Alfred Austin, Poet Laureate of England, writes this verse on
forgiveness:
Now bury with the dead years conflicts dead,
And with fresh days let all begin anew.
Why longer amid shriveled leaf-drifts tread,
When buds are swelling, flower-sheaths peeping through?
Seen through the vista of the vanished years,
How trivial seem the struggle and the crown,
How vain past feuds, when reconciling tears
Course down the channel worn by vanished frown.
How few mean half the bitterness they speak!
Words more than feelings keep us still apart,
And, in the heat of passion and of pique,
The tongue is far more cruel than the heart,
Since love alone makes it worth while to live,
Let all be now forgiven and forgive. (Text.)
--_The Independent._
(1132)
* * * * *
In childhood you were guilty of your first deceit. At nightfall,
with grieved face, your mother asked if you had disobeyed, and
your lips uttered their first lie. Your father was a just man
and stern, and he would have lifted the hand in indignation,
and as a child you would have hardened your heart. But your
mother, with all-comprehending and healing love, was wiser. She
met the denial with silence. That night she was, if possible,
more tender than ever. She lingered a little longer in the room
of her little child. She smoothed the cool sheets with more
delicate care, and stooping for the last kiss, she asked,
“Is there anything more you want to tell me?” Then she went
out and left you, with that lie, your first lie, to be your
companion. Do you remember how that lie stood like a ghostly
fear at the foot of your little trundle-bed? How terror arched
black and sable wings above your pillow? How you tossed to and
fro, until at last, broken by your mother’s love, you sprang
up, felt your way through the dark hall, opened the door, flung
yourself into your mother’s arms, sobbed out your confession,
and was forgiven, utterly and squarely and forever forgiven?
Don’t analyze your mother’s forgiveness--accept it and be healed
thereby. Redemption is a passion flower, crimsoned with the
blood of God’s heart. Don’t pick this passion flower to pieces,
lest you lose it. The roots of God’s tree of life are fed with
red rain, but the leaves of that tree, and the blossoms, heal
the wounds of sinners.--N. D. HILLIS.
(1133)
* * * * *
Mr. H. J. Whigam, a war correspondent during the Boxer troubles, tells
the following incident:
A Christian Chinaman was shot by a Cossack, and, as he lay on
his dying bed, a squad of Cossacks was marched up before him
that he might identify the murderer. “I am dying,” he said.
“What does it matter?” “But,” said the officer, “we are not
going to kill your assailant. We are only going to punish him,
so that he shall not kill any more of your people.” The dying
Chinaman opened his weary eyes and made answer: “When he knows
that I have forgiven him, he will not kill again.”
(1134)
* * * * *
John H. De Forest, in his book, “Sunrise in the Sunrise Kingdom,”
says that the relation of lord and retainer is the main controlling
principle that has shaped the destiny of Japan. It is natural that
ideal lords should have ideal retainers whose lives were devoted to
their masters. He says occasionally this devotion took the form of
rebuking the lord for some unworthy act, even when the advice would
bring death to the faithful servant.
For example, an aged retainer of a young Shogun saw with deep
anxiety his youthful lord’s frivolous life, his love of games
and dances and flowers, and determined to arouse him to his
duties as a ruler. So going to the palace, he noticed a most
exquisite dwarfed cherry-tree in full blossom in a splendid
flowerpot. He rather bluntly asked his lord to give him the
cherry-tree. On being refused he seized the pot and dashed it,
flowers and all, on the stone steps, saying: “You care more
for things than for men.” He expected death, but his lord saw
the earnest purpose of his servant and repenting of his own
frivolous life, forgave him.
(1135)