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Forgiveness

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The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Michigan · Jan 12, 1864

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 23, No. 7.

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Forgiveness.

WHEN on the fragrant sandal tree The woodman's axe descends, And she who bloomed so beauteously, Beneath the keen stroke bends. E'en on the edge that wrought her death, Dying she breathes her sweetest breath, As if to token, in her fall, Peace to her foes, and love to all.
How hardly man this lesson learns, To smile and bless the hand that spurns, To see the blow, to feel the pain, But render only love again; This spirit not to earth is given— One had it, but he came from Heaven. Reviled, rejected, and betrayed, No curse he breathed, no plaint he made, But when in death's deep pang he sighed, Prayed for his murderers, and died.