Forgiveness.


SCHOOL was over, and the scholars had gone.

I sat at my desk, thinking over the events of

the day. Suddenly stopping my meditations,

I saw a boy standing in the door. He started

toward me, and then turned backward.

Again, with a rapid step he advanced, and

threw himself into a low seat by my side.

"What is it, Willie?" I asked, as I looked

upon his tear-stained face.

Fast-falling tears were his only answer.

Trying to comfort him in his secret sorrow, I

placed my hand tenderly on his bowed head,

and asked again:

"Willie, will you not tell me what troubles

you?''

He sobbed aloud, and laying his head upon

my lap, said in broken accents:

"0 teacher, I don't feel fit to look at you,

or to speak to you, because I disobeyed you

to-day. Will you forgive me?"

"I forgive you freely, my child," I said;

“I will remember it no more."

"But you cannot love me as you used to,"

was the sad reply.

"Willie," I said (with difficulty keeping

back my own tears), "I never loved you as I

now do. Your repentance has endeared you

to me more than I can express."

Willie went home happy; and as I heard

him singing far down the road, I thought,

"This is a lesson for me." How often have I

disobeyed my Saviour, and felt ashamed to

kneel to him with my confession. How often,

when bowed in his presence, I have said, "I

am not fit to speak to him, or even to approach

him. Surely he cannot love me again, I have

erred so often and so sadly."

Now I thought, do I forgive Willie so freely,

and love him even better than before his sin,

and shall I doubt that my Saviour will forgive

me, if I humbly ask him? Can I, an erring

child, be more humble, more forgiving, than

my Heavenly Father?

Thus, through my own affection, God taught

me a lesson of his love. I, too, went home

with a happy heart, singing, as I went:

"Like as a father pitieth his children, so the

Lord pitieth them that fear him." 




Children's Magazine,