‘Stephen,’ said Miss Anne solemnly, ’our Lord says, “When ye shall have done all those things which are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants:  we have done that which was our duty to do."’

‘Yes, Miss Anne,’ said Stephen, looking up inquiringly into his teacher’s face.

‘My dear boy,’ she continued, ’are you taking care to say to yourself, “I am an unprofitable servant"?’

‘I have not done all those things which are commanded me,’ he said simply and earnestly; ’I’ve done nothing of myself yet.  It’s you that have taught me, Miss Anne; and God has helped me to learn.  I’m afeared partly of going away to Netley; but if you’re not there to keep me right, God is everywhere.’

‘Stephen,’ Miss Anne said, ’you have forgiven all your enemies:  Tim, who is now your friend, and the gamekeeper, Black Thompson, and my poor uncle; when you are saying the Lord’s Prayer, do you feel as if you should be satisfied for our Father to forgive you your trespasses in the same measure and in the same manner as you have forgiven their trespasses against you?’

‘Oh no!’ cried Stephen, in a tone of some alarm.

‘Tell me why not.’

‘It was a rather hard thing for me,’ he said; ’it was very hard at first, and I had to be persuaded to it; and every now and then I felt as if I’d take the forgiveness back.  I shouldn’t like to feel as if our Father found it a hard thing, or repented of it afterwards.’

‘No,’ answered Miss Anne.  ’He is a God “ready to pardon;” and when He has bestowed forgiveness, His “gifts and calling are without repentance.”  But there is something more, Stephen.  Do you not seem in your own mind to know them, and remember them most, by their unkindness and sins towards you?  When you think of Black Thompson, is it not more as one who has been your enemy than one whom you love without any remembrance of his faults?  And you recollect my uncle as him who drove you away from your own home, and was the cause of little Nan’s death.  Their offences are forgiven fully, but not forgotten.’

‘Can I forget?’ murmured Stephen.

‘No,’ she replied; ’but do you not see that we clothe our enemies with their faults against us?  Should our Father do so, should we stand before Him bearing in His sight all our sins, would that forgiveness content us, Stephen?’

‘Oh no!’ he cried again.  ’Tell me, Miss Anne, what will He do for me besides forgiving me?’

‘Look, Stephen,’ she replied, pointing to the distant sky where the sun was going down amid purple clouds, and bidding him turn to the grey horizon where the sun had risen in the morning; ’listen:  “As far as the east is from the west, so far hath He removed our transgressions from us.”  And again:  “He will turn again, He will have compassion upon us; He will subdue our iniquities; and Thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea.”  And again:  “For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more.”  This is the forgiveness of our Father, Stephen.’