The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1911-02-25
A SATURDAY SERMON.


But if you do not forgive, neither will
your Father in heaven forgive your tres
passes. st. Mark XI 70.
These were among the words of
Christ, in a talk with his disciples,
after he had put to rout the mer-
chants and the money-changers who
were dehling the temple in Jerusa-
lem. They present an admonition
that needs must be needed by all hui
mans if there is to be anything like
true peace and happiness on earth, If
men and women would do unto 9TH
ers as they wish. to be done by.
There is scarcely an individual who
is so wonderfully constituted that he
can go through so much as a single
day without saying word or doing
some act which is not offensive in
some way to some other person. Many
transgressions of this sort do not
amount to much, and any quantity of
them are the result of nothing more
than thoughtlessness. Nothing much
is ever meant by those in this latter
class, but that does not relieve them
of their stings. And as almost every
body is offering affronts of this sort
it necessarily follows that just as
many people are being annoyed, or
dispIeased, or even injured by them to
a greater or less extent. Surely the
man who gives offense to another
through carelessness is most anxious
to be forgiven. And for that very rea-
son it is incumbent on him that he
should just as willingly forgive the in
dividuals who have wronged him.
It is not exceedingly difficult to for
get and forgive the little, the inconse-
quential misdeeds that are perpetra-
ted against one. The rub comes, though,
in excusing the wrong or the injury
that is of serious moment. Many of
them are actually criminal in their
scope, and for which the punishments
devised by law should be melted out.
The criminal must be punished for the
protection of society. And it is not
believed that Christ contemplated the
forgiveness of real crime to the extent
of it's being permitted to go unpun-
ished. His dictum, in the words quoted
above would rather seem to relate to
the feelings of the persons against
whom the crimes and the misdemean-
ors are directed. To them he urges
that they absolve the wrongdoers Of
anything personal in the way of
grudges and spite. In many cases it is
very difficult for persons to forgive some
of the serious offenses of others against
them. Many of these overt acts and
indignities may mean the breaking up
of a happy home, the snuff1ng out of
the life of a member of a family, the
theft of a savings of a lifetime. 1t is
we'll nigh impossible to forget such
things, and the remembrance of them
makes them troublesome to pardon.
But even in such serious cases the eff
fort should be made to do so just the
same. Its accomplishment will mean
an requirement of that desirable peace
of mind which can be obtained in no
other way. The greater the injury that
has been done the greater should be
the effort to forgive it.
AS Shakespeare so tersely and graph
icaIly put it: ITO err is human, to for
give is divine" And as Christ points
out in his words which are used above,
one who does not forgive the words
and acts of his brethren can not hope
for the forvigeness of his own tres
passes when the time for the final ac-
counting comes, when all men and wo-
men are to be judged according to their
lust deserts