The Spirit of Forgiveness
By Rev. H. C. Wallace
THERE is as much need for daily prayer for forgiveness as for daily prayer for daily bread. It is true that we have bodies, it is also true that we are souls, and that being so, there is as much need that we should pray for the spiritual cleansing as for the temporal sustenance. We are to be the manifestations of God in the world, and just as Jesus Christ represented God, so we living the Christ-life are to mirror forth God to man in the physical absence of our spiritual Master. Is the world better for our living in it? If not, our influence is counting upon the wrong side, for in this matter we cannot be neutral. We need to cultivate the forgiving spirit. If I cannot forgive my brother who has wronged me, there may be something wrong with him, but there is a great deal more that is wrong with me. If the forgiving spirit is absent from my life, the less I say about the religion of Jesus Christ, the better. “O,” says some one, “I will forgive the man, but——,” and he does not need to say anything more. I wonder, if God had acted like that, how it would have fared with some of us! It comes to this, “Forgive us our trespasses, as we also have forgiven them that trespass against us, but forget it we never will.” It is blasphemy to pray such a prayer. We are so to incorporate the Spirit of Christ that we are to live his life, forgiving men their trespasses. This does not mean merely letting things go. That may be laziness. Forgiveness is something more; forgiveness is the heroism of self-conquest, it is the triumph of the spiritual, it is man mastering himself. This is the victory that overcometh the world, even the faith that forgives and is strong; for any faith must be strong that has in it the element of forgiveness.—Rev. H. C. Wallace.