only, what do ye more than others?  Do not even the publicans so?  Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.

A little later, He embodies the thought in the Lord’s Prayer—­“Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”  He follows that with a scathing arraignment of the cruel servant, who, having been forgiven a debt almost incalculable in amount, refused to forgive a small debt due to him.  Even when in agony upon the cross the thought of forgiveness was uppermost in the Saviour’s heart and He prayed:  “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do!”

He was not thinking of relief to wrong-doers when He made forgiveness a cardinal principle in the moral code that He promulgated.  It was not, I am persuaded, to shield from just punishment one who does injury to another, but to save the injured from the paralyzing influence of the thirst for revenge.  It is only rarely that one has an opportunity to retaliate, but the desire for retaliation is a soul-destroying disease.  Christ would purge the heart of hatred and make love the law of life.

Christianity has been called “The Gospel of the Second Chance”; it is more than that.  There is no limit to the chances that it offers to the repentant.  When Christ was asked whether one should forgive a brother seven times He answered, “Seventy times seven.”  Christianity is the only hope of the discouraged and the despondent.  Walter Malone has put into a poem entitled “Opportunity” the exhaustless mercy that Christ holds out to men.  I quote the concluding stanzas: 

  Though deep in mire, wring not your hands and weep: 
    I lend my arm to all who say “I can”;
  No shamefaced outcast ever sank so deep
    But he might rise and be again a man!

  Dost thou behold thy lost youth all aghast? 
    Dost reel from righteous retribution’s blow? 
  Then turn from blotted archives of the past,
    And find the future’s pages white as snow.

  Art thou a mourner?  Rouse thee from thy spell;
    Art thou a sinner?  Sins may be forgiven. 
  Each morning gives thee wings to flee from hell,
    Each night a star to guide thy feet to heaven.

When the Heavenly Father reserved to Himself the right to avenge injuries He conferred an incalculable benefit upon mankind, just as He did when He imposed upon the organs of the body the task of keeping us alive.  Not a heart could beat, nor could the lungs expand if their movement had been left to the voluntary act of man.  But God has relieved His creatures of concern about blood and breath that man, freed from a labour beyond his strength, may employ his time in the service of his Maker.  And so man is relieved from the impossible task of avenging wrongs done him that he may devote himself to the public weal.

I shall at another time speak of some of the present-day fruits of this doctrine taught nineteen centuries ago; I present it now as one of the most difficult of the Christian virtues to cultivate, but one of the most prolific in the blessings that it bestows.  It contributes largely to the securing of peace, and Christ is the Prince of Peace.