Omaha daily bee., 1916-02-05
Work : Fashions : II
Dealing With
the OutLGUed
GrWdge
by ADA PATTERSON.


i've just had a new experience" said
q woman 1 know. Il have forgiven
somebody"
She didn't mean II quite literally. Few
weigh their statements as carefully as
they do their sugar or coffee OF flour.
II they did there would be fewer troubles
In the world, fewer heart aches. The
number. Of tragedies would be reduced.
What she meant, as I was later to learn.
was this. She had been summoned TO
the sick bed Of woman whom for years
she had disliked. The woman had been
unfair to her, had been unkind. IL we
are ever warranted in departing so far
from the doctrine Of our Sunday school
days as to hold resentments, the woman
who told me Of her novel experience,
had reason for her resentment.
But the years had gone in their steady,
relentless march. They had done their
inevitable work. They had wrought
change. The woman who had been un-
fair, unLind. met one reverse after an
other. Poor, crippled. M, she sent for
the woman whom in prosperous times
she had wronged and asked her to for
give her.
she was so helpless and wretched
that I said to her. Let us forgive all
but the present said the woman who
told me the story. which was a degree
of forgiveness-all perhaps that we
might expect from the circumstances.
Then she spoke a big truth. After all.
II was fifteen years ago that she served
me that mean trick Even grudges are
outlawed by time"
True. nightly true, that is.
To be outlawed, In legal sense, is to be
deprived of the benefit or protection OF
the law. Debts are outlawed after a
period. In New York state that debt
upon which no payment has been made
in six years Is no longer a debt It has
been cancelled by time. The law as
sumes that II anyone owed you a debt
and YOU had been a creditor so lam
guished that you had secured no part of
It in six years you didn't deserve to be
paid.
Marriage can be outiawed by time. II
John Smith vanished in 1870, II is as,
sumed in ---.-- sto4o- that tidings from
Thim being lacking. he is dead And Mrs
John Smith has a RICH to marry again.
II Enoch Arden was gone for ten years
It would do him no good whatever to
come shopping around his successors
home. He was an outlawed spouse!
Matrimony, speaking the law, had slain
him.
II time outlaws debts and husbands. it
should outlaw grudges. The affront Of
fered us six years ago is no longer liv-
ing thing. II is dead. slain by time.
That wrong Of ten years ago is dead, as
dead as the vanished husband who has
no right to maintain against his sue
cessor
Prudence says:
But character repeats itself. mans
acts show the trend of his character.
What he has done at one time he may
repeat Beware That worldly wisdom
1t is common sense! Nevertheless. char
acter can change Often under the di-
rectlon Of a strong will and of altered
standards, II does, We may review the
folies of other years with shame. recall
its sins with disgust and repentance
such change may be taking place in your
enemy, May have taken place! While
it is the part of prudence to remember
that a wrong was done. and guard
against its repetition. there is a time. too,
TO say as the woman did, TO her pros
trate. perhaps dying enemy;
Time; outlaws grudge. Let us forget
everything but the present
Cautions is. q cody quality I'm the
warfare of life. But it is well. too 70
remember that there comes a state OF
utter heIplessness. of the veriest poverty.
to our enemy, TO ourselves. II is DEATH
<snd the preparation for that time is
peacel
Above my desk are the words OF ono
who has gone: There isn't time enough
Too,
And one still wiser wrote: I'm a world
where death is there is no room for
hate!"