bliss can rival this.

Without it life's not worth the living.

The purest joy without alloy

Is simply heartily forgiving."

Forgiveness is beautiful and sweet. A deaf and dumb person being asked what was his idea of forgiveness, took the pencil and wrote "It is the odor which flowers yield when trampled upon." Longfellow declared, "Tis sweet to stammer one letter of the eternal's language;-on earth it is called Forgiveness." Miss Frances E. Willard bears this beautiful testimony: "Forgiveness of wrongs is a plant of origin altogether heavenly-the most fragrant exotic that ever bloomed in human heart. I bless beyond words the Heavenly Gardener who has tenderly watched over the small, struggling posy in my own wayward soul. Beyond all other treasures I value this one; and next to its sandal-wood perfume I prize the fruit of resignation in sorrow. These two are the choicest results of Christian horticulture with which I am in the least conversant. That

they take root in earthly soil is the best possible prophecy of heavenly gardens where they may grow and thrive 'when Christ who is our life shall appear.' In this tender and sacred hope I wait for his coming." Our readers will thank Miss Willard for her golden words. We believe with her that the very existence of this spirit in the human heart is proof of divine grace and superintending love. God is seeking to prepare us for the purer atmosphere, and brighter glories, and more exalted companionship of the heavenly state; and when we think of the brief period in which it is ours to learn wisdom, cultivate virtue, gain holiness, and manifest a Christ-like spirit of kindness and love, how precious do our fleeting moments seem. Life's decline is already coming.—

"Time is drawing nearer, nearer,

While our heads are turning gray;
Tears are falling on life's mirror
Every day!

"Time is closing Beauty's portals,
Flowers are blooming to decay;
Fate is delving graves for mortals
Every day!

"While the laurel-wreath is shading

O'er the fame-lit brow of clay,
Sad we see the garland fading
Every day!

"Hence, while all things are declaring
DEATH a seeker for his prey,
Let us be ourselves preparing
Every day!"

Readiness to forgive is not only a Christian duty, but it is the best policy; it is intellectual wisdom of the higher order. Dr. Samuel Johnson, whose words may conclude this section, has shown that since the imaginary right of vengeance must be at last remitted, because it is impossible to live in perpetual hostility, and equally impossible that of two enemies either should first think himself obliged by justice to submission, it is surely eligible to forgive early. Every passion is more easily subdued before it has been long accus、

tomed to possession of the heart; every idea is obliterated with less difficulty as it has been more slightly impressed and less frequently renewed. He who has often brooded over his wrongs, pleased himself with schemes of malignity, and glutted his pride with the fancied supplications of humbled enmity, will not easily open his bosom to amity and reconciliation, or indulge the gentle sentiments of benevolence and peace.

It is easiest to forgive while there is yet little to be forgiven. A single injury may be soon dismissed from the memory, but a long succession of ill offices by degrees associates itself with every idea; a long contest involves so many circumstances that every place and action will recall it to the mind, and fresh remembrance of vexation must still enkindle rage and irritate revenge.

ease.

A wise man will make haste to forgive, because he knows the true value of time, and will not suffer it to pass away in unnecessary pain. He that willingly suffers the corrosions of inveterate hatred, and gives up his days and nights to the gloom of malice and perturbations of stratagem, cannot surely be said to consult his Resentment is a union of sorrow with malignity, a combination of a passion which all endeavor to avoid, with a passion which all concur to detest. The man who retires to meditate mischief and to exasperate his own rage, whose thoughts are employed only on means of distress and contrivances of ruin, whose mind never pauses from the remembrance of his own sufferings but to indulge some hope of enjoying the calamities of another, may justly be numbered among the most miserable of human beings, among those who are guilty without reward, who have neither the gladness of prosperity nor the calm of innocence.

Whoever considers the weakness both of himself and others will not long want persuasives to forgiveness. We know not to what degree of malignity any injury is to be imputed, or how much its guilt, if we were to inspect the mind of him that committed it, would be extenuated by mistake, precipitance, or negligence; we cannot be certain how much more we feel than was intended to be inflicted, or how much we increase the mischief to ourselves by voluntary aggravations. We may charge to design the effects of accident; we may think the blow violent only because we have

made ourselves delicate and tender; we are on every side in danger of error and of guilt, which we are certain to avoid only by speedy forgiveness.

From this pacific and harmless temper, thus propitious to others and ourselves, to domestic tranquillity and to social happiness, no man is withheld but by pride, by the fear of being insulted by his adversary or despised by the world.

It may be laid down as an unfailing and universal axiom, that "all pride is abject and mean." It is always an ignorant, lazy, or cowardly acquiescence in a false appearance of excellence, and proceeds not from consciousness of our attainments, but insensibility of our wants.

Nothing can be great which is not right. Nothing which reason condemns can be suitable to the dignity of the human mind. To be driven by external motives from the path which our own heart approves; to give way to anything but conviction; to suffer the opinion of others to rule our choice or overpower our resolves, is to submit tamely to the lowest and most ignominious slavery, and to resign the right of directing our own lives.

The utmost excellence at which humanity can arrive is a constant and determinate pursuit of virtue without regard to present dangers or advantage; a continual reference of every action to the Divine will; an habitual appeal to everlasting justice; and an unvaried elevation of the intellectual eye to the reward which perseverance only can obtain. But that pride which many who presume to boast of generous sentiments allow to regulate their measures has nothing nobler in view than the approbations of men; of beings whose superiority we are under no obligations to acknowledge, and who, when we have courted them with the utmost assiduity, can confer no valuable or permanent reward: of beings who ignorantly judge of what they do not understand, or partially determine what they never have examined, and whose sentence is therefore of no weight till it has received the ratifications of our own conscience.

He that can descend to bribe suffrages like these at the price of his innocence; he that can suffer the delight of such acclamations to withhold his attention from the commands of the universal Sovereign, has little reason to congratulate himself upon the great

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